DH double booking Christmas arrangements

[whitewinefriday]

I am being deliberately vague about the details.

DH and I have plans with my family in mid December (Plan A). DH has now made arrangements with a friend of his (Plan B) which clash. Its not a total clash, but its highly likely that Plan A will be impacted in some way by Plan B. I have asked DH to find another date to see his friend and he said he would try.

But if he can't find another date, and my family plans end up being impacted, am I within my rights to decline to attend an arrangement with his family, the following week?

Its difficult to say much without knowing how Plan A is affected by Plan B. Does it mean cutting time with your family short so that Plan B can be accommodated? If so, then yes, that's a bit shit of DH to plan something that means the other plan is negatively impacted. I would be a bit pissed off by this too.

@ErlingHaalandsManBun yes, this is basically it

Is there a reason why you can’t do plan A without DH?

It is very vague tbh

The plan that existed first should take precedence. Your DH is bang out of order for not bothering to remember it.

I think it’s reasonable to be a bit miffed at DH’s plan B but it’s entirely unreasonable to be so childish about the event with his family the following week.

I might be irritated but I do think it's petty to punish his family, what does that achieve?
By how much time does it mean he has to cut short with your family? could he leave and you stay with your family?
It wouldn't be a hill to die on for me but I would say I would hope that he would look to rearrange and next year do what previous poster said about locking in dates early for all events so that hopefully this can be avoided.

How much is it impacting on Plan A though? If it is that you have a table booked somewhere for 1pm & now wont get there till 3pm then yeah that's shit.

But if it is a case of you will be popping over to someone else's house half an hour and spending the afternoon there, then not really that much of a problem.

Also if you say you are aren't coming to thing with his family, how much do you think he will be bothered about your non attendance?

How much time will you lose from Plan A and what are you doing? If you see your family regularly and this is a drop off presents, have a cuppa visit and it's only curtailed by half an hour then no big deal. If you have to leave halfway through a pantomime then he needs to reschedule

It's bad to double book and he should have checked, however I think it's petty to mess up plans for the next week due to this.

Dh did similar in that he chose to go to a football match on the day arranged to see my family. Apparently football trumps all 🤨. We were able to rearrange the day so the family meet up went ahead the day later, but it did piss me off.

Plan A is sacrosanct

It's Plan B which needs to be modified, that's for your husband to sort, without impacting the original arrangements, at all.

I'm sure you do not want to have a tit for tat relationship @whitewinefriday although I understand your frustration (especially if this is a regular occurrence from DH)

YANBU to be pissed off.

YANBU to ask him to rearrange his plan with his friend, and if he can't, then it's THAT plan that has to be compromised to accommodate seeing your family, not the family plan.

YABVU to suggest that if his plan impacts time with your family, you just won't see his. That's super childish, and if it's the tone of your relationship, I can see why he didn't take Plan A being in the diary as seriously as he should. Neither of you seem that arsed about seeing each other's family if you weaponise it.

My solution would be that it's agreed from the beginning that I'll see my family, you'll see your family, let's divide and conquer this shit. But that's because I have a weird relationship with both sets of parents, for different reasons.

If you guys are supposed to be a team, no, you don't threaten to withhold seeing his family because you're mad at him, 'so see how he likes it!'. That's very unreasonable.

This. Everything else is too complicated. The obvious, simple thing to do is for DH to text friend, say he messed up and already has plans on those dates, so please can they rearrange.
Is DH refusing to do this, and that's why you want to give him a taste of his own medicine?

I wouldn't want to be viewed as petty and spiteful.

No, don’t do that. Can you imagine at his family gathering “where’s whitewine today, is she unwell?”. “No she’s not coming to punish me for leaving Plan A early to see my mates last week” 😐.

But yes, it’s a bit crap of him to arrange something that impacts Plan A. Maybe it’s the only date his mates can do. I’m trying to arrange a lunch with my mates before xmas and it’s like the crystal maze trying to avoid eveyone else’s other things. We’ve resorted to an elaborate WhatsApp poll and even then someone will end up missing out.

It's gonna be leaving family early or arriving late so that DH can meet his friend.

I think it's a bit rude of him and suggests he sees your family meet up as a "you" thing, not something he has committed to wholeheartedly, but something he's coming along to as a passenger. I think if you have children, and you've agreed a family meet up as a group, this is poor showing on his part.

If its just you and him going somewhere then his presence or absence is on him. You go, he just doesn't go, you keep the original plan, then he joins later or leaves earlier. He jumps on the train and you keep the car. He is inconvenienced not you, you do the original plan.

But do you actually need him to attend to make the plan happen? (e.g. long drive that you need to share, or a baby who needs entertaining on the way, or heavy suitcases you need help with on the train, etc)

If so, then he does really need to keep the original commitment otherwise you are within your rights to say you feel let down.
It would be reasonable for you to point out that if he bails on "your" commitments, it's unfair for him to assume you will keep "his" commitments such as seeing his family.

I wouldn't do tit for tat i would try and explain why family life quickly becomes unbearable if you can't rely on one another to keep commitments.

Can your husband just leave Plan A early, and you stay as long as you like?

It's very "what if" considering your DH is looking to find a new date to see his friend. Is he refusing to cancel seeing this friend? Either he's said "oh I'm stupid, I'll find another date to see friend" or he's said "well I'm seeing my friend no matter what and I don't care if it's rude to leave your family event early".

The devil's in the details here.

In holiday season when time is in short supply I'd have no issue trying to squeeze in something extra. So going out for lunch with family at 12 and then having a hard stop to go on to see someone else at 3 is not something that would bother me.

If it meant leaving half way through a meal at 1 that would be an issue.

As pp say it’s all dependent on where everyone is, what the plans and and how important dh is.
is he the only driver and therefore you can’t go without him?
is it a scheduled activity?

Had your DH forgotten about his commitment to do Plan A when he booked in Plan B or did he just decide that he preferred to do Plan B on that day and didn't care that he would be messing up Plan A?

This. Cannot for the life of me see the point in asking people's opinions and then giving literally no information for anyone to be able to decide.

As others have said, family commitments could be anything from a fancy meal for parents golden wedding anniversary (important) to a nephew's 6th birthday party (not so important).

Completely depends on what the plans are, what the timings are, how exactly "plan A" is going to be impacted.....

Tell him he is a right idiot but do not go tit for tat

Yes, especially if he follows suit and decides not to bother at all with plan a!

I wouldn't go tit-for-tat this time because I wouldn't be rude to his family - I don't lower my standard of manners to match other people's.

However, going forward I'd keep it in mind prior to committing to things. I cannot stand bad manners and if he started making a thing of bailing on plans because he got a better offer I'd see him in a very different light.

Can you still spend the whole time with your family or is he expecting you to cut the time short to suit him as well?

We are shorten plans with in laws to accommodate me. Unfortunately we booked a date around football fixtures and now the fixture has been moved and now we are needing to leave SIL’s an hour early so me and DS2 can get to the fixture. He’s not totally not going just adjusting plans. So you totally not going to his family is childish! Also why does him needing to leave early change your plans if you are not part of the plans? My DH has to leave because SIL lives 2 hours away and. We only have 1 car and MIL refuses to do the drive so won’t take her car