AIBU to be upset my husband lied about his flight being overbooked?

[OrangeSlices998]

Need some perspective on this and whether my head needs a wobble.

So me and DH have been together for 10 years, we have 3 kids together. We met in London and moved to a small town for his work after our first DC was born.

Recently he went away for a planned lads holiday to Malaga with his uni mates as they’re all turning 40. I don’t know the mates well, they all bar 1 came to the wedding, one was his best man who was incredibly drunk and didn’t do the best speech due to this. I’m only mentioning this because heavy drinking is the norm when these guys get together.

They went to Spain for 4 days, due to fly back on Sunday lunchtime. Originally he had booked to come back on a flight to get him home for 7pm, I had said that was later than I thought he would be back. He then booked a different flight that would have him home for 4pm - this is important.

I didn’t hear from DH much at all, I hadn’t expected to tbh because he was with his friends although it would have been nice to have the odd text checking in as the kids were being very hard work! On Saturday he phoned from his mates phone to tell me he had been mugged the previous evening, he was very drunk and got pushed over and his phone stolen. He thankfully wasn’t hurt and nothing else was stolen. I asked him to buy a cheap phone while he was out there so he wasn’t impossible to reach, I had his mates number but that’s it. I was not having the best time with the kids, they were being very hard work and the crap weather and no car didn’t help.

Saturday lunchtime we speak and I told him what a rough time I was having, the kids were being unusually difficult and I was exhausted. He made sympathetic noises, the call ended. I survived the day (!) and Sunday came. DH hadn’t bought a phone, he called me from his mates phone at about 10ish local time and told me he was heading to the airport shortly (flight departed 12pm local time).

4pm rolled around, not home. Check arrivals, flight landed and he had only hand luggage but traffic etc. 5pm, nothing. 6pm, nothing. I start getting worried, where is he? Is he okay? Did he get on the flight? Did something happen? We live 30-40 minutes from the airport, no traffic showing. I try contacting his friend just to make sure there hadn’t been any issues in Spain, he doesn’t answer. Go out for a walk with the kids as I’m anxious and on edge. Get home at 7.30pm and he walks in about 7.45pm. Says he had to get the second flight of the 2 he booked, the first one was overbooked.

I’m confused now because why didn’t he just call/text me to tell me? I had spent half the afternoon worrying for nothing! His friend had been at the airport with him for a bit, why not just let me know? I was annoyed about this as I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t have just got in touch as he knew I was expecting him on the first flight. I’m just confused because nothing is making sense. DH keeps repeating the story, flight overbooked and I asked what he did while waiting, he said he was just sat in the airport waiting for the second flight. I asked him why he didn’t try to reach me somehow, there would have been ways.

His friend comes back to me on Monday and says DH’s flight was after his and there were no issues. Now I’m more confused because that would mean DH friends flight was before 12pm but I spoke to him at 10am local time and they weren’t at the airport. I called DH on this and said BULLSHIT I think you and your mates decided you coming home on the first flight ruined the fun so you decided to just not get on the first flight and didn’t tell me because you knew I’d be annoyed.

Eventually he admits yes. He had got to the airport for the first flight and didn’t want to leave so he decided fuck it I’ll get the later flight and knew I’d be pissed so didn’t tell me. Had a couple more beers with his mates till they all got their flights and then he got the later one and decided to tell me the first one was overbooked.

I am very hurt by this. Am I being a dick? He knew I had had a tough weekend, he knew I was exhausted, he knew I thought he would be back earlier and he knew I’d be hurt he opted not to get back sooner (I appreciate it’s only a few hours) and decided to lie to me and keep lying. As far as I know he’s never done anything like this before he’s usually a shit liar and wears his heart on his sleeve. We’ve been through a lot together and I really am hurt by it.

I’m less bothered by the fact he had had a lovely time with mates and didn’t want the holiday to end versus the lying to me and not communicating to me, knowing I hadn’t had the easiest weekend. It just feels out of character.

AIBU?

Some of you have very unpleasant sounding marriages and relationships.

I've both travelled for work and been the one at home with three children. My husband is an equal co-parent. When one of us is gone, we want to know how it's going for the other one. Talking about it being tough at home isn't moaning and expecting someone to solve it for you, it's communicating openly and honestly with your partner because presumably you're interested in each other and the children you made?

And who are these people who go away and never seem to phone home to speak to the kids, even to say goodnight?

I just expect my partner to be able to deal with whatever is going on at home by himself - because he's an adult who doesn't need to complain to me about something as basic as three days of looking after his own children.

Any genuine complaints or problems can be dealt with when I get home (or vice versa).

Discussing how things are going, even if not positive, doesn't mean you're not an adult or not dealing with things. It means you're with someone who feels like a partner. Christ, if you can't tell your spouse that the kid are driving you around the bend on a long, rainy weekend with no car, just carry on with grim stoicism, you can't have much of a relationship. If you can't have a moan or a laugh or some empathy about the trenches of parenting three small children, why are you together? Marriage/parenting aren't a performance review, they're a partnership. Some of us are actually interested in how the other person is experiencing them.

There's no need to shit on other people's relationships just because they do things differently to you.

Why did you have no car while he was away?

I think the only mistake you made was breaking the spell of his time away with friends with constantly referencing how bad the kids were being over and over. That’s so mean to do that when someone is away as it stops them being able to be fully present in their time away. You’d have hated it if he did that to you. So I suspect he thought god why am I heading home early to face that?

You are triggered.

I read the first three sentences of your wall of text before tapping out.

🤭

RTFT hun.

Plenty of people are shitting on the OP for having the temerity to not pretend that taking care of 3 children alone on a rainy, carless weekend was a bed of roses. To the point they're suggesting she examine herself to take responsibility for his choice to be a liar.

I have heard worse stories from male friends. Its absolute shit, I would be hurt also but he told you the truth ( eventually). My guess he wont be such a twat again .

No - they're shitting on her for choosing to complain to her husband while he's away on a birthday weekend with his mates. It's just crap behaviour to many of us. She's allowed to feel fed up but there's zero benefit in shitting on the other person's fun while they're away and incapable of helping you. It's just designed to make them feel guilty for being away.

I disagree. I think it's being open and honest about the ups and downs of family life and the opposite of martyring yourself. The OP handles life as a single parent while he's deployed, so she's obviously not someone who crumples like a wet tissue at the first challenge.

And if I was married to someone who got so drunk they lost their phone, lied about booking/missing/cancelled flights, didn't even have the courtesy to tell me he wasn't on the flight, so left me worrying when he didn't turn up, and apparently drove home drunk, I'd be doing a lot more than saying my weekend hadn't been a lot of fun.

It is relevant! If YOU had read everything, you would have seen that the OP said he flew out from one airport and back into another.

To be honest, I go away with my friends a fair bit and if my husband wasn't happy at my flight time then, tough really. I certainly wouldn't be pretending to book an earlier flight. I also don't tend to message home overly much and if he did nothing but moan when I did, I'd be inclined to stop messaging.

He should have just said from the beginning when you said it was later than expected "ah well that's the time" instead of this nonsense about early overbooked flights. He's been unreasonable for the whole pretence

I think theres a degree of ESH.

He is unreasonable to lie to you. And to have potentially planned this because he never tried to get the later flight cancelled or offset.

But I think, its 1 weekend. You agreed he could go so why ruin it for him complaining about parenting the children you chose to have. Even if hed come on the first flight, he was still unable to help you until at least 4pm.

I think youd be better off letting this one go and booking your own weekend where he gets to parent why you relax.

Both of you deserve some time away

Well, personally I think they both behaved badly.

I think if your partner is away with friends, you don't need to dump crap on them. Unless there's a genuine emergency, let them enjoy themselves without having to feel guilty about what you're dealing with without them.

That doesn't mean her DH hasn't also acted badly though - of course no man in his 40's should be getting so drunk he loses his phone and doesn't contact his wife.

I do think it's a bit chicken and egg - in other words - is he behaving badly because he feels stifled and guilted, or is OP telling him all about how shit of a time she's having because she resents him?

I know most won’t agree with this but I genuinely don’t think I could be in a relationship with someone that went on holidays like this. It’s always a disaster isn’t it?

That said, it really doesn’t make much difference what time the flight gets in IMO so I think you should have just not bothered commenting that you wanted him home earlier. Same with the comments to him about the children being hard work, no offence but did you really expect him to care? He’s already leaving for a few nights so he’s unlikely to be the type to matter about their behaviour or your mental health.

I used to think I was really controlling to not like these laddish nights out / holidays away that invariably end up with a load of money being spent, the man being useless while they recover, memory loss, lies etc. All induced by too much alcohol usually. And then someone said to me ‘It’s fine that you’re not okay with it, it doesn’t matter that lots of other people are, you don’t have to be cool about it.’ And I now just wouldn’t be in a relationship that involves any of that. You can leave that if you want. I still think about my first long term relationship (two children together) and how often he went out and I found out he was lying about something small. Even now (although it doesn’t make me emotional) I wonder just how much he was lying. A lot I suspect looking back. You don’t want to end up like that. You could just ask him to stop and tell him you want a divorce if he doesn’t want to.

I don't think you are controlling. You just want to know where you stand

His story is riddled with holes and lies.
It begs the question about what did he actually do whilst he was away.

Nothing seems to add up.

Plus losing a phone is a big deal for most people. Has he now miraculously found it.

It's probably "stiff banter" or summat. Rather than a nasty pile on..bringing untended inadequacies about being "controlled" by women out to play ...the facts of the original post utterly overlooked to have a thrilling chase 🤦‍♀️ (with unresolved issues from their own lives played out)....but not bullying, definitely not 🙄

You know that Scotland has a much lower acceptable level for alcohol in the blood when driving right? It's practically a zero tolerance approach to drunk driving. From your post it sounds like DH has had at least two pints of beer, and it sounds like it's unlikely that he had stopped drinking by 4pm when he was supposed to get the original flight. Even if he managed to sleep for a couple of hours on the flight it is highly unlikely that was back under the legal limit by 7pm when he started the drive home. So not only has he lied to you, he's risked causing an accident and losing his licence. I'd ignore all the people posting here saying you just need to give the man a break. He's an irresponsible idiot and he deserves to hear that from you.

I don't know how so many women put up with juvenile men who are reaching midlife but drink like they are still 20 and lie to their partners..... I would rather be on my own than deal with this crap.

Maybe, but she seems to have coped ok while he was deployed, so I'd suspect it was a really crap weekend. I think, though, if he feels stifled and guilted, it's on him to discuss that with her like an adult.

I also understand that people make different choices, but I will say, over the years both DH and I have had periods where we've done quite a bit of work travel, and during those times, we chose not to travel for other reasons, unless it was with the family. We weren't martyrs, but it wasn't a problem to say no to girls trips/birthday weekends away. I think if your job requires deployment, it might be an unfair burden to expect drunken weekends away.

my thoughts too! Unless your he is away frequently and has form for this I do think you are being so awkward, OP.

any reason you don’t give him space or are so demanding?

You put pressure on him in other ways, moaning about the shit time you were having with the kids when he couldn’t do anything about it. You wanted him to feel guilty for leaving you with the children. Next time let him go and enjoy himself and then get him to return the favour.

I had an ex like this. Cohabiting but thankfully not married nor kids. So leaving was a lot easier.

I'd go away for 3 days to see family.

He'd be perfectly happy about it then without fail he'd be calling up at least 3 times a day with some nonsense like not being able to operate the remote control.

Completely f*ing controlling.

Like I was not allowed to be away from him for a f*ing day.

Probably because I'd realise what a twunt he was if I had any peace.

If you had GENUINE issues with him going away you should have said so BEFORE he went instead of ruining the poor sod's holiday.

So what he lied. Probably too afraid to argue with you.