Husband booked lads' holiday over daughter's birthday festival weekend

[JDIMum]

Looking for some advice please. My daughter age 8 is a huge Nathan Evans fan - Scottish singer for those of you not familiar. He is playing at a family festival in Edinburgh in August. Friends of ours are going with their children and making a weekend of it so we (my husband & our 3 kids age 11,8,6)thought we’d book to go as part of my daughter’s 9th birthday. Tickets were bought in January, accommodation sorted & paid for - we are staying at glamping pods where our friends are too.
Now my husband goes away with his friends once a year - they have a betting club together and they bet on the football each week - any wins they get the money goes in the pot for the holiday. At the weekend there my husband said they’d booked their betting club holiday. Fly on 19th August & back on 23rd. Straight away I said the festival is 21st-23rd???? Now my husband is super forgetful like really bad he never remembers dates for anything so has clearly forgot this was booked. I am absolutely fuming. I would never book a holiday without running dates past him - not to get his permission but just to let him know! First he’s mentioned it was the weekend & apparently it’s been booked for a few weeks???? Wtf? I said to him if he’d mentioned the dates I could have reminded him about the festival. I’ve since not spoken to him in 2 days. I’m so annoyed. He turned it back on me saying ‘I clearly don’t want him to go away with his friends & it’s always an issue’. I can assure you it’s never an issue!!!! I think it’s important for us both to go away with friends. We’ve been together 22 years & married for 12 I’ve never ever grudged him a boys holiday but I’m raging! I want him to either cancel his place or come back on the Friday night/Sat morning so he can still come with us! Am I being unreasonable????

Who has betting groups and 'lads holidays' when married years with young kids anyway?

If he is usually responsible and reliable I'd shrug it off but if he is generally a self absorbed arsehole I'd review the whole set up tbh. He clearly doesn't want to go camping with the kids, sadly.

The fact that it has been booked for a few weeks and he has only just told you, clearly he knew about the clash and wanted to wait until it was too late for him to cancel. The turning it on you also says he knew about the clash and is trying to guilty trip you into saying its ok. He wants you to stay ok its fine so he doesn't look like the bad guy.

This exact situation is why my and DH have a joint online calendar. Before children I got fed up of him booking things that clashed with already arranged plans. Neither of us book or confirm anything without checking the calendar or speaking to each other. Sometimes it sucks if you can't do something you wanted to do as the other has something booked but that's just life.

I'd leave it with him to make the choice. If he choses the lads time away without coming back in time for the festival, there would be some re-evaluating going on from my side. Be clear you are not saying its ok to miss the festival but don't give him ultimatums.

@JDIMum No you are not being unreasonable. He either re arranges , doesn’t go or books a flight home early .
Maybe in the future he will
grow up .
How would he be if you booked your holiday then and left him to parent alone this three days ? Would you be able to just forget about your dd/ family & friend plans?

Well, not really. She's welcome to have whatever reaction she'd like. And she IS well within her rights to blow up the family if that's what she chooses. I didn't say otherwise.

But while it is, certainly, shitty behaviour, it is also not the end of the world. Getting divorced over it, is really only something advised so feverishly on anonymous forums - as MN loves to pretend is the answer to every disagreement and easy as pie.

They'll be a lot worse than disappointed if their family splinters into pieces, though.

If you want to get away from the blame game and his shitty attitude of "you just don't want me to be happy" - because you could go round in circles with all that forever - you need to approach this constructively: How can we manage this situation so that it works (to some degree) for both of us?

And if neither of you will bend at all, with him 100% determined to go on his lads weekend and you 100% determined that he doesn't .... that's when you'll really have a problem.

The OP is planning a holiday in September with the girls. "Just the same as if I was booking a girls holiday (which I have in September) I would double check with him he was ok to take time off work for childcare etc"

My dad and his friends actually did a betting group in order to afford a trip to see the Ashes in Australia. The difference was that they did this over 14yrs and the Australia trip was the only trip they ever saved up for and took.

Agree though. Her husband just gives the vibe of being a bad egg for a lot of reasons.

I don’t think this is just fine - how the hell are you getting that from my post?

But it’s the woman’s fault if that happens, right?

Duplicate post

Wow. If you are trying to sound reasonable, great, but if my DH demonstrated we were bottom of the pile, it wouldn’t cause divorce, but it would impact my decisions from there on. I’d not feel the same about him, I’d never prioritise him again, it’s the beginning of the end.

You have explained the situation. He has choices, if he chooses his friends over his family, then you’ll have to accept that. Perhaps it’s a lesson learnt and he’ll change going forward.

You’ll have a grand time with your DD. You’ll also have a grand time when you book your trip away for 5 days to reset.

He doesn’t get it OP because all he’s thinking about is himself and what he wants. Let’s face it he would prefer to go on a lads weekend than away with his family. He doesn’t care that your children will be disappointed nor that you’ll now have the additional stress of looking after 3 children on your own and actually that your friends will feel they’ll have to help out more as you’re on your own.

The problem you now have though is that if he cancels the festival will potentially be overshadowed and spoilt by this. Is he the type to sulk?

@JDIMum anything that is booked here goes on the wall planner in the kitchen and if it affects us all goes on the family Google calendar. Of course, you do actually have to remember to look at it first..

I guess being charitable he's gone 'well we're away for dd's birthday so I can't go then, couple of weeks later should be ok' and forgotten/not realised the festival isn't actually the same weekend as her birthday.

Nothing wrong with asking him to come back early but I'd be leaving it up to him to sort. I'm afraid I do think not speaking to him at all for 2 days plus is ott though, however pissed off you are. Can't be great for the kids.

Obviously he has fucked up. She'll point this out to him, of course , but if they get caught in an endless spiral of blame and counter-blame, where will it get them? It certainly won't help her DCs. She needs to think constructively, for their sake.

But it never had to be one or the other, did it? He could have told his friends that that weekend was no good for him when they were discussing dates, so they could have looked for an alternative. And he could still volunteer to come back early.

Plus, if you had already booked something that is important to your child, surely you would put that first anyway rather than just junk it because the opportunity of a girls' weekend away (that you do every year anyway) had popped up?

I agree. Not having the help with the 3 kids would bother me. Hopefully, the good friends that are going will somewhat make up for his absence.

Because she can only control her attitude, not his. He can change his plans, of course he can - but it's not sounding likely.

She can choose to make as much fuss as she likes, nothing stopping her, no guilt. She'd be totally justified.

She's also welcome to go to a solicitors this afternoon and get the ball rolling for divorce. Nothing stopping her.

Any way her husband could be expected to do some constructive family oriented thinking in this world view.

You seem to be strangely fixated on the fact that the ‘trip has been booked’. Both trips have now been booked.

I don't see what's strange about it. The simple fact is that the family trip was booked first, and quite a long time ago at that. Surely it's a fairly basic rule that the first booking always has priority? Especially when he could have factored that in when the lads were choosing a date for their get together? For instance, we always tell children that the birthday party invitation they accepted first comes first, even if they subsequently get an invitation for the same day for something that looks better.

There’s no point throwing around hyperbole such as ‘end of the world’ (again, another phrase to make a woman feel as if she is overreacting).

No one said it was ‘the end of the world’. What it actually is is a flagrantly selfish act. In fact a series of flagrantly selfish acts at every point along the way: claiming to not be able to diary manage, not speaking to your spouse first, reacting defensively, blaming your spouse’s reaction for the problem. Which, if repeated, very seriously will erode any marriage.

So what then? If you treat every incident as ‘not the end of the world’ then every ‘not the end of the world’ builds to becoming actually quite an intolerable life. And then the when one incident actually does push you over the edge … all her fault – because it was just one thing that ‘wasn’t the end of the world’.

I didn’t personally suggest divorce. I do suggest letting the husband know that he if chooses to go on the ‘lads’ trip then he’s not welcome home afterwards. Ball’s in his court. Is it the end of the world for him? Or can he suck it up as he is expecting his wife and children to?

A huge pattern again of some women having zero expectations of men and huge expectations from women on this thread. Just a lot of hand wringing about how silly the man was but that it is the OPs duty to carry this. It is so utterly depressing how low many women’s expectations of men are.

I agree. I would definitely tell my friends that I already have plans that weekend and ask them if we move it to another weekend.

OP, is your husband aware that you've been crying and really upset about this? If he cares about you that should in itself bother him.

Hopefully he’ll do the right thing and put your daughter first. Poor parent if he doesn’t. He can do a lads trip any time but family birthdays and family holidays take priority.