AIBU to just f off back home?

[BusyMommaOf4]

Day one of a weeks holiday in Spain with DP and DC (age 4, 3 and 0)

Me and DP had an argument this morning which was in my opinion trivial but I know people are different. Basically I was stressed because the 2 older kids had been crying most of the morning as we had a late arrival and they haven’t slept enough (got to hotel at 1.30am and was up at 7.30). Wasn’t working in the hotel room trying to get them to sleep so I wanted to get them out in the pushchair. Partner suggested going to the shops and (I believe he said) then go swimming straight after. Baby was asleep so didn’t get her ready for swimming. DP was taking ages getting ready so I said I’d just walk them up and down to stop the crying. Tbf it was only a few minutes when I came back as he still wasn’t out the room as he was doing his hair. I was unreasonably annoyed, basically in a huff saying I might as well get baby ready as I was waiting for him anyway (but didn’t say that). It was just the stress of waiting around for 2 hours in the room already with them not settling. Then it was an argument over what we were doing basically. Escalated as he said that he was gonna stay in the hotel room so I was fuming because that meant me being left with all 3 kids and I genuinely can’t take them all out by myself very easily. So I got pissed off and threw a hat at him which knocked his water over (that was out of order I know). So he said he was going out before he got angry. This was 7 hours ago. He’s not responding to messages etc so no clue where he is. He’s probably just in the hotel bar. But I’ve had this before where he takes days to calm down regardless of whether I apologise etc. Yes it was my fault but it this a normal reaction?! I can’t stay on holiday like this. There is literally no point me being here because I haven’t been able to take the kids swimming or anywhere really today. Had a walk to the shops (2 in a pushchair whilst wearing a baby carrier. 4 year old is autistic which is why he needs a pushchair for safety) so only a small walk. Got some food etc to cook as I don’t see how I can go to the restaurant with all of them as I can’t leave them at the table. We’re all inclusive and haven’t brought enough money to keep buying food as didn’t think that was going to be needed.
A friend has said she’ll lend me the money for flights home if I want to go tomorrow. AIBU if I do that and just leave him here? I will let him know but he’s not replying to anything even me asking if he was coming back so I could get the kids some food which I think is out of order. Hence the walk to the shops. So I have no clue when he’ll be back. What would you do?

OP, if you want to stay in this relationship, and I know lots of people are saying LTB but you know best what is right for you, I would try to salvage the holiday. It would be really difficult to get over abandoning what I expect was an expensive holiday.

having said that, what an arsehole coming back at midnight then getting up at 530 & waking you up! Wasn’t the whole issue yesterday that everyone was overtired.

@BusyMommaOf4 OP, I am so sorry but you need to understand he is manipulating you again and he will not change without drastic intervention.

I hope you get to read this when you get home. Please let us know you are OK, even if just with a short message. Know that you have tons of support here. Ignore those that are going on about how many kids and why you went on holiday, that is all irrelevant at the moment.

Why his behaviour is further manipulation - What he’s doing now isn’t neutral. It’s not “a relationship breakdown under stress”. It’s a pattern of control, avoidance, and blame‑shifting that becomes clearer with every update you post. Here’s what stands out:

Disappearing for 12 hours is not normal - it’s punitive withdrawal, partners don’t vanish for half a day on a family holiday unless they’re punishing their partner (and kids as a by product), trying to “teach a lesson”, or avoiding accountability.

He didn’t check on the kids. He didn’t check on you. He didn’t even return to get his phone, which tells you he didn’t want to be reachable. That’s not “needing space”. That’s withholding contact to create anxiety and make you feel responsible.

The phone excuse is classic deflection - “Didn’t have his phone.” “Thought you took it.” Both are designed to avoid responsibility, make you doubt yourself (and it sounds like he is succeeding), and shift the focus away from his behaviour. If your phone is missing, you look for it. If you’re away from your partner and kids for 12 hours, you go back to check in. He didn’t because the goal wasn’t communication, it was avoidance and control.

Waking you r at 5:30am to announce he’s leaving is another power move
That’s not problem‑solving. That’s forcing a crisis. He didn’t sit down and talk. He didn’t apologise. He didn’t ask what you needed. He woke you up to create urgency, destabilise you, push you into making rushed decisions, and frame YOU as the one “breaking up the holiday”. He didn't give a sh*t about the kids in all of this. It’s emotional pressure disguised as logistics.

“If you’re booking flights, I’m going” - coercive framing. He’s trying to make you feel responsible for the split, the separate travel, the ruined holiday. It’s a manipulation tactic, “Your actions are forcing mine.” “I’m only doing this because of you.” It removes his agency and paints you as the unreasonable one. Remember here that he was the one that walked out on you, leaving you with the kids and any decent parent would have come back for the sake of the kids.

Offering to take one child is not kindness, it’s image management - he didn’t offer support when you needed it. He didn’t stay with the family. He didn’t communicate. But now he’s offering to take one child? That’s not helpful, it’s performative to makes him look reasonable, makes you look difficult if you decline and gives him a “see, I tried” narrative. It’s strategic, not supportive.

He “sees nothing wrong with his behaviour” - that’s the biggest red flag
Healthy people reflect, apologise, acknowledge harm. Manipulative people minimise, deny, blame and rewrite events.

If he genuinely believes disappearing for 12 hours, ignoring his partner, waking her at dawn, and splitting the family is normal… then you are right: there’s no future in that dynamic.

The loneliness you describe is the emotional consequence of his behaviour. You're not lonely because you have four kids. You're lonely because your partner abandoned you, refused communication, blamed you, refused accountability, and is now forcing a dramatic exit.

That’s not a relationship. That’s emotional isolation created by his choices.
The bottom line - this isn’t “a bad holiday”. This is a man who withdraws to punish, blames to deflect, destabilises to control, refuses accountability, and manipulates the narrative to protect himself.

Your instinct that this isn’t fixable is not OTT. It’s clarity. You have friends who were willing to lend you money to get home, that speaks volumes about his historical behaviour.

Go home, let him leave, he expects you to beg him to stay, please do not. Then book yourself some support with a counsellor to understand the manipulation. This is not on you OP. Do not let this man stay in the lives of you and the kids, it will harm them in the long term.

I agree with the poster above ,could you not salvage the holiday and try to enjoy it.

That’s such a harsh response for someone going through it right now.

You sound as bad as eachother tbh. You want to quietly brush under the rug that you physically abused him by throwing something at him. It doesn't matter what it was. My ex used to throw things at me a lot and it is terrifying, horrible, fucks you up mentally for life. If he threw the hat at you everyone would be saying LTB for that alone.

His reaction was bad but not unexpected given you just threw something at him out of anger. What will it be next time? He was right to leave to calm down but leaving for that amount of time, knowing you're alone struggling with the kids was wrong. He should have said at that point that you should just all go home and probably review the status of your relationship since you think it's okay to physically abuse your partner as long as he's a man, and he thinks it's okay to dismiss all parental responsibility for any given reason. Shocking.

If he had come back ready to talk maybe staying would have been possible, but he is taking no accountability and this would be such a hostile environment for her and the kids and so she will cave for the sake of peace for the kids and that is a very unhealthy dynamic.

Op is there no way you can try and salvage the holiday for the kids sake?

gake it in turns to take one or two of them to do something then swap
ovwr?
your in a hotel in Spain. There will be lots of outdoor things to do seperatly or together.

I would be sucking it up and switching off the relationship in my mind for the last few days so the kids can try and enjoy the last bit of holiday.

put them first.

if your both calm surely and as adults and parents of three young dc in a foreign country you could make it work ?

@BusyMommaOf4 good luck and safe travels.

When you get home, don't let him come crawling back once he realises the cost of maintaining two homes.

The biggest red flag for me in your posts was the lack of access to money. A friend had to pay your flights and you had no personal money to make things bearable by being a bit spendy for a day or two.

Rely on your friends, not him. Expect no or little maintenance but I have a feeling you will be better off financially without him. May I venture you take an STD and pregnancy test pronto.

Once he's gone I'm sure you will feel his loss like that of an albatross.

But he isn't willing, his way or the highway, this is driven by him, not her. He just wants to punish her for his behaviour.

I have never used chatGPT and don't need to

So she is going to be wearing a baby and trying to carry three plates of food and stop an autistic child running off? Or are suggesting the whole family gets up for a trip to the buffet three times?! That all sounds really relaxing.

I feel for you - three on your own is a lot, especially in busy areas and swimming pools. This doesn't sound great but I think flying with three kids might be a bridge too far. There is no guarantee at all that you would all be sat together.

I think your best bet would be to potter around close to the hotel as best you can and then ask someone to help you by carrying the tray of food to the table.

To all those questioning their holiday choice, if AI in Spain with kids clubs is such a bad idea why are these companies making a fortune? None of those comments are helpful.

The flight time may have been a delay, may have been the only time they could afford. May have seemed like a good idea at the time as the kids would be asleep. Whatever. None of those comments are helpful.

To those questioning how close the children are in age, there could be any number of reasons for this. Not least that at the time they were working as ac team and he wasn't being an a#£e. None of those comments are helpful.

To those suggesting he should be helping with the kids, it's not helping it's looking after his own children. When she has them, is she helping him?

What's happened on this holiday has just brought to a head how much she is taken for granted and how little he respects her contribution to family life.
OP I wish you the best as you deal with all this

It was a baby's sunhat, not a fucking iron.

I’ve not rtft but OP I really feel for you. I hope when you’re home, you’ll both realise this partnership is not working, not right for you both. You deserve better than the sulking child he is, you’ll likely be better off on your own. You and your kids don’t deserve to be living in the toxic childish environment he’s creating. Good luck, stay strong x 💐

This is why we avoided holidays abroad until youngest was 4. Absolute nightmare, stay in the UK.

OP, I’m sorry it’s all gone so horribly wrong. But if you couldn’t manage 3 kids at a hotel buffet, how is the airport going to work? How are you going to get food and take them to the loo? Do you have your seat reservations all together? You both need to be adult enough to get your children home safely and given all you’ve said, that will take both of you.

No wonder MN is full of people penning threads about their shit relationships when there is an army of fucking idiots rocking up to defend this "poor" man because he had a baby hat thrown at him

Find a table next to the buffet, leave the two strapped in the pushchair and find them things they can eat with their hands e.g. bread rolls, cucumber, sausages etc. Take the baby in the carrier to get your meal.

Your dh has been really unfair here and if this is his usual response to being upset then it is unreasonable, consider that you would be better off without him. When he reappears I would seriously consider giving him a taste of his own medicine by ditching him for the day with all 3 kids, although no doubt you would be worried sick about whether he was actually looking after them properly.

Would you actually be able to manage the 3 of them on a flight home on your own? I expect that would be more of a nightmare than your current situation. The most realistic advice is to stick it out for the holiday, fingers crossed he gets over his strop and comes back to do some parenting and then start divorce proceedings when you get home. For now, have the plan to do meals with the big to strapped in. See if you can find a shaded park where you could manage them or go for a long walk and find a shady cafe.

Oh that's okay then, has absolutely no mental impact at all. We should all start throwing things at our partners, it's healthy!

Will it stop at a baby's sunhat? Probably not. Is she telling the truth? Who knows. Can she control her anger? Obviously not. If he had thrown that at her you'd be clutching your pearls and calling for divorce. But it's a man, so it's ok to abuse him. Embarrassing.

My ex threw a lip liner at my face the first time he did it. Was it just a lip liner, so who cares? Cos it then progressed to being my phone at my head, my laptop at my stomach, and then eventually a pull up bar. Stop discounting abusive behaviour.

WonderingWanda

You should read the updates before posting

Safe travel OP. You have some hard decisions to make when you get back home.

...by buying packaged sandwiches that you can put in a carrier bag or burgers that come in a paper bag- a lot easier than juggling 3 plates crammed onto one tray while wearing a baby carrier and pushing a double pushchair. There are also restaurants in airports with table service. She clearly feels she can manage the airport alone and feels it's the best option

It seems a shame to waste the holiday over an argument, should you have thrown the hat, probably not but it happens, should he have gone off for all those hours, again probably not but is it worth leaving a holiday over? Emotions are normally high after a day of travel with kids, everyone’s tired and touched out.

maybe there’s more going on in your relationship and this happens a lot, who knows.

hope you manage to work things out x

He will be leaving the house when we’re back. Maybe it is a bit OTT

It’s not OTT at all.
Even before he went missing for hours it was obvious that this relationship doesn’t work.

It’s not normal to argue like that on holiday.
It’s not normal to not check if your 3 kids are ok and have eaten for hours.
It’s not normal to know that your DP is alone with 3 young kids and not pop back once to check they’re ok.
It’s not normal to cut a family holiday short because you can’t get on with your partner.

This relationship doesn’t work at all.
It’s one of the worst relationships I’ve heard on here.
I’m shocked you managed to have a third baby tbh.

I’m glad you’re both calm and can communicate better for the kids sake.

Once you have separated properly you will both realise how much better you both feel.
And of course it is better for the kids for you to separate as they will be the most affected by your arguments and tension.