To think visiting DP’s family doesn’t count as a holiday?

[RhiannonTheFlorist]

Been with my partner for 5 years and we have a 2 year old daughter. He is from a country in Central Europe. Every August we go for a week, and every other Christmas (we alternate between my family and his). This Christmas we are due to go there.

Before the baby we would have 2 holidays a year (not including the semi-annual Christmas visit) one to visit his family, and one to a nice resort type place. Since the baby, we can’t afford to do this. The Summer trip and Christmas trip are in the budget, but another holiday on top of that isn’t doable, and we couldn’t get the time off anyway.

I have nothing against his family but the trips to the village my partner grew up in aren’t particularly relaxing for me. We fly into the airport in the capital city, then have a 5 hour train and bus journey to get to his village, and I get motion sickness from buses. We also often have a late flight and end up waiting at the dodgy city train station until early morning when the trains start running and last time I got harassed by beggars on the platform when I was heard speaking English, DP gave them short shrift thankfully but it was still scary. DD is also starting to develop bus motion sickness so I’m dreading that part of the journey.

His family don’t speak any English, which is fine, I shouldn’t expect them too. But their language is notoriously hard to learn (please no comments about me needing to learn it, it’s literally known as one of the hardest languages in the world and I have a toddler and work full-time) and despite my efforts I have really struggle to have conversations with them beyond basic politeness. The past 2 times we’ve been they have pestered DP that I need to hurry up and learn the language. His father is a smoker and alcoholic and the house stinks of smoke, so since the baby we stay with his aunt instead, and DP’s father always argues with DP about it as he gets offended that we won’t bring the baby in his house. Also, the first time we took DD at 4 months she developed a temperature and had to be taken on the bus to the hospital and everyone was talking around me in their own language (doctors, DP and family) and I was distraught not knowing what was going on, having to wait for DP to translate. I’m scared of this happening again. DD is also a picky eater and the village shop is tiny and won’t have any of her ‘safe’ foods.

On the other hand, there are some positives.They are very hospitable and they cook for us etc, we have BBQs and days out in the nearest city (though this does require long bus trips). But in the village there is not much phone signal and once they start drinking and having a laugh I am completely excluded and don’t understand a word that is being said.

I understand that DP needs to maintain a relationship with his family and that I signed up for this when committing to him, but I must admit I’m dying for a proper holiday this Summer where I can relax, beachfront walks, play with DD in the pool etc. Just the 3 of us. I raised the idea to DP of doing this instead as we’re going to his country for Christmas anyway, and he was horrified. He also pointed out that his country gets hot in the Summer (it does, can reach 30 degrees), and therefore it still counts as a sunny holiday. He also points out that going to his country we only pay for flights and spends (probably around £1000 for the 3 of us). I found some lovely all-inclusive for £1800, and we could afford that extra £800 but we couldn’t afford that AND the Summer trip to his country AND the Christmas trip.

I’m tempted to tell him that me and DD will swerve the trip to his country this year, and may invite my sister to come somewhere with me and DD instead. But I’m worried this will upset him and his family who absolutely adore my DD.

AIBU?

That sounds hard, I also wouldn't want to spend my holidays like that.
Would it be an option to organise a holiday somewhere cheap, and pay for them to come too? Or just pay for them to come to you?

PP i could never go there ..
Sounds just awful 😞

Why is their sadness more important than yours and why are you paying to make them happy but no one seems to give a s**t about yours?

Holidays and Overseas trips are joint decisions. I am afraid you have one option and that is to say you aren’t going as he is being unreasonable. You are putting the money into saving for a holiday somewhere else with just DD and you. He will have to go on his own.

If he had been reasonable, then you could have alternated Christmas and off-peak cheaper summer holiday whilst not in school. But if he is being unreasonable then you have to say no. Sadly if you do go anywhere after this, he will spoil it by having a negative attitude and being miserable about not visiting home.

Again, why can he not take their DD to Hungary without OP?

I would not give a flying 🦆 if my DH was bored for a couple of weeks a year which I am sure he is sometimes but he sucks that up. He lives in his country for the rest of the year and there are many things with the U.K. I have to suck up too. It’s compromising.

Lucky guess!

But you doubt wrong. Again. Middle of nowhere, dirt roads, people getting around on horseback kind of place. There's still fun to be had.

@RhiannonTheFlorist I’m sorry I’m going to have to be rude here and call you a mug. You’re far too nice and are being treated like a doormat.

You are allowing your partner to control how you spend your hard earned holiday fund money and where you have to go.

Why are you going along with this? Are you afraid of him? Who made him your boss and tell you what you should do re: holidays.

If I were you I’d go every other year with him and dc. He could visit as often as he wants alone with his money. He needs to FaceTime/Zoom etc with them regularly with dc so his relatives can see her progress and she can chat with them in Hungarian.

What would happen if you suggested this? Would he hit you? I sincerely hope not! So what could be the worst that would happen? He’d have a bit of a strop/sulk. So what. It’s time to speak up and be in charge of your life. Do what you want to do. Stop being a mug and a matyr to your partner’s wishes.

Competitive and you’re a shut up and put up because it’s worse for you. Perhaps someone will have an experience that rivals yours and will tell you that they can’t understand why it’s tough for you.

@Ablondiebutagoody , I doubt it, but I'm sure you'd find it a hoot.

OP, it really sounds like your DP need to compromise. Explain to him that the deal isn't working for you and either he hires a car and agrees to so.e days in Budapest or you are not going. It can't be one-sided.

I'm in a similar situation but we do drive. Both our sets of parents are in different countries. We have said goodbye to family holidays for the next few years, all budget is spent on visiting them.

BUT we do hire a car when there and visit things every single day. There are things to do everywhere in the world.
I enjoy the benefits (cooking, childcare option) and enjoy the exploring too.

And unlike you I've taken on learning the language.

Edit: sorry OP i see you are trying to learn the language and are doing better than you give yourself credit for.

I do feel sorry for you, your dp sounds a bit controlling. It will also be that he is subconsciously influenced by his background. His family don't go anywhere (my ILs don't ever leave the neighbourhood either and we couldn't pay them a million dollars to sit on a plane so I get it).
So for your DH, he has a different comparison scale and has no need for holidays like you.

This.

YANBU to want to spend your precious free time in a primitive village with little to do. Put your foot down now OP. How’s your DH otherwise? Does he try to rule the roost?

He makes a sacrifice every day living abroad and not seeing his family. Thats the deal.

He made the sacrifice for other reasons though, probably due to employment options. Not because of OP. He doesn't ask his employer to appreciate the sacrifice of him living abroad, I am guessing.

Yes but she’s happy to spend 1 week a year at home… just not 2.

You only get one shot at life, & it's way too short to spend your time & money doing things you don't like, in places you don't want to be, with people who don't even attempt to reciprocate. Once a year is plenty, if they want more than that, the in laws need to be sorting out transport, matching your attempts at learning each other's language & going easy on the alcohol while you're there.

I actually don't see the point of dragging DH with me every time I go back to my original country. Sure if it's a family Christmas celebration, but for random trips? I do care if DH is bored in my parents' small village in a country where he does not even speak the language.
My parents want to see me and DC - they like DH very much, but he's not their son. I want to see my old friends - they also like DH, but they are looking forward to catching up with me and talking about common topics we have. It is ok to travel separately - I don't go with DH each and every time he sees his family or childhood friends either.

He takes DD on the week in the summer, you take DD somewhere you want to in the summer. Done. Will help in school holidays when she gets to that point as well!

Hi, ignore the post saying you are selfish - I completely understand that there's a big wide world out there and if you wish to see more of it than the same place year in year out then that is fine. Apologies, you may have mentioned earlier but do they ever travel to see you?

More fool you for doing repeat visits, once you realised what it was really like. And as for taking a baby ....... actually, I'm not convinced I believe your account.

That's just insanity. By all means make yourself a martyr but taking a tiny baby there is ridiculous. Nobody is forcing you to go.

He needs to be a bit more compromising. I know what it's like, when I lived in the UK we would visit my relatives in the EU one or two times year, now we live in the EU we visit the UK.

Last summer we did a holiday and family visit in one trip, so we went to a holiday park (without the in-laws!) for a week and then stayed with my in-laws for 5 days. No way would I have spent longer than that at my in-laws. There's actually a saying in Dutch which goes something like: visitors and fish stay fresh for 3 days ("visite en vis blijven drie dagen fris") and I agree with that.

The first time we went to my dad's village in former Yugo, the road run out and became a dirt track at some point.

When we finally got to the village, it was dark. Mum asked for the toilet. My older cousin took her outside...

Mum eventually came back in. "Weary, I don't know how to tell you...it's a hole in the ground..."

Turned out that no one in the village had proper plumbing, though there were standpipes in front of some of the houses. Most people were using pumps or wells. Drinking water had to be collected from streams.

Dad kept apologising to Mum. "It's been years...I thought that things had moved on...It's gone backwards..."

We had Apex tickets - meaning they couldn't be changed - and we were there for six weeks.

It was the height of summer, there was a drought... I was only 11. In spite of taking on board water all the time and staying in the shade, I had sunstroke. I also became constantly nauseous.

In order to visit various relatives, there was a great deal of walking up hillsides and so on. Everyone wanted to see us - which was lovely - but there was never any time just to be...

Over the 6 weeks, I had lost a great deal of weight, to the extent that I heard Mum telling Dad "We're going to be taking that bairn home in a box."

Part of the problem was that I stopped eating meat when I heard the animals being slaughtered. The only other food was tomatoes, fruit and bread - really not enough for an adolescent girl.

A doctor came to the village once a week. There was an occasional bus into the nearest town. Mum and I were both taken to the doctor when he arrived. I recall that Mum was told to eat rice for her stomach trouble.

Yes, there were good things too - but my parents wouldn't have knowingly taken me to live under those conditions.

The family had decided that we'd stay at a particular house because it was 'more modern'. It was. It simply didn't have sanitation, however - it had a standpipe in the front garden and an outhouse next to the pigsty.

The day before we were due to fly home, we were driven to a relative's in Belgrade. I was taken to hospital and was given antibiotics. The doctor apparently told my dad that I'd be fine when I got home to my normal food and sanitation. Two days after I got back to the UK, I passed a kidney stone - probably caused by the living conditions and dehydration. I've been prone to problems ever since.

This was the 1970s, but there are still people living in those conditions. I recently watched one of those 'changing rooms' type programmes for Serbia...It started with the glamorous presenter being taken up to the house on a tractor, because there was only a dirt track.

The transformation consisted of giving the home plumbing, a shower room and WC and a modern kitchen and fridge.

Years later, I exchanged experiences with other young women who had gone back to see family in east/central Europe - it had been very similar for all of us.

I wouldn't knowingly take a child of mine to those conditions.

I'm assuming that things aren't that bad for the OP, but I fully understand the other problems that she's experienced.

I’m in a similar position to the OP, except my DH is from a country that’s a c20 hour flight each way at c£4k cost . However, I positively encourage visits to see his family, not for my sake or his, but for our kids.

I think it’s so important that the kids have the opportunity to spend as much time as possible with their overseas family and in the other culture.

While kids are young they don’t care about an all inclusive beach holiday to Spain, they’re thrilled with camping in the UK at minimal cost.

So your dp won't compromise, few days with his family few days at resort? It's your money going towards these trips too so you should have a say, why not you go every second xmas and every other summer to his parents then yous can have family holiday somewhere else every second summer? And if he says no just say you'll stay home and go on holiday with your family.

I love your posts on threads.
You have lived such an interesting life.
Thanks🙏