Daughter won’t come on holiday

[OneLilacPanda]

I have planned a holiday for my family (me, husband, son and 2 daughters). We haven’t been away together for a number of years, so I was looking forward to this trip.

Everything was going fine until my daughter (25, youngest) asked to bring her partner. I don’t have anything against him, but this is a family holiday. I explained this to my daughter and she said she doesn’t want to come if she can’t bring her partner as she see’s him as family too. They’ve been together since she was 19, but live about 7 hours away so we don’t see them much.

my daughter is now saying she doesn’t want to come. AIBU for thinking she doesn’t need to do everything with him and she should still come on holiday?

Says the person whose self admitted to being single and now thinks stating she has a long chain of multiple failed relationships behind her is a positive... its not meant to be 'catty' its just repeating the facts you have stated here.

Why would people take your advice on relationship when you only have failed ones and aren't even in one?

People can end up single through no fault of their own sometimes but it doesn't make them great experts on keeping a relationship when it keeps happening to them.

Ds3 has been with his girlfriend for 7 years, and we consider her family - if we were having a holiday, and inviting the dses along, we would invite her with ds3, just as we'd invite ds1, his wife and their dc. Ds2 hasn't been with his girlfriend as long, but they have moved in together, and she is family to him so she's family to us.

I think there are lots of ways to be a family - an unmarried couple with no kids who are committed to each other are definitely a family, in my eyes.

But even if you don't share this view, why use it as a reason to exclude someone from 'family' things, just because they aren't married to your child/sibling/whatever? Excluding a long term, serious partner is going to cause hurt and upset, and why would you want to do that, when there is an alternative?

Obviously just you and your daughter otherwise it’s not a mother daughter weekend it’s just another family holiday that you’re planning without your daughters partner 😂

I suppose for some people they may want to spend quality time with their own son/daughter without their partner ? This is how my parents would feel about it and it doesn’t bother me. I would often go to family events /trips where myself and siblings are invited but our spouses/partners (regardless of marriage) aren’t. We do have social events and trips where they are invited as well. My dh isn’t remotely bothered if I go to a social event or away on a trip with immediate family and he isn’t invited. I’m surprised this is such an unusual view. It’s the same as going away with friends to me.

Well aren’t you a peach!

Not sure where youve picked up that I have a ‘chain of multiple failed relationships’? Just something you thought you’d make up to fit your narrative maybe? 😂

So by your own standards, only people who have had 1 relationship, that they are still a part of, and never spend any of their annual leave with anyone else but their partner ever… they’re the only ones who are successful at relationships and can offer relationship advice? 🤣🤣🤣

I understand where you are coming from but I think you are being unreasonable. She's 25 and not a child anymore and I assume she lives with her partner, so rightly so she considers him family, because he is her family. I'd also be annoyed if my mum didnt accept my partner of 7 years as family and expect me to go on holiday without them. I'd also be upset if I was the partner that I haven't been included.
Like I said I understand where you are coming from, you want to have a holiday with your family like you would have when they was younger, but children grow up and as hard as it is you have to accept that things change, and also accept that they will also find their own family's and if you want to continue to have a relationship with your daughter you should accept that her partner is part of the family too.

I think a lot of people seem to be getting off track. Referring to your partner who you've been with for 7 years as family and wanting them to be included in a family holiday in no way means the daughter is co-dependent or can't do things without him.

There's been so suggestion anywhere that she doesn't go away without him. There's a world of difference between hen dos and weekends away with friends versus a family holiday. I've done many of these myself regularly and don't feel a need to invite my husband. However we were together about 8 years before we got married and i considered him family and if I'd been invited on a family holiday by my parents then of course I'd want to take him with me as he's my family too and that's the type of things I want to include him in.

Unless there’s a HUGE drip feed coming then you are The Mother in law from hell.

It’s interesting that people have different views and it doesn’t mean someone else is wrong when they see it differently. My dh is family but to me he is not part of my immediate family that I grew up in (ie parents and siblings). I see this family as separate from my dh and kids in a way same as in laws. Sometimes I like spending time alone with my immediate family as do they, there is a totally different dynamic when partners are around. They didn’t grow up in the family, share the same memories etc. in my opinion the op isn’t wrong for asking the daughter and not the partner for this reason. The daughter is not unreasonable for saying no either if she is not happy to spend time away from her partner.

Yes, you're being unreasonable. This is a six year relationship, not a fling, and they're living together as a couple. I wouldn't go either.

My mother's family was like this, you were only family if you were blood and the people who married in weren't family, even after 20+ years of marriage. It ended in a lot of divorces and disfunction, lots of kids not speaking to their parents and grandparents not being allowed to see or speak to their grandkids. Good luck.

If it works for you and everyone else, then that’s great. There is no law that says family ‘togetherness’ holidays must work for you; there are no rights and wrongs whatever some people say!
For me, I am just delighted my two daughters and their families wanted me there! I didn’t go on all their holidays, and we didn’t all go together, although we all got on, that would have been intrusive, but if they asked us, we went and we had some great times. I think the main thing is, if you do go, give them some space. And take turns with cooking, shopping and washing up!!
I have some very happy memories of the few holidays my husband and I went on with whichever daughter invited us. As there were a couple of small children there, (our grand children) we could not go out as a grown-up foursome in the evenings when they were in bed, (not that anyone wanted to go out every night) but we got round that. One night, the parents would go for a meal and/or a walk, and another night, we would. It was great! Those were the days, long gone now!

Would it be so terrible if they did? We’ve had some lovely family holidays, but plenty on our own too. It was nice to have the partners there (luckily we liked them!). These were serious partners, not just the odd boyfriend who happened to be there at the time, and, in fact, our daughters both married the boys they brought on holiday.
We are all very close, the older couple have just had their 30th Anniversary and the younger couple haven’t been married quite that long yet but are happily trying to catch them up!
If your children are happy, be glad for them!

Yes you are, and you’re nitpicking! In this day and age, and although I’m not that keen on this co-habiting lark, that’s the way it is. When our daughters and their boyfriends were obviously serious about one another, I always made sure we started inviting them on holiday with us. We had some great times and we really got to know them when we shared cottages together. That said, I always chose cottages where both couples (or all three couples if we happened to be all together) had their own space, preferably with an extra sitting room for them to use if they wanted to be away from us. (I needn’t have bothered as their evenings were mostly spent with us anyway from choice!)
My husband’s opinion matched mine - if our daughters loved these men, and they clearly did, and weren’t young teenagers who knew no better, that was fine. Of course they should come. We thought of them as family by then anyway.
Both couples married when the time was right for them (around 30 years ago) and went on to have children. No divorces,🤞. Life is still good for them, and their children are all happily settled in marriages/relationships too.
We parents can’t live their lives for them, but if you take a step back, you’ll more than likely find they seek you out, distance permitting, of course. Ours did.
Going back even further, my husband and I wouldn’t have gone on holiday without the other. We did most things together, but had our own money, and our own hobbies (as well as a couple we shared). Funnily enough, this applied to friends too. We each had our long-term friends, and made one or two more from work or where-ever.
A good relationship does not need a certificate to glue it together.

I could understand if your daughter was 18 years and the relationship with the boyfriend was about 6 months but 25 years and living with her partner for 6 years is quite different. Why would you want to holiday with just your own partner and grown up children when everyone has moved on and got their own families. Are your other children humouring their possessive mother?

Not shocked she doesn’t want to go, the way u r carrying on it won’t be long until she doesn’t want to visit u at all

YABU If I was your daughter I’d refuse to go too, how long does it take before her partner becomes family? I’d choose my partner every time.

She's 25, not 15!

Your daughter has grown, she's an adult and much as you'd like to hold on to things the way they were, with you as a family unit, you can't turn back the clock.

Show your daughter your support - invite her boyfriend too.

I see that several of the comments think you're wrong since 'he's her partner for years, so he's family'. And if you host Sunday dinner, that's certainly true. But, this is different. This isn't THAT kind of family reunion. This is a mother hoping to spend one more period of joy with just HER children perhaps reliving THEIR lives, rekindling old memories, laughing through old photo albums. Partners, even beloved grandchildren have no role in that.

I think your daughter is being immature and selfish, especially when her siblings are OK with it. I'd give anything for a few days with just my kids before I die. You should go ahead with the others, and without her if that's what she chooses. The sad part about that is that she'll come to regret her decision not to attend. While parents and sibling are still alive, they're the only permanent people in our lives, and if it's a good relationship, that makes it even nicer. Significant others often come and go.

It's not immature or selfish to not want to use your money and annual leave on a holiday you don't want to go on.

I actually think the opposite and intentionally don't attend every meal or day out with my husbands family, because I think it's probably nice for his parents to see him without me, but I think purposefully excluding people from a holiday is too much.

I think OP doesn't want to accept that the time where her nuclear family is the centre of her children's lives is over. "I have planned a holiday", at this point they're all adults and shouldn't be dictated to like that. If any of the adult children don't want to go, they don't have to.

You say if they don't want to go, don't go. That's pretty much what I said. But you even admit that you think it's nice for your husband's family to have him without you... but you disagree that OP has a right to want the same thing, just this once. So, what? You look at it as a gift you gave them when the reality is that you used it to get yourself off the hook. Otherwise, you wouldn't have given it to them. Well, don't you just sound lovely. And that decline of the nuclear family, with all the changes in society and people, the foremost thing that led to it was individuals beginning to care more about themselves than others. Many aging parents gave a lot to their children or gave up a lot FOR them. It's truly sad when the new age young will create any excuse not to give much back, and asking for a few days with her kids isn't asking much.

That was quite hard to follow.

You didn't say if she doesn't want to go, she shouldn't. You called her selfish and immature.

I'm not seeing it as a gift to them. They're polite enough to always invite me but I know it's nice for them to see just their son so I don't always go with him. Sometimes I'd enjoy what they're doing but I leave it to them. How is that bad of me?

It's not a decline of the nuclear family, its a change as children become adults.

My boyfriend of 1 year went on our family holiday as we were living together and knew we were heading towards marriage. (We are now married and have been together a total of 5 years) so less than your daughter and her partner.

Annual leave for most people is fairly limited so it makes sense that your daughter would want to combine a big trip like this with both family and partner.

If they have been together for 6 years and you don’t see them much or know the partner well. That’s definitely an issue and it sounds really like your a bit dismissive of this person and the role they play in your daughter’s life.

I think you need to do some serious self assessment OP and make a bit more of an effort with this person who your daughter has built her life with, they aren’t kids anymore and you run the risk of a massive rift in years to come if you don’t start validating and investing acceptance and effort in your relationship with both of them as a couple.

Yes you being very unreasonable and deep down I think you know you are. She is a grown adult and has been with her partner 6 years. I would be fuming if my mother suggested that my other half wasn't considered family after 6 years .

I totally agree with your daughter and would definitely tell my mum I wouldn't be attending the holiday based on her horrible attitude towards my other half. It's very insulting for her let alone her poor fella on the other end. Why should she give up her annual leave with her partner to spend time with you who doesn't really see him as being good enough to take part in the holiday.

Awful attitude towards him.

People, OP left the building 11 days ago.