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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:
MounjaroMounjaro · 19/05/2025 14:47

You know how you want your partner to be there? She feels exactly the same about her partner.

Didn't you think it might be an opportunity for you all to get to know him better and to become closer to your daughter?

I think you should apologise and ask them both to come.

Anxioustealady · 19/05/2025 14:47

Just wondering, do your other children have partners, and are partners invited to Christmas?

LoveTKO · 19/05/2025 14:47

YABU. If she’d known him 5 minutes then fair enough, but she’s been with him for 6 years! How come he isn’t viewed as “part of the family” yet after that long?

Maybe you should make more of an effort to get to know your future son-in-law.

SilviaSnuffleBum · 19/05/2025 14:47

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.

Well, this is just going to widen the gap, isn't it?!

EilishMcCandlish · 19/05/2025 14:50

Gosh, this is a bit like my parents madness over my younger brother's lack of marriage. They have been together over 25 years and have a child together but my parents would never let him and his partner share a room/bed under their roof because no marriage! And then acted all faux hurt that they no longer stayed the night. Mum bought bedding for 'the double bed I was going to buy them to share here after they got married'. Except they have never wanted or planned to get married. Batshit.

CautiousLurker01 · 19/05/2025 14:50

If I am lucky enough that when my DD is 25 we could afford to take her and she is keen to come with us on holiday, then I absolutely would extend the invite to any long term partner. I expect her to tell me where to go if I asked her to take 5-10 days annual leave and then exclude her life partner.

YABU

BHBlue · 19/05/2025 14:50

yabu

MrsBennetsPoorNerves · 19/05/2025 14:53

I think YABVU.

She isn't a teenager and the partner isn't some new man that you've never met. He is your daughter's long term partner who she lives with. Of course she sees him as her family and wants to spend her holiday with him.

Honestly, I think you were BU not to have invited him in the first place. Don't your older dc have partners?

Kids grow up and form their own families. If you're wise, you will embrace your daughter's partner and see him as part of your own family. If you don't, you'll probably find that your daughter increasingly chooses to distance herself from you. The time for your original nuclear family has gone, and you need to expand your definition of who is part of your family now.

faerietales · 19/05/2025 14:54

You need to be realistic OP - she’s 25 and doesn’t want go on holiday with her parents and her brother.

EllieEllie25 · 19/05/2025 14:57

Planning a weekend away without him for you and your daughter to reconnect is fine. A whole week is too much and quite unreasonable of you to expect at her age. From your post title I thought the daughter was going to be 17/18/19.

You might be drifting apart from her because you're not fully accepting the new reality of her life and circumstances, and that's hurtful to her.

Flyswats · 19/05/2025 14:57

I think you're infantilizing your adult children. I'm amazed the others agreed to attend.

HollyBerryz · 19/05/2025 14:59

She lives 7 hrs aways and has been with her partner for 8 years? I think it was extremely weird for you to even assume she'd want to come on a family holiday without asking her. She's 25 not 15

Jigglypuff33 · 19/05/2025 14:59

I was living with my husband at 25 and we were fully supporting ourselves, if my parents had wanted me to go away without him I would have said no thanks.

FluentRedPoet · 19/05/2025 14:59

You are being completely unreasonable. Your daughter is 25 and this is a long term partner, not someone she met last month. You have offered a holiday on your terms and she has declined the invitation. You need to accept that you can no longer control things as I suspect you have in the past.

Imisscoffee2021 · 19/05/2025 15:00

I think you can't get back what once was the family unit in the eay it was when the kids were young and teens, and living at home. I also understand wanting to though.

Your daughter has made it clear she wants her partner to go as he is her family too now, and I think going forward it would be best to invite him and embrace that, and perhaps bonds could be forged. They may have chilfren one day and then will be even more of a package deal.

TotemPolly · 19/05/2025 15:00

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.

You said they live 7 hours away from you ? He is her family , ok you are her parents , but 6 years in a relationship and living a good way from her parents , said kindly , he is the only close family she has .

MyLittleNest · 19/05/2025 15:02

She's 25, not a teenager, and this is a long-term, serious boyfriend who she lives with. They share their lives. Of course she wants to bring him and of course he should always be invited.

She's an adult, not a child anymore, and you are being very, very unreasonable. I think you need to come to terms with the phase of life your adult children are now in and accept that your time together as just the five of you exclusively spending time or holidays together has passed. Instead, it's time to embrace this next chapter and your growing family.

I speak from experience (as a daughter) that if you do not start treating your daughter as the adult that she is, she will become more and more distant from you.

treesandsun · 19/05/2025 15:02

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 life. Part of your role was a parent is to enable her to live more independently from you. Maybe if you are were more welcoming of her partner (Who she will most definitely see his family - she would want to spend more time with you. If they both work and lead busy lives they will want to spend time together including holidays.

CalleOcho · 19/05/2025 15:03

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.

Sadly, that’s life OP.

As an adult - I love holidaying with my parents. I love doing stuff as a family with them and siblings etc.

But I also enjoy spending quality time with partner.

I think you need to realise that your daughter is a grown adult with her own life and will most likely have a “family” of her own soon if they plan on marriage and children.

Could you suggest that you, H and other kids holiday together. Your daughter and her partner pay for their own holiday in different but nearby hotel/resort and then have some plans for certain days to meet up?

Would you class your daughters partner as “family” if they had children? Or would you still not want this man included?

IMO- I think your daughter and her partner should holiday far far away from you and your unwelcoming personality. But hey, hope it all works out for you.

CarlaH · 19/05/2025 15:03

I admit I haven't read the whole thread but I notice that you haven't enabled voting. At her age and having been with her partner for so long I am not at all surprised that she doesn't want to holiday without him.

I struggle to believe you couldn't work that out for yourself.

MounjaroMounjaro · 19/05/2025 15:03

I wonder whether this is a reverse? It sounds too unreasonable to be a proper post.

Dunnocantthinkofone · 19/05/2025 15:04

Sorry OP, it sounds like you are wanting a closer relationship with your daughter. Yet you are going about it in exactly the way to alienate her much, much further.

Including her partner and welcoming him properly to any/every family event is the only way to strengthen your bond with your DD.
You are being very silly and short sighted.

She had agreed to come along. Many wouldn’t. Yet when she asked the perfectly reasonable ‘can my partner come too?’, you insulted him as ‘not family’ and forced her into a corner.
Yabvu

theleafandnotthetree · 19/05/2025 15:06

I was expecting to read about a 16 year old! Im a bit meh about the whole notiom of family holidays past mid teens but if I were to embark on them, it would be on the basis of a new reality

  • everyone paying shares as equal earning adults with the proviso of some treating others sometimes to aspects of it depending on financial means - e.g. if my daughter ended up earning 200k in the city she might pay for the odd extra meal.
  • no one would need feel any obligation whatsoever
  • if people had long term partners, they'd be welcome to join in but also pay their way/feel free NOT to come
  • that everyone gets that it's a holiday, not that deep and not the be all and end all of maintaining family relatiomships whivh are a 365 day a year kind of thing. I think people put way too much pressure on these things as the anchor and thus fuss way too much about them
Moonlightdust · 19/05/2025 15:07

MellowPinkDeer · 19/05/2025 13:17

When your daughter is 25 you’re very unreasonable to expect her to want to holiday with you and without her partner!

This.

Muffinmam · 19/05/2025 15:08

She’s 25 years old. She’s moved 7 hours away.

Are you usually this controlling?