Uncompromising holiday disagreement

[MalePoster]

I would like some advice and opinions please, either way - I understand this is generally a place for women to post but I’m struggling to find somewhere that men can ask for similar advice.

Some context and background - I have been with my wife for 15 years, married for nearly 9. We have 3 children, 6 yo, 3 yo and 9 months. For as long as I can remember I have covered all of our bills and outgoings (at least since we started having children) and any income my wife has had over that period has been seen as disposable income, paying for holidays etc.. she is self employed so unfortunately this decreases a little when she is on maternity, such as in the past 9 months.. luckily I have been in position financially to be able to provide a decent lifestyle for us as a family, and I do not see being the breadwinner or the sole earner as a problem, however I do see very little gratitude to this fact from my wife as any time I mention money she thinks I’m holding it against her that I am the sole provider financially. I feel like in our lives, I do not make many demands as a husband, and I’m always more than happy to go on the holidays my wife wants and do activities that she wants us to do. She has been keen on buying a campervan for quite a few years and I’ve even come round to the idea and said I would put my Dads inheritance towards buying the campervan (Dad sadly passed last year).

I have recently booked a luxurious 12 day holiday for us as a family to go Dubai. My wife has been keen on going away for a while and I was just trying to time it right with school and work etc, so booked quite last minute. She had said Dubai would be good, and picked a nice resort hotel after we looked together, which I agreed would be a nice break for us as a family and hence why I booked it.

My personal hobby in life is golf, I play to a decent level and like playing nice courses when I can, without it being too unreasonable and inconsiderate to our family life.

I had mentioned a few times that if we went back to Dubai (went 4 years ago), I would like to play golf once during our trip.. this was usually met with the “we’ll see” “depends on timing” etc, like I am asking for permission. Well after I had booked I said that I would quite like to play golf, and it just so happened that our trip overlaps by 4 days with one of our close friend couples (with kids too) from home (I knew we were going to overlap before I booked but coincidence that they happened to be going at similar time).

I have made the suggestion to my wife that on one of the afternoons that we overlap with our friends, me and the other bloke go and play golf, leaving the wives and children all together somewhere to enjoy each others company etc.. well this has been met with a firm no from my wife, with absolutely no compromise or consideration towards my request, which has actually really annoyed me. She has made it clear that she wants the whole 12 day holiday to be family time together and thinks it’s unreasonable for me to go and play golf with my friend on one afternoon, even if it means she gets to spend time with her friend (who was one of her bridesmaids so a pretty close friend).

I have said that I’m more than happy for her to go and do something for her in return, like a spa morning or similar, but she says she doesn’t want to do that and just wants to spend the whole time as a family. Whilst I fully appreciate that, I do not think it makes me a bad person for wanting to do something for me on our holiday, especially considering all of the background to our relationship that I presented above.

What should I do? I really don’t want to back down for the principle of not being in a controlling relationship, and because I really do not think my request is unreasonable or inconsiderate to her or our children when considering the whole situation/scenario at play.

Thanks in advance

How, with a baby, would you make sure the two older kids were safe by the pool? What if the two that can walk head in different directions?

It will cause her additional labour and stress. Why do his wants trump what three children actually need?

Once they are older holidays will be different but for now they need to be child focused.

She wants a joint CEO not a head of finance with more annual leave than her.

I bet the spa time doesn’t extend to him managing the evening meal on his own.

Why has the wife's post been hidden while the husband's is still up? It seems a shame the wife has lost her safe space online because he's started posting here now.

How, with a baby, would you make sure the two older kids were safe by the pool? What if the two that can walk head in different directions?
It will cause her additional labour and stress. Why do his wants trump what three children actually need?

*Also mums of three - for reference

I could manage all 3 by myself and have taken them alone on holiday as I had more time than DH - we went swimming etc - Twins and a child 2 years older.

It’s only for a few hours

The line that stuck out for me was the one in the OP about "leaving the wives and children somewhere to enjoy each other's company".
That's the husband pretending to his wife he cares about how she feels. It's telling her she's going to enjoy spending the afternoon with minimum 4 children.

If spending time with the other person in this golfing couple and the children is so enjoyable, how many times have you done it OP? Took all the kids somewhere and hung out with your golf buddy? And I don't mean as a tit-for-tat to let your wife go to the spa after you play golf? I mean how many times have you done this because you like hanging out with your pal, all your kids and all his kids?

I'm going to bet never

Tbh
I didn't pick on any gratitude from you ,that your wife covers all the childcare and housework and cleaning,and grunt work , mental load ,while you are at work ..
Because if she up and left one day ... leaving you with the children...(and people do ,do that when they feel taken for granted) How much would the childcare fees cost you ,how often would you have to come out of work early to pick them up .
How much would a nanny cost you ,to cook and clean and care for the children...
Just saying..that you say your wife is not showing gratitude to your paying bills .but I don't see gratitude to the " wife work " she's doing that you take for granted

To be fair, this depends on the children. I have 2 and only after my youngest turned 4/5 could I do activities like this with both. The younger DC was completely unpredictable and didn't listen and I would have to chase, which would have left the older DC unsupervised in the pool

@MalePoster , what I'm reading is that this holiday and the previous holiday was chosen and booked by you with golf at the forefront of your mind and you think your wife is the uncompromising one?

What does she have to give up? Honestly, this sounds miserable, why did you have children? You can't just go to work and that's your contribution sorted.

I don't think your wife is evena SAHM, not that it would make much of a difference. She is on Maternity Leave by the sounds of it.

Yes. Good question! And good to point out he has phrased it as if this is also a ‘nice afternoon’ for her.

It feels manipulative to me.

Skim read the thread and replies. What needs saying has been said by others.

I just find it depressing that, because mothers love their kids, men seem to think every minute with them is like something from Mary fucking Poppins. Parenting is brutal, stressful, messy, torturous, unforgiving.

Don't get me wrong of course I love my daughter and want to spend time with her, it brings me joy etc. etc. but it is not a walk in the park (with tapdancing penguins).

I think a lot of men make this offer/argument. Man does his hobby x times a week and “offers” the woman equal time to do something if she chooses. Feels fair, right?

Except it isn’t fair.

When you do your hobby, you are relaxing. You’re switching off. You’re forgetting all about the mental load and multiple demands of having DC of different ages. Your wife is at home taking on double the load because you’re not there.

Often these men have made a unilateral decision to do this. Only they think they’re being fair because they’ve chosen the most convenient time and offered the wife equal time to go and do something.

When you opt to do your hobby, you’ve made a unilateral decision about how she will spend her time (you will be out, so by default she will be doing the solo parenting). I would argue that unless she has offered this time to you, then this is controlling behaviour. You are controlling how she spends her Saturday mornings every week by opting not to be home.

Those mornings will be exhausting. She probably resents you that this is 25% of her weekend, every week. It isn’t her choice.

When my now exDH used to do this to me, (but like you “offered” me equal time to go and do my hobby), it made me frustrated. I wanted down time. I wanted support when I needed it. I wanted agency about how I spent my time. I wanted flexibility. But I didn’t have that whenever he wasn’t there. I was stuck solo parenting because he had decided that at x time on x day that’s what I would be doing. He felt offering an equal transaction was enough. It was surely only fair. But it wasn’t what I wanted! I didn’t want to go out and do a hobby/outing of equal time. I wanted to say “pffff I’m exhausted this morning, can I take 15 and go and sit somewhere else? The kids are driving me mad!!”. But I couldn’t do that, because he wasn’t there. So I soldiered on at x times every week because he had chosen that for me. I didn’t have the option of down time. I didn’t have any flexibility. I had one option: parent on my own because he had chosen that for me.

It’s not about a having an equal transaction. Marriage is not meant to be transactional. It’s about listening to what each other needs and pulling together as a team. Decisions about how time is spent should be made jointly.

Earning money and looking after the children are your two main jobs when you have young children. Anything else is “nice to have” but it isn’t for one person to decide how the other will be spending their time. You decided that your wife can have a spa day (or other activity away from the DC) as this would be a fair transaction, but this isn’t her choice, it’s yours. It isn’t what she wants. She wants to NOT be solo parenting because you have decided that for her. You cannot cancel that out by offering a spa day.

TLDR:
Woman: I do not want to be solo parenting on our holiday.
Man: just have a spa day!
Woman: 😡

It sounds more like the wife’s sense of entitlement !

PS. I never took him up on his “offer” or a hobby, activity, afternoon out. Why? Because it wasn’t what I wanted/needed! That was him making an offer to make himself feel better about controlling how he (and be default me) spent OUR time: By trying to offer me something he thought would make it fair but which I didn’t bloody want. He saw this as “fair”. I saw this as “controlling and not fucking listening to me!!!!”

@MalePoster your wife is being very unreasonable .
id this was a female saying her dh wouldn’t “allow “ her an afternoon to herself once while on holiday. She would be told to “leave” him know doubt.
You sound like a decent person who does his share for the family and appreciates his wife’s share too.
Stand your ground and say you are going , this gives her time to get her head around it .
It does sound like you have to find your voice more often.

Someone had a bad day

“I wanted agency about how I spent my time. I wanted flexibility.“

That hit the nail on the head for me. My STBXH couldn’t figure out why I asked him not to just go and do DIY or put together a set of shelves without discussion (or even telling me) and I never really was able to articulate why. He was doing something helpful for our lives so it’s unreasonable to feel miffed about it he said and I couldn’t explain why it annoyed me.

But this was it. It left me no choice but to do the daily grind. The same stuff over and over. The cleaning, the cooking, the washing up and the child care. I would have liked to put the shelves together. It would have been novel. But by going ahead and choosing to do stuff without asking, I had no agency. I had no flexibility. I had no choice but to keep up with household and parenting chores.

The OPs wife doesn’t have agency here. He’s picked a golf friendly holiday, that conveniently falls when his mate is there, and is then strongly ‘suggesting’ she would like to spend time with her friend and all the kids and might like a spa afternoon in return.

It’s a done deal that she can say yes to in order to keep the peace or say no to and be hauled over the coals for.

Good for her that she’s stating her needs clearly.

From his wife’s OPs he’s not so decent.

I think that’s it, isn’t it. You’re made to feel unreasonable for saying “but I don’t want that!”. The number of posters actually saying the wife here is unfair as he’s offered an equal afternoon off. That’s all well and good if that’s what she wants, but what if it’s not?

For the record, I’m not saying parents shouldn’t have hobbies. But your job is to raise the children jointly. Any deviation from that is fine, as long as BOTH parents are happy with this. I felt like I was gaslighted into believing I was a tyrant because I didn’t want my DH to be doing his hobbies as much as he did. He “offered” me the time back so why was I bitching about it? He was being fair and I was being a cow! That’s how it was presented.

But I was being offered something I didn’t want!!! I wanted a voice. I had no voice and when I complained I was tricked into believing I was the issue.

I don't think you are being unreasonable- I would have no problem with this.

Why don't you swap for a couple of months and see how you feel about her role then? You would be desperate for your old life back.

So many people want kids but the 'coal face' is actually hellish compared to remaining child free.

It's the golf, though, what irritates me.

First, do your paid job.
Then parent your children you chose to have.
Golf comes last.

On the face of it, the OPs wife sounds unreasonable - after all, this is just one morning of a 12 day holiday, right?

But then we start to see the details emerge, mostly thanks to the OPs wife. The OP plays golf regularly, sometimes more than the once a week he states. Even when his children were tiny babies. He arranged family golf holidays in the past, because he wasn’t “allowed’ to go on his own - when his kids were tiny - what dad does this when his wife is either very pregnant or has a newborn? He’s ‘coincidentally’ arranged to be away at the same time as a golf buddy.

There’s nothing wrong with having a hobby - but when the children are small, there are compromises to be made - perhaps playing less often - golf is very time consuming - and not making every holiday you go on about your hobby.

So, while on the face of it, DW sounds unreasonable, I think in reality the OP sounds like he often puts his hobby above the needs of his wife and kids, and this ‘just one round of golf’ is the straw that broke the camels back.

I think from what you have posted it’s not an unreasonable request and you work hard, as does your wife (same team different roles) and you deserve to do something for you and then your wife gets her request for family time. I don’t see any of this as an issue and you need to sit down and communicate with your wife more effectively.

In your position @DisneyBaby I’d say yes to the Dubai golfing, but I would need kids clubs or similar for the older two as three children round the pool with one a baby is downright dangerous (literally having flashbacks to family holidays round a pool with even two kids). He needs to arrange childcare to cover his expected input.

Then I’d expect some major concessions in return - weekly golfing? No way. Unless the golf widow issue is addressed in your day to day life then why should you be happy for this ‘once in a lifetime’ golfing.

Go and play golf. Fuck that level of attempted control. I wouldn’t pay lip service to it, and I would never be in a relationship where the other person thought they could dictate my actions.