"Family" holiday without DH?

[scouserabroad]

Long-time lurker, tho I do post about once every six months or so

Haven't been on holiday since 2004, and DH doesn't want to go anywhere. Won't even go for family days out, nights out with me, anywhere really. He's very much a couch & TV kind of guy, which is driving me quietly insane!

I've been wondering for a while about taking the DDs and going on holiday with them while DH stays at home. Would this be really bad of me? I'd feel guilty because he works really hard and how could I enjoy a holiday if he wasn't part of it? He had two weeks off in June (which he'd booked off months in advance) and he just didn't want to go anywhere. He's planning to go and visit his family who are abroad, but he could have gone this year & didn't. I've wondered about depression, etc. but he blanks me if I try talking about any "issues" and it's got to the point where I just don't know what to do.

I think I had a touch of depression after having DD1 (she's just turned 4 now) and I sometimes feel like I've never got back to how I was pre-children, everything seems so difficult now. I'd like to have a break from the routine and clear my thoughts a bit, does this seem like a good idea or would it be selfish?

Book a holiday, now. There is absolutely no reason why you and the children should miss out just because he doesn't wish to spend time with his family.

I'm off with my 4yo at the end of the month! DH is not even invited!

Not that he would come anyway, but if he did he'd moan about something, everything, the cost of this the price of that, if it's hot he'll moan about the heat, if it's cold he'll moan about the cold.

He'll want to sleep all day, and we'll either have to be quiet or go out without him... which he'd moan about, no doubt!

Suit yourself! Sort out your own holiday! Don't show him that you have to wait for his say so to have a life, have a laugh and a break!

If you allow his lack of drive to kill off your life, it'll be a tragedy. What will it teach your DC?

Go and have fun! FGS! Where would you LIKE to go?

I often go away with out the OH (he owns his own company and never takes time off work!!) usually for long weekends but sometimes for longer. I usually go with a friend and her daughter and we all really enjoy it. In fact we are going away in 2 week for a week - cant wait!!

Book it tomorrow - give your kids some extra memories

i am doing this in August!

dp WILL come with us, but it's always under duress and he spoiled our holiday in Spain last year and part of one this year to Devon by moaning continuously about how stressful it is, how he always has to watch the children (well duh!), how he hates the sun, hates the beach, hates hcildren's activities... ad infinitum

so, i have realised there is no point making him come along just to make the rest of us misearable and i have booked a cottage in Norfolk for the end of August

am actually shittoing myself as you can see from my thread here

If he doesn't want to go on holiday but you and the DCs do then of course you should go without him. That way everyone is happy - you and DC get a holiday without him moaning all the way through it, he gets time to sit on his uninteresting arse in front of the telly at home and pick his nose and wank all day if he wants to.
Its a win-win.

I'm not alone! Well I knew that already because my Dad has been the same for the last 30 years bless him, and my mum says you get used to it..

It's good (well, not good, but you know what I mean) to see that couples can go on separate holidays even though they get on ok otherwise. I don't want to split up with Dh, I just want a more exciting life. Not canoeing up the Amazon type exciting, a week in a cottage in another part of the country would do!

I so understand everyone who said that even if their DP came on holiday he'd spend all his time complaining. DH has done this on the very rare occasions all four of us have been out as a family.

It makes me sad tho, I take the DDs on loads of days out (zoo, aquarium, theme parks, walks in the forest, you name it, if it's within driving distance, we've been there!) and DH is never with us. I know going out with young children can be annoying, what with constantly dealing with whoever is hungry / thirsty / tired / cold / lost... but a lot of the time they are really happy to be out, and I wish DH came with us, just sometimes !

It was my birthday this week and he got me an iron and genuinely thinks it was a great present. So now I realise that we just don't have the same outlook on life. I can't keep doing what he wants all the time, because it isn't what I want, if that makes sense.

I believe you can book a holiday almost anywhere as long as you have a credit card and an internet connexion

thisisyesterday, just read your thread & will prob post similar if I go through with this holiday idea!

Hope you all have a great holiday

Have you talked this through with him, the fact that you and the children would really like a holiday, it would be nice if he came but he doesn't have to? Maybe his idea of heaven is a few days at home without the children underfoot (however fond of them one may be).

scouser i know what you mean
i often wish that DP could just enjoy being with us. I wish that seeing the children so happy and having fun would outweigh his dislike of sun/noise/busy places

sadly, after 5 years I have to accept that it isn't going to happen

thisisyesterday - sounds a little like my DH. It's like he's expecting a pre-kids holiday - sleeping late, boozy lunches, shaggind etc - and is disappointed by the reality. Our 2 are nearly 4yrs and 18 months. This year was a bit better as we went on holiday with childless friends who love our children, so the load was shared a bit.

I will be going to my mum's with the DC for a week in August and I see this as my 'real' holiday.

Of course you should go, but I'm finding this thread really depressing. Not getting involved in days out/holidays with the children is really appallingly selfish. Why are you all putting up with that? It means that on that holiday, you will get no break whatsoever from keeping an eye on the DCs, whereas your Hs will have a child-free time at home. When do you get the opportunity for child-free time, I wonder? Ever have a break with friends on your own, for example?

I assume this wasn't what any of you signed up for?

watch the film Shirley Valentine for a glimpse into the future.

It's sad that so many marriages are like this.

FWIW it was much the same with my exh.

Whenwill does have a point: do these unadventurous, unsociable men make up for it by pulling their weight domestically? Do you get child-free, chore free time to yourselves? If they are doing their fair share and are lovable in other ways (kind, funny, good in bed etc) then fair enough, just accept that they don't like holidays or parties, and go withoutthem. It isn't fair either for them to stop you socialising or, really, for you to drag them along to events that they really won't enjoy.

However, if they are just inert lumps who expect to be fed and laundered for and contribute nothing except their wages, do you really want to live the rest of your lives like this? When, if you separated you would get a financial contribution off them without having to clean up after them and cook for them all the time and put up with their moaning.

Whenwill - great point ....However my fella is a lovely caring man. Great dad, partner and friend. Although he finds it difficult taking time off work for holidays we do go away together and separately (with and without the kids). I go on holidays with out him because i choose to - not because i have to or because he doesnt want to go.

Why be with someone who doesn't want to take part in what is actually meant to be obe of the best parts of being a family?

I would be thinkning of leaving if my bloke was like this.

Go for it and have a good time!

I holiday all the time alone with the kids as I am a single parent. We have had much more fun together since he left us - I suppose that says it all really

My DH does a lot with the kids, but won't really stray from familiar territory! He takes them to the park across the road, or takes them out on their bikes on the cycle path 5 minutes away. He never wants me to come along with them, he says there's no point us both spending time minding the DDs ( scouser starts to wonder just how terrible her family / marriage is starting to sound!)

On a more positive note, we do share the shopping, cooking & chores quite evenly I think. He used to quite like being waited on, but then we had two children within 15 months & suddenly he found he had to fend for himself Seriously he does do his fair share of housework, even if he is quite passive-aggressive sometimes (but that's a whole other thread!) MIL & DH's sisters literally do wait hand & foot on the blokes of the house, so it's actually an improvement that Dh doesn't expect this from me anymore!

I never expected life to turn out like this, def not. My Dad will happily spend whole weekends moving from sofa to garden to bed with the occasional detour via the fridge... much as I love my Dad I did not want a DH like this. Dh wasn't like this when we first met, he's become this way since we had DC. How do you get someone to realise that spending time with your family can be fun? Am starting to wonder if maybe it's me he doesn't like spending time with

"I wish that seeing the children so happy and having fun would outweigh his dislike of sun/noise/busy places"

I really feel for you.. but holidays don't have to involve sun, noise or busy places - i hate them myself... we holiday in remote quiet campsites in scotland and we walk and picnic and pond dip and play pooh sticks and stuff.

Have you actually offered DH his choice of holiday? or do you really want to go somewhere sunny and 'child friendly' in the travel agent sense of the term.

the children love the beach and so i am taking them to Norfolk so we can do that.

I do know what you mean, and i've suggested Scotland before and he still isn't that keen. I'm more than willing to do his kind of holiday, but I also think we should get our kind now and again too.

we were supposed to be camping in Sweden/Denmark this year, but halfway through planning he throws a big strop over how stressful it is and how awful it all is etc etc

at which point I cancelled it all and booked me and the kids the cottage instead

I've tried loads of times asking Dh where he would like to go but he just says he doesn't know. Then if I suggest anywhere myself he tells me to stop going on about holidays because he isn't interested. I'm not that bothered where we go to be honest, it's just that at the mo my world seems to have shrunk to the small town where we live, and it would be so nice to pack a bag & go off on an adventure (read too much of the Famous Five when I was a kid lol)

I'd actually go anywhere he wanted if it meant he'd come with us & be cheerful and happy. In fact that's what I'll be doing next year, going to stay with the inlaws in their home country !

x posted with thisisyesterday, that sounds familiar planning something only to cancel. Only we've never got as far as planning to go camping abroad!

dp even said he'd rather not come with us, but he feels he has to otherwise people would think it was weird
i said i'd rather we were all happy, and i don't give a shit what other people think

i want to see the world, i want to go places, i don't want to sit in this town until i die. if he wants to taht's up to him, but i'm going and i'm willing to do it on my own!

Totally agree thisisyesterday. I will feel a bit guilty if I go away without Dh but I think I'll be waiting forever if I wait for him to want to travel etc. I got married quite young & have this constant nagging feeling that I'm letting life pass me by at the moment.

no brainer.
Go without him and have fun!

How must be awful to live like that, isn't that part of being married to enjoy each others company?