Is it ok to drop out of hen do last minute?

[BeDearLion]

I’m supposed to be going on a close friends hen do abroad this weekend but really don’t want to go. I have a baby and toddler and feeling so anxious about leaving them. Feel like something bad will happen if I go and want to stay with them but also don’t want to let my friend down. Wish I hadn’t committed to this.

I have left my kids overnight before, I usually feel like this before but just force myself to go however this time I don’t know if I can do it. Feel sick and could cry when I think about it.

Would I be a terrible friend/ person for dropping out so late or is it reasonable given I’m feeling like this? Could I pretend to be ill or is that even worse?

In my personal experience, when you start letting your anxiety 'win', you world gets smaller and smaller until you are too frightened even to go to the shop or the park or the cafe.

Do everything you can to get yourself there and it will help your MH going forwards

I have a 12yo child with an anxiety disorder who is medicated up to the eyeballs and hasn’t attended school since June 2024. I have also suffered with it myself since I was a child. Therapy. Valium. I’ve had it all. There is no magic wand to make it go away to fit in with other people’s life events. So yeah, go and call BS on anxiety to somebody else. There was enough in the OP for me to recognise the possible symptoms. Not just her words, but her wording.

No, it's not ok to drop out so late in the day.

Your children will be fine. They are with a parent who loves them.

What you're feeling is a perfectly normal emotion as you love your children.

However, you are still a woman with friends and a social life. Being a mum should make you a better version of you, not a person who is consumed by motherhood and motherhood alone.

Whatever you decide, please look at why you feel anxious. Is it because you can’t trust anyone to look after your DC, do they have special needs? is it becuase you think baby dad can’t cope?
Whatever the reason, you don’t need to feel like this and you shouldn’t have to let friends down for no good reason.
if you can’t go becuase you genuinely do not have a safe place for your children, or your MH is currently poor-tell you friend exactly that. Don’t make a flakey excuse.

I wouldn’t have been able to leave my kids at that age either - but I wouldn’t have planned to. It’s hard to cancel now. If you do decide to cancel, be honest. I think there can be pressure on mums to leave their young dc - maybe unwittingly because many are happy to - but it’s very personal and for me I just declined until I was comfortable (youngest about 2). It’s still a big deal being in a different country to my dc - they are 11 and 13 and I still haven’t. I wouldn’t describe myself as anxious but it’s my personal preference.

Sorry that is your experience, but I'd say it's the minority. People are taking it too far, using it for any excuse and quite frankly some people need to just get on with life. I'd be more anxious about the fall out from being such a shitty friend

I would power through and go. People complain all the time they have no close friends or no one in a time of crisis but don’t understand that you have to be a friend to have one and part of that is putting other people first sometimes and showing up and doing what you say you are going to do. I understand that’s a v old fashioned concept in the me me me times we live in. I’m constantly doing things I don’t want to do but invariably enjoy it while there but I have loads of really close friends who enrich my life beyond measure

there's a difference between being anxious and having anxiety though, and unless you're a doctor you can't diagnose between the two, no more than you can make a call on whether a pain in your head is a headache from looking too long at a screen or a brain tumour.

Anxiety is a completely reasonable emotion for OP to feel about leaving a small child for the first time. I would imagine most people would feel a bit nervous to some extent in that situation. You don't have to over pathologise it into a mental disorder.

OP if everyone else cancelled, how would your friend feel? pretty shit I'd imagine, regardless of if she didn't financially lose out or not. If you cancel last minute whose to say they won't/shouldn't? They could all have reasons as good (better imho) than yours.

You're entitled to not want to leave your DC, and if you'd said no originally there wouldn't be an issue. But, yes, dropping out for any reason other than an actual emergency last minute is really shitty behaviour, and not the sign of a good friend. You don't even have the excuse of not knowing how you'd feel about leaving your DC at the time you said yes, as you already had a another child so were presumably completely aware of whether you did/didn't feel comfortable leaving them when they were the baby's age.

Sorry but having had anxiety: giving into it is not looking after mental health. Breaking out of it would be the thing to do especially if the reasons to feel anxious are seemingly unfounded. The more you give into it, the smaller your world gets.

I have anxiety and I've learnt to not commit to things like abroad hen dos or anything that takes me away from my child for longer than an evening. It's just not something I want to do right now. It's hard to say no, isn't it. You want to please people but you need to put yourself first.

I would speak to the bride to be, explain your anxiety and feelings to her and say you will be bowing out. There is no point lying about it or making up some silly excuse. Just be honest.

If you really don’t want to go, don’t go, you can easily blame one of the kids being unwell. Or go and come back early if you’re not averse to attending a bit of it.

But don’t not go because you’ve convinced yourself something bad will happen. That’s not likely is it. Don’t let anxiety rule your actions.

I was like 3 or 4 and threw a gigantic tizzy the first time in years my parents had the opportunity to go out - I don’t know if it was to a party or out to dinner, but I freaked the hell out.
My dad immediately said they’d stay home - and Mum said “well, you can stay home but there’s absolutely no freaking way I’m missing out on this opportunity to GTFO.”
So my theatrics didn’t pay off - but they almost did.
What a little shit.
If your kids are making you feel guilty now, imagine them honing their skills by the time they’re 18.

I agree with this.

"I feel like something bad will happen if I go" paraphrased. So that implies that you dont trust him to look after his own kids without something bad happening. How insulting. I suspect that you do trust him, so this is an irrational reaction.

Rather than not going to the Hen I suggest you go, and then on your return seek help with your anxiety.

Its perfectly normal to worry about, and miss, your kids when you are away. Its not normal to catastrophise like this. I was worried when my DD went on a holiday to France with school but I didnt stop her going. I worry when any of my kids are going on a trip that involves coach travel, especially on the motorway, having witness some really awful driving by coach drivers over the years. But I dont try to stop them.

And stop agreeing to things until you have had the help that you need.

I think hen dos are so over-involved now - it doesn’t suit everyone to go away for nights at a time far from home. What happened to having a get together in a local bar?! Any bride to be that takes umbrage at someone dropping out of one of these elaborate things is not really worth knowing imo.

As long as you leave no one else out of pocket then, ok.

Id be miffed as your friend I have to ne honest

My sister dropped out of her friends abroad hen do a few days before she was due to go.

it was fully paid and no impact to anyone else in the party, but it ruined the friendship.

The bride cut her out of the wedding and the friendship ended completely. It had a knock on effect on the whole group - she barely has a friendship now with any of them.

To be honest at the time I thought the bride was being dramatic and I still think that now - as an adult if you don’t want to do something you shouldn’t have to do it!

It’s a dick move to cancel now for no good reason. Plenty of mums go away with friends, put your big girl pants on and go, for the sake of your future self.

I don’t know if this helps or not but I would never have left my baby at that age. I just couldn’t bear it. I didn’t go to a local day hen do when my little one was almost a year old because I hated being away from them when they were young. I can’t explain it. Everything inside me compelled me to not leave them. Ever! I also found starting nursery and going back to work very hard. Not everyone feels like this I’m sure but it is normal to want to be close to your baby. We’ve just created a world where mums and babies are often encouraged to be apart at a very young age and I don’t know who benefits from that. My kids are much older now and I don’t feel the need to be with them every waking moment anymore!

I could understand if you felt your partner couldn't cope with the children but, you said that he can! I know it's easy for me to say, but you should go. It'll be bloody hard for you but it'll do you the world of good OP ❤️ 💕

If you don’t want to go don’t go. You can change your mind if you want to. It is completely fine if you want to stay with your babies and it’s nobody’s business what you decide to do. All this talk of “just go anyway or you will be an anxious wreck for the rest of your life” is utter bollocks and is going against how you feel. I don’t blame you at all for wanting to stay with them. 🥰

I agree this information is crucial.
If there’s not many of you, fewer than 7 or 8, you’ll be missed.
If there are 10+, it’s less of a big deal.

This nails it for me.

Rather than not going to the Hen I suggest you go, and then on your return seek help with your anxiety.

This makes no logical sense to me. She should overcome her anxiety, then seek help for her anxiety? It doesn’t really work like that.

Life is too short. Not worth the worry and anxiety. Just have a last minute ‘stomach bug’. No one will want you there with that.

and if your sister had said when the bride invited her that she didn't want to go and the bride cut her out then, the bride would have been in the wrong. It's committing to something and then dropping out without a very good reason that's rude, not just in relation to hen do's but any vaguely formal social situation.

I don't understand why so many people are being obtuse about the difference.
Not wanting to go = fine
Saying you will go, letting people make plans around you but then dropping out last minute = dickhead behaviour

You can't say it didn't affect anyone else either - anyone who has ever organised anything knows that one person dropping out can make a difference even if they have technically covered themselves. If they were 9 with your sister there might have been air bnbs for 8 people they could have booked if she'd said no straight away. They might have pre-booked 3 taxis when they could have all fit in 2. Bar booking might have been made on the basis of them spending a set amount, which with one fewer person meant everyone else had to pay more. Perhaps a different weekend was better for most of them but your sister said she couldn't make it so they arranged it for one that suited her, only for her to drop out, etc.