Please help me resolve this disagreement over holidays

[Kitsilano]

My DH and I are incredibly lucky enough to have been able to buy a small apartment in Europe last Spring. It was something we both wanted to do and we are both very happy about it. He works very long hours in this country, I work and study very part time and flexibly. I grew up not in the UK (the apartment is where I spent a part of my childhood) and find the weather here, especially in recent years, very difficult to cope with - have suffered depression and been on anti-ds - often comes on in the winter months. If it weren't for the limitations of my husband's job I would be pushing very hard for us to try to move to somewhere with a better climate.

We have 2 DDs who are at school (youngest just started) and they have 8 week summer holidays. Last summer I spent a total of 6 weeks in the new apartment with the kids (where the weather is lovely, there are local swimming pools, mountain hikes etc) and we had an amazing time. My DH came for 3 of those weeks and several weekends commuted to see us.

It seemed great to me (though I realised it obviously wasn't as ideal for him) and I was assuming this would be the pattern going forward.

But now he is saying it was hellish for him and he really isn't happy about us going there without him for an extended period (we haven't discussed exact timings). We seem to be really on opposite sides on this point. My point of view is that he doesn't get home until the kids are in bed anyway so all he is missing is a couple of hours adult company a day for a few weeks, whereas he wants me to stay in rainy England, finding ways to entertain the kids over the long summer break - when we have an alternative that we are already paying a mortgage on....

Am I being really selfish? I can see where he is coming from, that it's not ideal for him and I realise how lucky I am and that I am getting the better end of this situation. But it seems silly to not use the place when it makes me and the kids so happy to be there. It's only a matter of a few weeks. And in a way I see this as one of the perks of my not going back to work properly after the kids - I have the freedom to travel during the holidays.

I know this is a problem I am lucky to have but my husband and I are increasingly at loggerheads about it and I really would appreciate an outside perspective.

I can't see the problem with sending your kids and P off for the summer holidays to your holiday apartment. I really can't. I'd love the idea of them getting some sun and having a great time. I'd be fine on my own and visiting when I could. I'd feel selfish denying them the opportunity, but I genuinely wouldn't mind at all.

I would be totally fine flying on my own with the kids. But the costs for 3 of us going back and forth do stack up very quickly into £1000's of pounds so it doesn't seem to be the most sensible option.

When we are all away our long term babysitter house sits to look after the cats so we dont have to put them in cattery and so there is someone in the house for security.

I wouldn't say my DH is generally an anxious person - but he does have a few "flash points" and to be fair houses in this area are burgled a lot. The 3 houses on either side of us have also been burgled in the last 3 years, including next door waking up with the burglars actually in their bedroom. So it's not an entirely irrational fear.

My suggestion wasn't for you all to be flying back and forth though.

I suggested that you and the kids flew out there 4-5 days before your husband - you then had 3 weeks as a family of 4 - and then you returned with the kids 4-5 days after he flew back. Are the costs of that prohibitive, bearing in mind you wouldn't have the costs of your husband's previous weekend flight popovers and the long drives you're all doing now must also cost a lot of money?