AIBU to feel disappointed my husband invited friends on our “trip of a lifetime”?

[SleepySquirre1]

Recently paid the deposit for what feels like a once-in-a-lifetime family holiday to Kenya for a safari. Our two kids are absolutely animal obsessed and honestly so am I, so this has been a dream of ours for years.

It’s going to involve a LOT of saving, sacrifices and cutbacks over the next year or two. I’m the main breadwinner and I know I’ll be working incredibly hard to make it happen, so in my head this trip became this really special “core family memories” holiday for the four of us.

Last night my husband announced the “good news” that he’d invited his best friend, her husband and their children to come too, and they’re apparently joining us. Their children are slightly younger than ours but they all get on really well. For context, I genuinely really like them, they are good fun and we’ve had lovely shorter breaks together before.

I think part of what has upset me is that there was absolutely no discussion with me beforehand. It was presented as a done deal rather than something we decided together, which has made me feel a bit blindsided if I’m honest.

But instead of feeling excited, I just felt… flat. Sad, almost. I think because in my mind this was meant to be something really special for our little family. I love spending time with just my husband and with my husband and kids, whereas he’s much more of a “the more the merrier” type person.

And now I feel awful even admitting this, but some of the excitement has gone out of it for me to the point where part of me almost wouldn’t mind if the holiday didn’t happen at all. Which sounds dramatic considering it’s going to be such an amazing trip.

I know we’ll still have a lovely time and I know I sound ungrateful. But part of me feels disappointed that these big memories the kids look back on won’t just be ours.

AIBU to feel upset by this? Or am I being unfair because he just sees holidays differently to me?

I don’t think opposite sex “ best” friend = affair but it does sound as though inviting her was more important than discussing inviting extra people with his wife so the “ friendship “ is more important to him than his wife which is wrong and emotional affairs exist. This woman is higher on his priority list than his wife.

Exactly one of the points I made earlier ie emotional affairs do exist as do open marriages. My husband would never contemplate socialising alone with another woman, far less calling her 'his best friend' Personally I don't know many woman who would be happy with the situation. How can the OP tolerate her DH prioritising this woman & her family over his own wife & family.

Noone was saying emotional affairs don’t exist nor open marriages (not sure the relevance of that) we are just saying close friendships with opposite sex person does not necessarily = affair.

Again, if some married people don’t want to socialise with members of the opposite sex, fine then don’t - but don’t be so absurd to categorise all such friendships as affairs.

Strictly speaking I don’t have one “best friend” but I have various close/best friends and yes some of them are men married or otherwise. Their wives like me (and if they didn’t like me I’d back away so as not to cause issues in their marriages) Not an affair!

Have you actually booked the holiday?
If you have I'd be changing the dates now & not tell anyone until it becomes too late/ expensive for the "friends" to change their booking.
If not booked I'd save the money ( in my name only) & hold off making the booking.

Terrible behaviour by your husband, inviting people to join your holiday without discussing it with you first.

It's not the friendship. It's the prioritising the friendship over the wife's wishes / dismissing her / not respecting what she wants that is what smells off. On top of that the wife is paying. Still no respect because he wants his friend there.🤮 Sorry. Not acceptable.

This guy gets it. He knows. That's why, when she made a little face when he told her he had asked his bestie along, he said don't be like that.

He just doesn't want his wife to make him feel bad about prioritizing having bestie along on the trip of a lifetime wife is paying for. That's why he didn't ask first. He was going to do what he was going to do and he knows his wife doesn't like confrontation. He doesn't care his wife is unhappy about it and that he didn't even bother to discuss this with her.

Why are you allowing him to treat you so badly? Are your wishes so insignificant to you and him that you allow him to do this to you? Why does this need to be a friendship ender? Tell him clearly to uninvite them or you will or change the booking to you, your kids and someone else (a responsible adult that can help with the kids) whose company you can enjoy.
sorry to say this but you and your kids aren’t “enough” for him.

Of course. I agree with that stance - the husband is out of order and I’ve said so upthread.

That was not the point I was responding in my post you’ve just quoted.

I feel so bad for you and completely understand how you feel. You were planning a beautiful holiday just for your family and that time together is sacred. Hes kind of trashed your dreams. I would be so hurt and angry.

YANBU I would be raging mad about this. You thought it would be a once in a lifetime family holiday and he thought it would be a great opportunity to holiday with his 2 favourite women and all his kids 🥴 I can’t help thinking you’ve missed something here.

Totally agree with this.
I can’t imagine H having a female best friend - I hope I’m his best friend btw.
What’s really bad OP is that your H not only has a female best friend, he’s is putting her first too!!!

Imagine working your arse off so you can fund a holiday for your husband to holiday with his female buddy? Fxxk me😂. Only on MN🙄

Did you have a chat with your dh @SleepySquirre1

Not being unreasonable at all. Vacations imo are the “more people the more stressful”

I never enjoyed large group vacations!

I think the op knows deep down that if it came to a her or me - ie the best friend or his wife - then she knows full well who her husband would choose. You need to grow a backbone op and get some self respect! Your husband having an affair under your nose while you pretend it’s not happening won’t get any better!

OP clearly isn't coming back to admit the holiday is going ahead as her DH has planned, and she's the mug stuck doing extra hours for years to pay for it all.

I'm sure the DH will have a lovely time with his best mate with his DW paying his bar bill and looking after their kids. How very romantic.

Wow, what a horrible post. Imagine kicking someone like that.

Are you the DH or his best friend?

You have made several posts effectively minimising what the DH has done and dismissing the OPs feelings on this.

The post you quoted is only saying what so many others fear to be true. Even if the relationship between DH and his BF is purely platonic, the OP is still justified in feeling gutted that he will ride roughshod over her feelings (Oh don't look like that) to get the holiday he wants.

Sadly the silence from @SleepySquirre1 suggests she has just caved to her husband's wishes on this to keep the peace.

Yeah I hate to say it, but this 😞

The real issue fot me is that he knew what you had intended but thought it would be more fun with more people. He didn't ask you because he knew you would say you would prefer it was just your family. He's counting on you having a good time on the trip so if it comes up again he can say "see isn't this is more fun for the kids?" or "I knew you would have a good time" to cover for his lack of concern for your opinion. In otherwords he can ask forgiveness rather than permission. Which kind of suggests a power dynamic issue. Particularly since your are covering the tab.

I get it. Just doing it without asking is easier than stating a preference. In his mind everyone wins. He will get both time with you and the kids and time his friends. He knows you don't like conflict and are an accommodating person who works on staying positive. It suck that his reasoning doesn't take into account how much experiencing this while focused on each other meant to you.

The other problem is you will 100% be herding children and doing all the preparations needed to get that many people to the same place at the same time. In Africa. Where a ton of people speak English people but where American's aren't popular right now and rates of poverty make it a place where a lot of care has to be take when traveling.

So he gets the trip of a lifetime and you get huge pile of stress and responsibility. NOR. He should have asked you.

.

So you're definitely allowing him to carry on with this then.

I think she is. Fool.

Couldn’t agree more. Sometimes you just need to take fucking charge. I would ring the friends and say ‘Sorry, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, this is a family holiday. We’ll plan another one for friends.’

I just wouldn’t roll over.

Meeting other people who are on the same holiday isn't comparable to inviting people you are already friends with on holidays. There is no expectation to have the same friendship relationship with people you have only just met on holiday. If I was the op i would would asking my DH on what on earth possessed him to extend this invitation. It is very disconcerting when you assume that you are on the same page as someone only to be blindsided by their actions. Nowadays, I spell out my expectations of holidays etc to my DH and he does the same, it might seem a bit strange to do that, but at least we have communicated what twe both want from the holiday and can accommodate/ compromise so that everyone gets to do more or less what they want. Totally agree that more isn't always merrier, it just gets way too complicated.