AIBU to have ditched my family on holiday walk

[Mounjaroday]

On holiday and we’d just started our annual coastal walk. We have to navigate over a very squelchy muddy bit, one at a time. DH goes first, then strides off ahead at pace. As usual. Then the kids leap over, and run off to keep up with him. I’m suddenly left trailing behind at the back yet again, and it’s absolutely maddening.

“Wait up” was met with a rather cross “well keep up then” nonsense from DH. He doesn’t wait for me and they keep going - DH striding away, and the kids trotting along - and they don’t even bother looking where I am. They are easily 20m in front at this point.

So this time, I stopped, turned around and ditched the whole lot of them. Went for a mooch around the lovely gift and antique shops in the local town. Then grabbed a coffee and read some of my book. 2 hours all by myself. It was absolutely fabulous.

Was I unreasonable? They’re all salty about how I’d “left them”.

YANBU.

Tell them you don’t regret a thing and you would do it again!

Your DH is a dick

My DH is considerably taller than me, my teens are faster and long-legged, and I have bad knees. No one would leave me behind.

I don’t see where petulant comes into it. Her husband explicitly said they weren’t going to bother waiting for her and if she wanted to come she’d have to jog- there’s no other way to make up the distance with a taller man. She didn’t go out for a jog and it is entirely reasonable to decide not to chase them.

Well done @Mounjaroday !!!
I wouldn't go on walks with them anymore tbh. But..I don't do long walks with people who walk slowly because I find it stressful to not walk fastly. Strolling in a city is different.

She can't win, can she @Aluna? If she's fat and lazy she's irresponsible, if she's fat and exercising with her family, she's holding them back.

Which is preferable?

Sod that, I would've stopped for a coffee.

Well a man was told he was being a big meanies for not waiting in a restaurant as a woman needed an audience when she came back from the bathroom

I would have made sure one person knew what I was doing for safety reasons, and not because I am a little woman but anyone going off alone should do the same

Did you tell them that is what you were planning to do? If not, depending on you family, and the area you were in, it might have turned into an unnecessary outing for emergency services.
I am rather guilty of this. I belong to a local walking group, as does my husband. We were on a group walk - pretty local, fairly popular, I knew the route well, nothing extreme. It was very hot and I was lagging and feeling a bit unwell. So I decided to take a shortcut across to a later point in the walk and didn't let anyone know (no phone signal where we were). I was OK once I had rested for a while. The group evidently spent quite a while looking for me once they noticed I was missing. I should have made more effort to tell a member of the group what I was doing (DH was some way away, at the front).

YANBU

It's so rude not to wait for people you are with. Go without them you want to be alone, but leaving them behind? What's the point. Who does he think he is, walking in front and leaving his woman behind.

YABU however for having an "annual coastal walk" 😂

Good for you. Your dh is a bit of an arse.

Good on you.

I go on a group holiday every summer to Dorset. It's a mixed generation group of families that have holidayed together for 32 years, and we do several walks during our week there.
The walking pace varies widely, but everyone has someone to walk with. And at certain points along the way we have a break.
Faster walkers have a longer one, but they wait until the slower ones have also had a rest and are ready to continue.
It works really well, everyone has a chance to chat with everyone else, and it's a lovely sociable walk.

The OP's H sounds like an arse.

Yes, exactly. Tell him the same thing will happen every time he marches off.

Does he like you? I mean if he’s tender towards you he checks you’re ok. If he’s not he leaves you.

No, they ran to catch up. When there’s an obstacle, it slows you down. The first person over is slowed down least. The next two could scamper to catch up. Op got delayed most, and couldn’t/didn’t want to scamper to catch up.

She told them.

Well done you, I'm with you in spirit in the coffee shop etc, much more fun than chasing an inconsiderate male.

YANBU. Your DH is so rude.

It's not just a man thing either. I'm female, and my ex (also female, also petite like me) would do this every time we went anywhere - walk miles ahead of me, leave me struggling to keep up.

It was one of the many reasons I left her, tbh. It's insanely rude.

On the flipside though, I have been in situations where I'm the fitter person / faster walker and I'm walking with someone really really slow. It can be really hard (even painful) to slow down for an extended period of time. But that has been longer hikes, like 4+ hrs, 10 miles, etc. For a short 1-2 hour walk, I tolerate walking more slowly than I'd like even if it frustrates me, because the whole point is sharing a walk with your loved one(s).

TBH, I would drop the family walk thing if this always happens. Is he rude and inconsiderate in other ways? Or is it only the annual coastal walk? lol :D

Perfect response, well done. What a nob. Hope he has other redeeming qualities but no, I hate this behaviour. If only men had to inhabit a world where the dominant beings were stronger and 7ft tall and society revolved around them.

Like to see them keep up and put up with badly fitting stuff and reach shelves that are too high etc.

Urgh. Fuck patriarchy and shitty male behaviour.

Tell you what else makes me laugh /irritates me.... Seeing men in supermarkets rush around with trolleys and expect you to leap out of the way like it's the nurberg ring for grocery shopping. Utterly bizarre and silly behaviour.

Years ago we used to do a lot of hiking but I always lagged behind. Dh would sit and wait but then set off as soon as I got there. I did tell him and he stopped doing it because that's what people do who love you.
You did the right thing op.

My husband and walks more quickly than me, and is sometimes a little way ahead, but then he waits. You're walking somewhere beautiful so stopping for a few mins is natural anyway. And if there is a tricky bit he helps me, or the kids do, because they copy his behaviour. Sometimes all of them offer me help at once and I can't move! My vision is wonky so I do need help sometimes. Sometimes him being quicker is useful because he can keep up with the kids and stop them from killing themselves climbing things. If he always strode ahead and didn't actually want to walk with me, I wouldn't consider it a family walk. You've gone out to be together.

Absolutely this.

In my first year at Uni I joined the hiking club. On my first outing (somewhere really bleak in North Wales on a rainy day) there were three levels of hike to choose from so I chose the easier one until I had got a feeling for how much I could do. Most of the people who chose this walk were similarly inexperienced.

The guy supposedly leading the group consulted the map then set off striding in to the distance with his mate, leaving the rest of us to follow along and try to keep up as best we could. We ended up trailing far behind and one girl fell her full length in the mud and we were all getting pretty cheesed off.

Fortunately there was one chap who was quite an experienced walker but had chosen the easier hike because he was getting over a knee injury. He kept everyone together and made sure noone got left behind and I remember him saying that you walk at the pace of the slowest and the so-called group leader was doing a very poor job.

These days DH and I walk quite a bit. His pace is naturally faster than mine but he would never leave me behind. If there is a tricky bit he waits to see I have managed it OK. Because he isn't an arsehole like OPs DH.

It served him right for being a selfish arsehole with no manners. Like fuck would I be trailing behind some bloke with him barking at me to keep up. Twat.

“Crowed”? Makes it sound like you’re a doddery 80 year old plodding behind lol!