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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Daughter won’t come on holiday

525 replies

OneLilacPanda · 19/05/2025 13:14

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?

OP posts:
AxolotlEars · 19/05/2025 14:23

I think you're being totally unreasonable

Oldglasses · 19/05/2025 14:23

Agree with everyone else, he is part of the family. If they're working they're only going to have 4 weeks holiday a year approx so would want to spend most of it together, no?

CelestialGazer · 19/05/2025 14:23

OneLilacPanda · 19/05/2025 13:32

Thanks for all the comments.

no bad history but I know if he comes him and my daughter will want to do things together and not as a family (with all of us). I used to be close to DD but we grew apart when they started living together.

And that is what is called life. It’s entirely to be expected, and it sounds as though you find it difficult to come to terms with that.

Bababear987 · 19/05/2025 14:23

OP you will only push your daughter away if you dont embrace them as a couple. They may get married and have children and she will remember you dont consider him family. Your daughter is an adult now. He is her family.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 19/05/2025 14:24

OneLilacPanda · 19/05/2025 13:32

Thanks for all the comments.

no bad history but I know if he comes him and my daughter will want to do things together and not as a family (with all of us). I used to be close to DD but we grew apart when they started living together.

The reason you’re not close is probably that you don’t see her as an adult in her own right.

If you want to be close to your daughter again, you need to let go and treat her differently- as an independent adult.

AthWat · 19/05/2025 14:25

It's not about who is "famlyyyyyyy!" in your best EastEnders tone, and who isn't. It's about your adult daughter not wanting to go on holiday without her partner.
If you don't want to go with them, that's fine. But they are the unit. Breaking that unit to go alone with you would be the odd thing. She's 25, not 15.

Of course you "grew apart" when she moved out and started her own life. You're supposed to. That's the point.

justasking111 · 19/05/2025 14:26

OneLilacPanda · 19/05/2025 13:32

Thanks for all the comments.

no bad history but I know if he comes him and my daughter will want to do things together and not as a family (with all of us). I used to be close to DD but we grew apart when they started living together.

Which is absolutely normal. They're mid twenties now.

WallaceinAnderland · 19/05/2025 14:29

Families grow. Adult children find partners, have children of their own, creating aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, nephews and nieces. You should be embracing all of this OP, not shunning them.

373849595d · 19/05/2025 14:29

YABU. She's 25 and has been with him for 6 years. Of course she wants him to come. The time for family holidays consisting of your nuclear family only are long gone; if you want her, you accept that significant others come too.

I would also be pretty unimpressed if I was 25 and in a committed long term relationship with a partner, and I wasn't invited to join him and his family on holiday.

Wexone · 19/05/2025 14:30

Sweet lord are you my mother ? My mother said to me one time i dont see a ring on your finger so he not family!!! This was us at 10 years together , bought a house sold it and had just built another house. No wonder she doesn't want to be close to you OP
For what its worth, if she was going on holiday and you had invited her partner there would have been opportunity for you both to spend some time together, go shopping or a spa trip, but no you have ruined that now

AthWat · 19/05/2025 14:30

Out of interest how old is your other daughter and what's her situation?

(My kids are both just finishing university at 22 and 21 , don't have partners, and they still don't want to come on holiday with us. I'd be happy for them to come but I don't see it as a slight or unusual that they don't. They want to do their own thing now.)

Luddite26 · 19/05/2025 14:31

Is this a joke thread? Have schools broken up?

MalcolmMoo · 19/05/2025 14:32

Tbh I find it a bit odd you booked a family holiday given your children’s ages?? I thought from your description all your kids were going to be teens. I think the last holiday I had with my family like this was 16/17.

It’s sad after 6 years you don’t consider her partner family :(

Todayisaday · 19/05/2025 14:33

You are unreasonable.
An adult couple will have limited holiday and limjted funds to go on holiday each year.
An adult couple will want to spend holidays together.
You are there as a couple with your dh.
Your daughter is an adult that would prefer to holiday with her partner as most adults would.

C8H10N4O2 · 19/05/2025 14:33

Luddite26 · 19/05/2025 14:31

Is this a joke thread? Have schools broken up?

Half term next week around here but I checked the date as well.

Luddite26 · 19/05/2025 14:35

Must be a kid on exam leave trying to get us frothing!

HeatwaveToNightshade · 19/05/2025 14:39

By the time I had been with DP for six years, my mum preferred him to me🤣 He was included in everything from a couple of years in. His family see me in the same way (although I often wish they didn’t!)

ginasevern · 19/05/2025 14:40

God grief OP. This is as weird as fuck. Your daughter is a fully fledged adult, living with her partner of 6 years! Of course she doesn't want to leave him behind to go away with mummy. Worse still, she'd have to use up precious annual leave to do so. It's very telling when you say you're not so close since she met him. Ever wondered why? I think you need a reality check on how the world works.

BestDIL · 19/05/2025 14:41

Wow, you are being extremely unreasonable. Surely after 6 years he is family. In addition, you are asking her to use her precious holiday time on a family holiday when in all honesty, she would probably prefer to be away alone with her BF!

JustMyView13 · 19/05/2025 14:41

I think it’s weird you haven’t invited him. They’re an adult couple now. It’s not like he’s a new BF of 5mins.

I honestly thought this was going to be about a 16yr old daughter and her 5 min fling.

justasking111 · 19/05/2025 14:43

I've always considered girlfriends as future wife material and been respectful of them. Many fell by the wayside but I treated them as family at the time.

Lollipop2025 · 19/05/2025 14:43

If you don't get too them bith much why wouldn't you invite them both and get to know him? She obviously in a long term relationship.

summerscomingsoon · 19/05/2025 14:44

When I read your title I thought you were going to say you were having problems with your 13 or 14 year old daughter.

She's 25. if she wants to spend her valued annual leave from work and booked holidays with her partner this is quite reasonable.

YABVU. she has offered a compromise of him coming along too but you don't want that. Which is fine if you don't want him there -but yabu criticising her for choosing not to attend

summerscomingsoon · 19/05/2025 14:46

OneLilacPanda · 19/05/2025 13:32

Thanks for all the comments.

no bad history but I know if he comes him and my daughter will want to do things together and not as a family (with all of us). I used to be close to DD but we grew apart when they started living together.

that's what adults do. be glad you've raised an independent woman.

Rewis · 19/05/2025 14:46

I think once you're an adult, the family holidays become "come if you want" type things. She doesn't want to come without her partner so you have to cdept that either he comes with or she won't come.