Left dsd alone on holiday

[squarecow]

Took DSD(19) and my 4 younger dc away for a week.
This is a place we have been going to for years so we have lots of friends there and know our way around.

Dsd has had a horrible couple of years, significant trauma and anxiety which we are just starting to get over. She hasn’t had her mother in her life for years so I try my best to play that part. She’s a lovely girl, I love her very much and think we have always had a good relationship.

I wanted her to be able to relax and let her hair down with friends on the holiday but I expected her to behave appropriately in front of younger siblings and to spend some time with us aswell.

From the minute we arrived she just wanted to go out and party with friends, fine but she kept randomly turning up throughout the day drunk and being inappropriate in front of dc. On day 3 I had to help shower her in the middle of the night after she’d thrown up all over herself and created a scene by shouting and swearing while my 7 year old cried at the door asking if she was okay.

Following that she seemed to calm down and I thought we had a lovely couple of days. She was obviously embarrassed so I didn’t go on at her or make her feel worse, I just told her we could forget about it.

On our last night she went out again but promised she’d be back by midnight as we were flying home the next morning. She then loudly turned up at 3am with a boy that she does know, I know his parents but I do not know or trust him enough to have him in the house with my small dc. I told him to go home, she chose to go with him and I didn’t try to stop her. I called her in the morning and she didn’t answer so we went home without her.

She is safe and her flight home has been sorted for her. She is upset though and is telling Dh that I hate her, that I’m ashamed of her and that I would have preferred to just go on holiday with my real dc, none of this is true.

Dh is disappointed in her behaviour but has hinted that he feels I could have done or at least he would have done more to be understanding and make her feel loved and included, and also that he wouldn’t have gone home without her.

Was I unreasonable?

Quite shocked that you left her without knowing if she was okay - you say you called her phone but she didn't answer. For all you know she could have been injured or worse. So for that YABU

Oh sorry he wasn’t there! Still, you’ve been through the experience and he hasn’t so imv he’s not got anything to criticise you about

i bet she didnt tell daddy how she was sick everywhere and you cleaned her up

Yet he is blaming his wife who was juggling all the children alone. How is that fair? I bet he had a great time looking after nobody but himself at home alone.

He was not a stranger

You have absolutely no information that OP doesn't work...so you are applying your prejudice to this situation.

Even if OP is a SAHM she was working to care for DH's adult child who is in some sort of crisis and their shared younger children...if DH wanted to criticise / do differently he could have travelled and parented when it became apparent his daughter wasn't coping...instead he relied on the free 24 hour cover labour of his wife..OP

I think you were a bit unreasonable to think a 19 year old wouldn’t want to go out partying every night with local friends she knows on holiday. 19 is the peak age for a boozy holiday. Not many 19 year olds will want to hang about with younger siblings if there’s friends, alcohol and parties nearby.

You should have booked a place where you don’t know anyone, if you didn’t want her going out drinking.

I can’t see what the problem is anyway. No one is unreasonable in my opinion. You say you don’t want to tell her dad the full story, you otherwise have a great relationship with her and she’s an adult who can manage travelling home by herself. So what do you want out of this thread?

Exactly,

Did your DH expect you to wait around for your DSD to come back at a time of her choosing.... and book SIX FLIGHTS at very short notice (and probably increased cost) instead of just one? And you might be lucky to have that space on the plane and have the children sitting near you. But at the last minute probably not. How would you manage them all?

He is being completely unreasonable. Its crazy that he can't see that.

Also.

You were'nt abandoning her alone in a strange country, you were leaving her in a place where she had lots of friends and acquaintances.. and where she had insisted on staying.

I think you need to go over her allegations with your DH and point out where they are incorrect.

She clearly needs some support and sympathy, but I think you taught her a valuable lesson. She cannot expect to mess 5 other people around on a whim and hang around waiting for her and it was a salutary lesson that she had to get herself home. (she didn't even have to organise the flight)

If its possible to speak to her, she needs to know that instead of harbouring resentment that young children get more attention than her ( of course they do, they cannot manage without it, she is 19 and can) and telling untruths about you to your DH, she needs to learn to appreciate what you do and have done for her and instead of complaining about how she is treated, to give some examples of how she could treat you better!

Hope you get a chance to have a two way talk with her. I think you did the right thing coming home as arranged.

I'm not sure that you could have done any different, OP. She missed the flight but you saw she was safe and could get home.

I absolutely would have left my own DD behind if she did that. If she wants to stay longer that’s fine by me, She’s an adult and can make her own choices. She doesn’t have to come home with the other kids.

Your DH is just saying that because he wasn’t there. Reality is it doesn’t make sense to mess up getting 4 kids home over one adult.

Right. Where does he think he would conjure 6 last minute flights at a reasonable price out of the air. And potentially another night’s stay depending how long DSD takes to decide to come home.

I agree. He can't help her if he's the dark about what is really going on.
It's not being nasty. Its the truth and shouldn't be avoided. He can't see the urgency or the full dilemma if he doesn't know the whole. You can preface this by emphasising that you do love her and you want to help her, but you were protecting him(?) and her by not giving the full story, which is counterproductive.
Also. He also needs to be part of the process, not put it all on you.

I can assure you that it can and does happen with ‘biological kids’ of 19 and even younger.

You need to tell him everything that happened. Protecting her isn't helpful - she should be embarrassed and be allowed to feel that emotion so she can learn from it and start to grow up. Also not telling him the whole truth simply means your husband doesn't understand how much you had to put up with that week. Plus he is being unreasonable to expect you to have gone round in the morning to drag her out of bed.

I'd also be sitting him down and having an honest chat about his expectations for her now she is 19. Sounds like he babies her. "Make sure she feels loved and included" sounds like code for 'put up with any amount of bad behaviour and indulge her no matter what', which is not helping her to grow into responsible adulthood, or to foster your relationship. A difficult childhood doesn't mean a free pass to be inconsiderate and rude to people. She should be apologising to you and repaying the cost of the extra flight, not walking all over both of you and playing the 'Cinderella stepchild' card.

It was fine the way it worked out.
You knew where she was and who with and you made a safety judgement call based on that, and the state she had been in just a couple of hours earlier. You knew she she would anyway, be travelling home later. Better to continue on to make the flight to get your four other dc home even if one of her parents had to fly out to fetch her later.

In getting drunk, she was subconsciously pushing you to see where your boundaries lay. Any ‘you don’t care for me properly as I’m not your proper DD’ is rubbish and deep down she knows it.
You acted the same as any other loving mother would act given you knew where she was and with whom. So make that very clear to her.

In that same position, on his own with four other younger DC, your DH would probably have done the same thing. ….maybe with a call to the boy’s parents in whose she was staying, to ask them to keep an eye for her and to let them know of his plans to get her home later when she had sobered up. He could easily have done that anyway, from his home office.

You say your DH likes to be diplomatic … do you mean he is a bit soft with her ?
If so, he needs to wise up.

You also need to ditch your own diplomacy in not letting him know the full extent of her poor behaviour.

So both of you need to wise up before DSD realises she can do exactly what she likes
, when she likes and get away with it, even if it means missing a flight somebody else has already paid for, for her …..and will have to pay for again without any consequence.

She’s 19, she’s old enough to be travelling the world on her own, she’s learnt consequences of her actions.

You were in an impossible situation @squarecow and you did your best. That's all there is to it.

I'd explain to your DH that going forward, it isn't feasible for you to go on holiday with all five of them, you need two responsible adults there.

It's a bit shit that her mum isn't in her life and her dad's decided to go on and have 4 more children! I can see why she is annoyed at being made to go on holiday with them, but without him, like some free nanny

She should have been sent home on day 3,

and obiv you will never take this young adult on holiday with you and your children alone again - her father can accompany her each and every time.

He could make her feel loved and included by actually taking time off work to parent his children, including the 19yo. It’s not just your job.

DSD’s behaviour would be understandable for a 19yo away with friends of the same age. Bringing unfamiliar drunk men back to a houseful of small children is not acceptable.

You need to be totally honest with your husband about his daughter’s behaviour. If her behaviour is trauma related then she needs professional help .

Can you link to the bit where she was made to go?

How? She wasn’t answering her phone, she didnt know where she was

Sounds like she has the beginning of an alcohol problem. People don't just gradually evolve into alcoholics after years of drinking; the warning signs can be there at a very early age. Some people are just more predisposed to it, and I wouldn't just put it down to 'all teenagers are like that and go a bit wild then get a bit of sense'.

So you all would have taken an 19yo drunk woman with you in the plane, forced her to do so too (even though she is an adult….) knowing her behaviour whilst drunk isn’t great.

I can easily imagine a situation where the dsd would either have kicked or just be a nuisance during the flight.
I can see all the comments from MNtters if that had been the case…..

I have now spoken to Dh about it more in detail, hopefully we can all have an adult conversation about it later.