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????

It's more important what you're going to do in this situation.. I seriously think this could end my relationship.. Or you have to except the choice he makes otherwise it'll end eventually because the bickering will escalate

Id be full on furious with dh is this situation. Booking a holiday without running dates past me. Just assuming I'm fine running solo with the kids while he's off getting pissed.

It just shows a lack of consideration I'd find really unattractive.

We really only have this one incident to go on so your imaginings are unhelpful.

As I've stated, if you would initiate divorce proceedings over this with all that that entails then that is perfectly within your right.

He’s a dick for fucking this up
He’s a bigger dick for not fixing it and prioritising the family holiday / daughter
He’s the biggest dick for trying to find fault with you and accusing you of not supporting his lads jolly

'Telling him' anything is throwing your weight around. You might feel it's justified, but the fact still remains. You don't get to order other people around.

Either he will cancel the holiday or he won't, but you can't strongarm someone in to doing what you want. If he still chooses to go with the lads OP will have to decide what to do with that.

MN loves to issue divorce proceedings vicariously so these replies don't really surprise me.

YANBU
He can go on the holiday. Fine. However, I'm willing to bet if he forgot this, he relies on you being his personal calander keeper for everything... so that stops immediately. No reminders about appointments, birthdays, holidays... he wants to try and darvo this into you being controlling, give him back full control, sit back, make popcorn.

I would be so angry. Because either the option is to cancel and let everyone down, your daugbter, friends etc.. or brave a festival with three kids, which personally for safety reasons I wouldn't want to do. Glamping pods and bathrooms are going to be a nightmare, keeping an eye on them, if the youngest gets tired and the eldest wants to stay up.. you are stuck in a glamping pod by yourself with three kids. Your friends will then have to help out and spend less time with their DCs.
Hes been really selfish and stupid and now is being an arse about it.
I would be fuming and it would be a major notch on the post of how many selfish things are you going to do before I finally leave as I might as well do it all by myself.

If he decided he wants to break a promise and go on his lads holiday that’s fine - no she can’t force him to change his mind and keep his promise

but if you break promises you should expect consequences - from a reduction in the help and support you give him to a changing of the locks

he is a grown man - makes his own choices and faces the consequences

Agree-not important enough to remember or not important enough to in the first place

Listen to

I’d be fuming OP. Please tell us he’s had the good sense to apologise by now.

You book a similar weekend away for you. That is the price. Plus he tells your daughter - in your presence - that he is going away with friends instead of the festival.

And insist on a shared calendar.

The really sad thing is that this festival has the potential to be a core memory for your daughter and possibly all the kids. The time you went away and saw her favourite artist and camped as a family etc etc. the first time she went to a concert - perhaps first of many.

it’s kind of sad he doesn’t want to be part of that tbh

and you’re supposed to be a team

How many mums have done this? Zero! It's not good enough for him to "forget". My DC's whole bday month im mindful not to book stuff in as we have family over etc on various weekends. He either knew or doesn't care enough to remember

I feel like I'm in some parallel universe on MN sometimes. Why are we all desperate for cool wife points.

Why should op have to minimise how she feels, not choose this hill to die on, not make him choose etc and being criticised for not modelling healthy relationships because she's been upset and ignored him for two days!.

I can completely see why she's been crying. None of this is her making, she made plans with him 6 months ago with friends and their families and DH agreed.

DH then books something either accidentally which shows he has zero consideration towards them as a family, or more than likely went along with majority vote and didn't want to miss out so pretended to forget, hoping Op would breezily go "no problems I'll take the kids on my own". When she didn't, instead of sorting it, he blamed Op and turned it on her. How is this her choosing a hill to die on, if anyone is it's him. He's choosing to prioritise his mates holiday over his wife and family. He's choosing the bloody hill, and Op is reacting accordingly. And if people want Op to model healthy relationships maybe looking more closely at his behaviour rather than expecting Op to put up and shut up.
He should be apologising, looking into how he can fix it, cancel or whatever and instead he's whining about op being a big meany and not wanting him to go away because he wants his own way and is deflecting as it didn't go how he wanted it to.

It's not about whether op can take three kids on her own to a festival. I'm sure she can. It's about him completely disregarding her, blaming her and then ignoring the fall out rather than apologise and sort it. And whether he likes that or not, that will carry an impact into his marriage, because that's not easy to come back from. And he's choosing that. Not Op. I'm sure if he'd have said "oh bloody hell, is it ok if I get back Friday night for it and meet you there" Op would have eyerolled and got on with it.

There are a number of issues here, but the main one is that the OP’s DH is not engaging to find a workable solution.

I recently did similar. I booked a long weekend abroad then realised I had previously bought event tickets for the night I was getting home, but I would now be too late to attend. My DP really wanted to go.

I discussed the pros and cons of booking an earlier flight home v selling the tickets v DP going alone, etc. with my DP and we came to an amicable agreement of how to proceed.

No sign of accommodating or considerate behaviour here so far. Hopefully her DH will still step up.

don’t take your daughter to the festival and explain why.

Almost rage bait like..

This. Plus he is the one who explains to your dd why he won’t be there to celebrate her birthday.

I hope your DH has apologised today.

I too would be livid as its just thoughtless. Not at all controlling on your side but he is definitely thoughtless and I too would struggle to be OK with that if DH didn't immediately apologise and try to sort something so he could do both or bow out of the boys holiday that came second. To me, that does not trump a pre booked family break.

He’s a twat. He needs to cancel, his own fault and next time he’ll be sure to check dates.

Why? Because I don't agree with you? Some people get very upset when that happens but other opinions are allowed.

Or is it because I'm suggesting that knee-jerk throwing divorce into every situation might be a bit over the top? Declaring 'I'd throw him out, I wouldn't stand for that, I'd lay down the law, I'd tell him how it is and he'd jump in line or I'd just leave and all will be rosy' on an anonymous forum when you're not the one that will have to deal with the fallout of that decision is grandstanding at best, and irresponsible.

If this is the straw that breaks the camel's back then that's the answer - no one can know the ins and outs of that but OP. But breaking down a marriage should probably take a little more thought and work than throwing all your toys out of the pram at once, on the 'advice' from the internet.

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all! This is a hill I would die on! It's a family festival booked for your daughter' birthday since January.

The family festival would take priority. It's his fault he's a lame arse who didn't check his dates. I'd be telling him to move the boys holiday or cancel going to it. His issue, not yours.
How disrespectful! Plus he is letting your daughter down.

@JDIMum Has he apologised yet, or is he digging his heels in and going with the lads regardless?