Is this fair? Dh and holidays

[Emmathedrama]

Every year it’s the same old.

We say we are going on holiday, but dh does absolutely none of the work in finding and researching where to go.

I must admit that I am probably way more fussy than dh. Dh says he doesn’t mind where we go. But I feel like in reality he probably would mind if we ended up somewhere horrible because I hadn’t researched properly.

Dh would just look at a few photos and go with wherever had the biggest swimming pool.

He also can’t remember anywhere we’ve been. So if for example I ask if he fancies going back to Rhodes. He will look all sheepish because he can’t remember which one was Rhodes. He doesn’t know where in the world anywhere is and has no interest in looking on a map.

It’s the same if we are going in the UK. I’m the one who looks up all the daytrips and puts things into google maps to see how far they are.

I'm more than happy to do all the holiday organising and DH trusts me to do a good job of it. He is happy to do all the driving including abroad, on road trips, on narrow windy mountain roads etc which means we get to see some amazing sights. I wouldn't like to drive abroad though happy to do it in the UK.

So it's good teamwork for us.

Rearching holidays and travel is a bit of a hobby for me. Tiime off is precious so I want to get it right. He's more happy to go with the flow than I am and he'd make the best of a crappy location or something whereas I'd find it more annoying and would spend half the first day annoyed we were stuck there and THEN get over it.

Personally I would find it a massive turn off to be with someone so disinterested in travel. And so disinterested in taking on some of the admin. He sounds utterly tiresome and dull To me. But then travel is incredibly important to me.

If he really doesn’t care beyond having a decent sized pool to the point where he doesn’t even know where he is, and pulls his weight by doing other household admin then I really don’t see the issue tbh.

He’d be getting pushed in the swimming pool if he was with me!

I couldn't get myself worked up about this. If you don't want to do any legwork just use a travel agent. I love planning holidays so I'm delighted that DH keeps his nose out for the most part! In the same way he's delighted that I don't care about tech so he can research and buy exactly what he wants. It's all just a TV to me and it's all just a holiday to him. Unless your DH abdicates responsibility for all decision making which is very different.

Sometimes my husband doesn’t know where we are going until we get in the car and he says ‘right, what’s the postcode?’ for the sat nav

I couldn't be with someone who was interested where in the world we'd travelled to! I don't understand that mindset at all.

I plan all our holidays and enjoy it, but even my four year old learns a few words of the language and as a family we will learn some of the history and geography of the place we are going to. I can't imagine just rocking up with no care or clue as to where I was!

My DH is similar, but I enjoy all the planning and researching. We think of an area or country together then I will research and narrow it down to 3-4 selections for him to look at!
He is much more go with the flow and would probably book something last minute to wherever looked like the best deal if we didn’t have DC.
He can do holiday planning if he has to but it’s a better use of our skill sets for me to do it.

Just to add he does his own packing and organising and if I ask him to do tasks like sort out ordering currency he will do it without reminders

its simple. If you don't want to do it, don't do it.

You accept it or you don’t. Is he great otherwise? I plan our holidays in terms of the admin but husband and children are very involved with choosing where. I spend ages showing them pictures and husband entertains my endless conversations but I really enjoy “holiday shopping”.

My husband pays so little attention that sometimes he doesn't know where we are going until we get to the airport gate. It doesn't bother me at all.

So you have said you are picky so if he went ahead and organised it all you would be all fine with what he picked?

But if he has always been like this then why do it? It cant be a surprise to you?, it would drive me up the wall to be with somone like this but I wouldn't have had a relationship with someone in the first place

You say you are fussy and he doesnt care, so I dont see the problem as you both get what you want.

Look at the positive side, you always get to go where you want to go.

Im a single childless woman heres how my holidays go.

Pick child free hotel, do fuck all research turn up and hope for the best find my way about.
I hate panning i like to just go with the flow on a whim, and do random things when i get there.

I have had this a number of times. Also extends for other bits of "life admin". The galling bit which I have had a few times, is where things do not turn out to DH's liking and he then asks why did you not book this? Why did you not do that? Honestly I have not found a cure. I did go down the route of saying I will book one and he books the next... but he simply did not do anything at all. We went nowhere. So I settled for a rule that said if there was something he did not like he could not complain. This did not stop him trying, but I simply shut the conversation down. I am too far into this marriage now, but in honesty slowiy I have taken on a passenger who has done less and less and it is not pleasant.

Having owned a larg-ish boat in the South of France, which was the world's most lovely holiday home for the people who coowned it with us; they loved it, they had two useful teenage lads to help with the heavy work of moving it around. We had a slight nine year old, who could not cope physically with 16 tonnes of boat. And because of DH's day job in marine engineering, we dealt with most of the maintenance It did end up feeeling an quite uneven relationship.

We are still all very close friends, but there were moments when it could have gone wrong.

I spent a lot of time in my relationship feeling a bit hard done by about this kind of stuff, but a chat with another couple we're close with switched my mindset.

In their relationship they have "departments" based on their strengths. For example she's the dept of decision making, he's dept of budgeting (there were more examples but will keep it simple). So yes, she makes the bulk of the decisions...because she's good at it. She was also the department of decorating, he basically lets her get on with it, he's the head of gastronomy 😂 They both show real appreciation for the others strengths, and largely stay out of each others departments unless invited to contribute.

DH and I tried it and it worked so well for us. Somehow being in charge of an area because that's something you've both recognised you're good at sits differently vs the narrative of 'ugh he/she hasn't done anything again!'. Feels like we recognise each others contributions more, and also as playing to the strengths of the team everyone is largely in their comfort zones.

Maybe you're just the head of holiday planning in your household!

Yes, I think that there's a lot to be said for unequal work in some respects.

My husband is an auditor at work and he can't switch off the auditor behaviour. It's bloody annoying when he decides to research to the nth degree something I've already checked the key criteria for (if price, location, budget align, I don't give a dig if they specifically have glasses or plastic cups by the pool). By insisting on the "meets all the criteria" place, he usually misses out on the place that's EXCELLENT at something even if it's only ok at other things.

If you want to pick the best performing dishwasher to a 32 criteria spec, he's your guy.

If you want to make a timely decision that gets you something ok with occasional awesome thrown in, he sucks.

I've spent years researching and booking holidays but for the past 4 years we've used a Travel Counselor.

Give her a list of what we want/don't want, if I have a destination in mind great. Tell her our budget and she find us 4 or 5 to choose from. She's sound us some great ideas and holidays and takes the pressure off me.

I now send him he link and ask him to look before I book.

This year is a standard Jet2 package to Greek Island but about £400 cheaper than me booking it.

Highly recommend using a Travel Counselor.

@Emmathedrama

I always planned all our holidays. But I love logistics so I didn't mind. And we were (US) RVers and DH did all the driving. So IMHO he did make a substantial contribution as our trips were usually 7000 miles or more. As a result I took his 'druthers' into account when I planned.

But in your situation, since he apparently doesn't contribute 'input' into the planning I would plan the holidays that I wanted (and the DC of course) without regards to him. I wouldn't even ask for his input. If he doesn't like what or where you picked, then he'll get more involved next time.

I’m the holiday organiser in our house. DH is happy to go with the flow.

We went away for New Year last year and DH wasn’t that keen .. weather wasn’t as good as anticipated. He said he’d do some research and find somewhere for this NY … and was upset when I said that would mean we stay at home 🤷🏼‍♀️

I'm so surprised there are so many couples where only one partner books the holiday.

We do everything together with me tending to major on the airy fairy ideas of where to go and DH doing more of the practical what date and time to set off. But we both do both things. DH does the lions share of the actual bookings and is the central brain of things like which hotels are paid up front and which are refundable and why.

Once we are away, I do a lot more of the researching and planning of what to see and do, which I sometimes find tiring but I would rather do that than be in charge of all the stuff DH does - keep tickets, money and passports, plus he tracks and remembers the times of all our travel and connections (we tend to do multi centre with trains between cities so it's a hell of a lot) and does things like actually work out what time we need to leave the hotel to get to the station etc

I wouldn’t mind that because I love researching holidays!