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????

You’ve told him what you want and why ( though you shouldn’t have to explain the glaringly obvious) I’d say no more and I’d let him decide and let him explain to his daughter why he isn’t coming - at least then it’s all on him and you can be pretty clear where his priorities lie.
If he did decide to go with his mates, I think that may be a deal breaker for me and I’d be planning a long term exit strategy.

He is fucking up big time.

Setting aside the hurt he's causing his family - does anybody really think his mates will be all 'of course you should have blown off your daughter's birthday treat'? I suspect at least one of these 'lads' will point out that if he's told them about the plans made for that particular weekend, they'd simply have chosen different dates for their weekend.

The OP is reevaluating him. I suspect his friends may do too.

He sounds shit and I am on your side but would you really threaten divorce on a single issue?

By saying " 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." Isn't saying he's not welcome home suggesting, at the very least, a separation—which is often followed by divorce?

Sounds like selective memory loss.

No, it’s letting the wrongdoer know what you will accept in a relationship and what you won’t. Ball is in his court. If he chooses to go, he has also chosen the consequence.

Is it the end of the world if he doesn’t go?

Does this level of entitlement and selfishness and the reaction to causing all of this typically only show up once? People typically behave with fairly predicable patterns, that is the way of the human mind, and if this is representative of the husband’s patterns there is a big problem. No one could sack of a marriage on one event but they could off the back of these types of patterns.

He's already made the choice!

OP if by any chance he doesn't go he will be stroppy and resentful.

He's shown you how little regard he has for your family. You just need to decide what to do about it in the long run.

He's a very bad egg to be saying you always have an issue with him going away when you don't. He's trying to gaslight you.

I hope he has hugely redeeming features otherwise I'd be questioning everything.

I think he did this on purpose tbh. He knew he was booking across an existing date (presumably when he went to book time of work for his friends trip, and saw it already booked as vacation [for the birthday festival] it was a bit of a clue!)

Yes, and which approach is more likely to achieve that outcome - raging at him, or saying "let's try to sort this out"?

Yeah this would piss me off massively too. My husband and I regularly run dates by each other, we still do it now even though are kids are all grown up. My husband although keeps his own diary he tends to forget what he has and hasn’t told me about so I write everything down in my own diary.

Now you are faced with the festival weekend being totally different to the type of weekend you had envisioned. I’m sure you’re worried it will be more stressful and less relaxing for you but if your husband doesn’t step up and you do end up going by yourself I’m sure you will have a lovely time and enjoy yourself more than you think.

I would let him wallow. Let him feel guilty on his own. I wouldn’t mention it to him again and see what he chooses to do on his own. Then you can decide how you feel about him and his actions. There’s no rush at all if he goes and you can’t forgive him doesn’t mean to have to straight up divorce him.

Ultimately, if he doesn’t say ‘I was an idiot and I was angry at myself and took it out on you of course I will fulfil the commitment I made first’ then it’s going to damage the marriage.

everyone talking about being a cool wife and him being an adult - great - but his choice will have consequences and breed resentment

When you told your husband that the festival, which was booked in January, clashed with his lads holiday, what was his reaction? A person who had genuinely forgotten the dates, would be mortified at their mistakes. They'd be apologising, seeing if they could rearrange the lads holiday or looking into the possibility of coming back early from it.

Your husband doesn't appear to be mortified, he hasn't apologised and hasn't tried to rearrange. In fact all he's done is tell you that you never want him to go on his lad's holiday.

To me, that's not a man who made a genuine mistake. I'd hazard a guess that those dates were the only dates all his friends could make. Instead of saying he couldn't go, because he didn't want to be the only one who couldn't and potentially miss out, he went along with it. He never checked the dates with you, because he knew he couldn't go. Instead, he's waited several weeks to tell you, because he's hoping you'll say 'Oh dear what a shame, don't worry dear, you go on your lads holiday, whilst I parent our 3 children on my own at a festival'.

You need to say to your husband, that he needs to decide who is more important, his family (his daughter who's birthday treat this is for) or his friends.

It's his reaction to his fuck up that's the marriage ending trigger. Not the 'lad's' holiday. He has instantly turned it back on the OP rather than accepted his fuck up and worked to find a solution. This is what tells you the most about the man.

OP - how does he usually communicate? Is he often emotionally immature and you have to bend and twist to make things nice? The measure of someone is not how they react on a good day, but how they react on a bad day. I can see why you are so upset. I really hope he wakes up today and realises what a monumental fucker he has been. Sending you strength as you are obviously feeling very emotionally raw from this and extremely let down. It's very hurtful.

everyone was very impressed with me for managing the birthday party on my own plus I got major wife points for being cool about it.

Did you get a nice pat on the head as well?

Did you miss the part where I said that he was an idiot? Do you actually think knowing I feel that way I will defend his position?

The fact that I can acknowlwege he may have feelings that differs to op doesnt automatically mean I will agree with them.

However op needs to communicate and not use silence as a way to communicate.

Do you not have a shared family diary of some sort? We use Outlook where we both put in events and then "invite" the other to either attend or just be aware so that they can cover other things. If he's so forgetful, surely something like that needs to be done, not just for things like this, but for other, everyday things.

It's shocking he's turning this on to you @JDIMum .
Do you have a friend you can take to help out?

Shared diary is a great idea @SylvanMoon

All the cool posters are deliberately totally ignoring how hard, near on impossible it will to attend a festival will be with 3 kids on your own. I wouldn’t go OP, my friend took 2 to a festival on her own and one got lost. They had to stop the music and everything to find him and the police were called, - which meant social services had to be informed.
It’s too hard.

I can’t actually believe some of the responses to this. OP, I would be FUMING! And that’s putting it mildly tbh. It’s absolutely not ok. My other half is the same, never writes anything down date wise is a general pain in the arse with it but I think something this organised, planned and paid for (the festival) would be in the back of his mind date wise. The turning it round on you is a classic to try and get out of his fuck up.

You are 10000% valid in the way you feel, it’s an absolute disgrace! My partner has been away for Father’s Day 2 years in a row (last year and away this year) for stag do’s so he had minimal input on the dates and I’m still not best pleased, so if he did something like this I would be absolutely foul!

He needs to either change the dates or cancel with his mates. Embarrassing if not. There comes a point where unfortunately the men need to grow up!

Of course there's a back story. OP has explained how her husband is a 'nightmare for being forgetful'. Translation, he's like having an extra child and treats her like she's his PA. I guarantee this won't be an isolated incident, it'll be one more thing in a long line of similar occurences. Hence why some posters think OP's reaction is dramatic - because she's not just pissed off about this incident, this is basically the last straw.

Men like this give me such massive ick. Like others have said, I bet he manages to hold down a job and doesn't 'forget' important things there. And this is the infuriating thing. It's not that he can't help it. He does it because he can, because he knows he can get away with it and he doesn't care enough that his shitty 'forgetfulness' negatively impacts his family. It's just complete and utter selfisness.

OP, if he explained the situation to his friends and offered to take on any charges incurred by the airline/hotel for changing the dates of their 4 day trip, would they agree to re-booking for a later date? I would have thought that most people would understand and try to help.

That way, he could go to the festival with you and go away with his friends later in August.

It will cost him money to rebook, but it would be the simplest way to resolve a difficult situation.

He’s fake forgotten so that he can go on the lads trip and then come back and chill at home without OP and the kids. He never wanted to go to the festival IMO. And not telling OP for several weeks after booking? Who does that? Common courtesy would be-we are thinking of booking the lads trip for these dates, what do you think? Not hide it for a few weeks until time pushes him to say something.

He's so out of line, he knows it, so he's putting the blame on your reaction rather than man up and admit it.