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????

Surely he had already booked time off work for your trip so how could he forget about it, surely he would've needed to check his work diary for his lads trip?

He absolutely should've checked dates, if you don't think it was done maliciously, then just take your children to the festival and have fun with them by yourself. What's the sense in making him cancel and spending the weekend miserable, possibly bringing the atmosphere down there.

So the OPs choice is to accept he’s going or put her foot down and put up with him spoiling the weekend anyway? What a life

Hi OP, this would usually be me, I’m super forgetful and my DH is not. We do have a family calender app but I have on many times not put things in and then dropped the ball at the last moment!

However, for me this situation is an easy resolve - I’d cancel my friends trip and come on the family trip. Wouldn’t be a difficult decision to make.

In your shoes, I’d say to DH it’s his error, it’s up to him to choose which one he misses. He has to be happy with the one he’s choosing and enjoy it either way.

I wonder if he’s trying to make out you’re the bad guy so you in effect make the hard decision for him? I’d just tell him it’s his mess, his decision to make, and his consequences.

I'd be annoyed.

No. You're not supposed to be ok with that but at least you would know where you (and your kids) stand on his list of priorities. That is very useful information to have. Do you want to be in a relationship with a man who only choses family when you force his hand?

The prior commitment should have taken preference. He will be disappointed but it will teach him to check dates next time. I suspect it was deliberate as the family festival sounds awful

Sorry if someone has already replied. But a lads holiday? How old is he ?
I would expect someone to quit all of that sort of thing once they settle down.
Else you get a man of 30 + behaving like a 17 year old.

Cried for two days? Get a grip.

Everyone has a phone with a calendar app these days. When you both look to book something, it takes 5 mins to sit down and for both to put it in their calendars.

Or just use a shared Google calendar.
Or an old-fashioned hang it on the wall family calendar.

DH and I cross-check what we’re doing every couple of days (mainly to ease meal planning). It’s not hard.

I agree, the family festival does sound awful. I wonder if the family trip was OP's idea and he went along with it but actually hated the idea of going.

I don't believe he forgot the dates.
If it's a big group it was probably difficult to find a time to suit everyone and he thought it wouldn't matter if he double-booked because you could go to the festival with your friends and children anyway.
Now he's turning it back on you claiming "it's always an issue".
He should cancel it, but he won't because he booked it knowing full well he had something on.
And even if he did actually "forget" the dates, he surely hadn't forgotten that the festival was on and he could have messaged you to check, looked in his calendar or googled the festival, before agreeing to book with his friends.

I shouldn't but I'm laughing my ass off at this, it makes it doubly funny that it's in reply to someone saying the same thing - absolutely savage 😂

If they remake "Mean Girls" the poster needs a picture of you two 😂

HE needs to think constructively because he’s the one that has fucked up.

HE needs to not induce a spiral of blame by not blaming her reaction to HIS fuck up.

It’s his hill to die on at the end of the day. He fucked up, there are consequences to fucking up – it’s as simple as that.

It's staying in "glamping pods". No idea what they are but it sounds bloody awful.

It’s kind of irrelevant if he thought the festival sounds shit - he agreed to it. And sometimes as parents we do things we may not choose to do otherwise to give our kids the experiences they benefit from

Did he actually agree to it? Or just went along with it when he should have said right away he wasn't keen on it. Better to say something sooner before the plans are made.

It's pretty selfish of him OP, you've said yourself he never misses his annual lads holiday so it's not like you stop him from doing stuff with his friends. He knew you'd got a family trip booked and now he's backing out leaving you to take three kids away to this festival by yourself. That's pretty unfair of him and it would've made more sense if he'd booked his annual holiday either before or after your planned family weekend away

I know. It’s not just the clash of dates or the having to everything yourself, it’s the lack of consideration and putting others first that wears you down after a while.

I don’t know OP, I’m hoping it’s a one off. In my relationship the prioritising of the mates is a big driving factor in our getting divorced. I’m hoping for you it’s just an isolated incident and he’ll care about not upsetting you going forward. I also don’t like him turning it around onto you. I would keep an eye on both of these things as they’re corrosive to relationships and to your self esteem over time.

It doesn’t really matter if he didn’t say anything before plans were made. It’s a dick move to agree to something you don’t want to do and then arrange something else to get out of it. If that’s what happened - he might love festivals for all we know

theres no scenario where he’s coming out of this looking reasonable

I agree. That's why he should have said something right away if he wasn't keen on this family holiday.

Exactly! His child comes first. Not out of duty but as a joy! If not, why not?

Not that this will help your issue now but we have a shared calendar online/on our phones - everything goes in there. Has been invaluable in stopping either of us from double booking and gives an overview of weeks/months ahead.

Lots of men have lads nights out when they’re single and then settle down to family life. They don’t actually say to you, oh we’re going to always put our mates first. People can hide who they are you know.

"Oh that's a shame, but don't worry, Steve from work can make it so I'll take him instead. It's about time I introduced him to the kids anyway. Have a lovely time."

😂

If I'd only done things I was keen on my dc would have pretty shit birthdays.