AIBU to take our daughter on holiday while DH is unwell and doesnt want me to?

[Atchooch]

This is possibly my longest ever post. I dont know how to shorten it.

DH, DD (15) and me were planning to spend the summer travelling around Europe and had started booking things.

Then DH got very unwell. He has spent most of the last few months in hospital with poor mental health. It became clear he wasn't able to go on the holiday and he expected me to cancel it.

I have refused for the following reasons:
DH's illness has hit DD really hard.
She was really, really excited about the holiday. It's the first time she's been properly excited about something in a long time. She hasn't been abroad since she was 3. She has also had a really tough year.
I think if I cancel because of DH it will really damage their relationship. Maybe that's me being dranatic.
Both DD and I need a break if I'm honest. DH has obviously dominated everything since he became ill and that's fine because it's how it needs to be. However I think it's going to be the case for a long time (possibly forever) so I think we need to minimise the impact where we can.
For the above reason I also think I need to set expectations. We cancelled a few things when he became ill and I dont want that to become the norm as harsh as that sounds. I feel like his illness can't control mine and DDs lives.
I need this. I need to prove to myself that I'll be ok. When he first went into hospital I realised how reliant I was on him and thought I wouldn't cope. That isn't healthy. I meed to prove to myself, and DD (and DH tbh) that I can do things.
DD needs to see that she doesn't need to center her world around what other people want and that she shouldn't let them stop her doing what she wants. It's really important she sees that.
I don't know when DH will be well enough to go a long weekend in the UK again, let alone anything bigger.
Financially, I expect we'll have to rely on my wage going forward so things are going to be very different and I dont know if we can afford it again.
So there is the genuine risk that it's now or never.
It just seems like the right thing to do.

As a compromise the holiday has been shortened to 10 days including travel and we will be sticking to the tourist areas instead of going off to random places like we'd planned.

I do feel awful and guilty and like I'm a bad wife for not putting him first. I do feel like I'm purposely doing sonething that I know will cause him pain. I feel like I'm letting him down and I know I will find the holiday stressful and challenging and it's really scary. Of course I'll spend most of the holiday worrying about him and feeling guilty and worrying about sonething going wrong. So then that makes me wonder why I'm doing it at all.

DH is really angry and upset over it. His anxiety is spiralling. He is feeling like I'm not listening and don't care about the impact it is having on him. He is also resentful because he will need to stay with his family while DD and me are away because he isn't well enough to be by himself.

Although, they have been very little help over the last few months so I dont know what I'll do if they wont let him stay.

They will judge me more than they already do.

My family will judge me. But my parents wouldn't even go on a daytrip alone. It meant that we missed out on things because my mum wouldn't do things if my dad wasnt able to go with her. I dont want that for my DD.

So anyway, I will be taking DD on the holiday and I'll deal with the fallout. But I was just wondering what other people would do? Would you disregard your DH and go on holiday or would you put or DH first? Please be kind. It's really upsetting and whatever I do is wrong.

You have detailed your experience of family mental health issues.
Well I have also a long and painful experience of a family member with mental health issues which started in her late teens and which had far reaching negative long term affects on our family. I also have struggled with my own mental over the course of my life.

That is why I am very aware how hard this situation is on OP and her DD. But , apart from being a great believer in the " in sickness and in health" part of the wedding vows, I feel that mental health is very much dismissed as being a nuisance. And sufferers are not afforded the same compassion as those with debilitating physical conditions.

If OP goes on this holiday and her DH's mental health deteriorates again, as it appears to be doing already, then the set back to his recovery will have long term detrimental affects on all three of them.

As someone with a DH with years of mental ill health history, I say go! Your DH has a possible reason for his selfishness but his family have non. Your summer has already been changed and for ten days they can manage.
As for his family? They don’t mind you not focusing on him to work, to run the house, to sort your daughter - just to do anything fun for you both. As if they are worth giving a shiny shit about.
Nearly a decade in from my DH’s issues starting it’s the holidays, parties, nights out and weekends away have kept me sane. Your life doesn’t go on hold. He certainly doesn’t stop your daughter decompressing and having a short holiday after a difficult year.

Having read your previous threads and the terrible time you've been having - go. Your less-than-D-H will just have to manage. His health can't continue to rule your lives.

The teenage daughter deserves a chance of happiness and she can’t go abroad solo at 16. Everything in families is checks and balances. Why prioritise the needs of an adult over a child?

And yes to turning your phone off. You are leaving him with his family. They are capable of handling this themselves. You could say that in an emergency his brother can contact your friend and she will inform you so you can contact them. So you have peace of mind that say, if he tries to kil himself, that you will know, they won't harass your friend over every little thing so will keep it for emergencies.

Or say "only contact me in absolute emergencies, the type that would make you get an emergency flight and come home yourself, if you contact me about anything else I will block you. And follow through. They're his family. They can handle it. You know he will harass the shit out you and threaten you with all sorts so just black him from the off.

I honestly can't believe comments like this.
Do you really believe that there should be no caring and compassion between spouses?
You make it sound as though the poor man is unreasonable in expecting any sort of love from his wife because it should all be exclusively her DDs.

Do it. I’ve been in a very similar situation. Shipped him off to stay with his sister whilst DD and I went on holiday. People can judge all they want. We had a great time.

And what if everything sets him back? What then, when?

Honestly, it’s not always him. Yes, often, but not always.

She’s not leaving him, she’s helping another family member who needs her too.

Go and don't let him guilt trip you.
What is it exactly that's wrong with his mental health and why do you think he won't improve?

I've read your previous threads. Go on this holiday, you both NEED it! Don't feel guilty. DH's family can support him for 10 days.

edited to add:- I have a severe mental health condition and would still and do wave dp off happily when he goes away with his brother and nephews

I'm trying to think of what physically debilitating condition either me or dh could have that would mean the other one could not take our dc away for 10 days. I'd have to literally be in my final days for this to be a problem.

Your Dd deserves just as much care and attention as your Dh, harsh as it sounds you need to start planning to meet all of everybody's needs in the context of Dh's illness and you can't wait around for the perfect time to have a break, it won't come. Go with Dd, have a wonderful time and recharge your batteries for the next round.

I have read a lot of your other posts. I really feel for your husband, but I think you and your daughter need the break

It’s ten days. Go.

I'd go. 100%. Your DH is being selfish, he has caused enough pain, even if it is unintentionally, to your DD. Don't let him take away this last bit of her childhood. Don't let him take it from you either. You both deserve some happiness and to create lifelong memories away from the dark cloud of someone's mental health.

It’s ten days, not a month. I’d also say go but possibly disagree with not contacting him while you’re gone although I guess it would be hard to know whether regular updates would help or hinder. Hugs op x

This is the typical MN view that holidays are some sort of sacred right that everyone has an entitlement to.

It may come as a shock to you that many many people can't go on holidays for lots of different reasons.
And people actually manage to survive without holidays.

I find it very strange and totally lacking in any human compassion that you think a teenage girl's perceived right to a foreign holiday trumps the welfare of her father who is suffering from a serious illness.

As the child of a parent with a severe mental health illness (Schizophrenia) and grew up with everything revolving around said parent the majority of the time and resenting it. (As an adult I still struggle with it but less than I did)

Go on the holiday. You can't get those memories or time back with your DD. Just make sure back up care is in place. Can social services help with that?

Please please take the holiday. You both need this and you both deserve it.

Please go, OP. It’s so important that you do.

Living with someone who has severe mental health problems is incredibly hard. It’s not just him who is the victim of his poor mental health; you guys are too. And being held hostage to a condition that may be like this for years is unfair for a teenage girl. 10 days away is nothing in the grand scheme of OP and her husband’s life together and to come but it is so much for a 15yo girl whose life for the past while has revolved around her ill father.

It could well be a lifelong mental illness. Should they put their lives on hold forever?

You are absolutely doing the right thing, for all the reasons you list. Reserving the right to some autonomy over your life, some time with DD, some pleasure and respite from his illness could make the difference between you coping for the long haul or going under and having to leave. So this is in his interests too.
Its important you don't give into his coercion on this. Because this precedent you set here will be the one you'll be living with.

It’s more that living with someone with an intractable mental illness creates relentless stress and it’s entirely appropriate to leave an unwell adult in family care and to have a break away from it all. It’s especially useful for a teenager and an opportunity to take when finances will probably not allow it to happen again.

Go

What makes you think anyone would say she should stay if it was a physical health condition? I certainly wouldn't. He is an adult, he has other family. It's already been 6 months, why should OP and her DD have everything on hold indefinitely?