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????

WTAF?!
Completely disagree @Idratherhaveafishsupper

He's double booked over a family holiday/ birthday trip for a holiday for himself - he's a dick.

His lads lads lads trip does not usurp a family holiday/ birthday treat that has been booked for months.

Personally I would think it would be better if he had booked his lads lads lads trip over the DC's actual birthday. Parenting 3 DC at a festival will be hard work.

He needs to sort this out and come home early

I'd just be saying to him "right DH. Let's be clear. I've never stopped you from your lads holiday over the years. So it's not that I don't want you to do go. It's that this clashes with the prebooked festival holiday. Clearly you've messed up. What is your plan and how are you going to resolve this?"

Make it his problem and ask him for his thinking and make him communicate to kids and others if he misses even any of the festival.

No sympathy for “I don’t remember dates”. So you check and you keep a diary. Not going on the boys holiday and losing the money is going to help him remember to check in future

Your husband sounds like a general tosser for so many reasons here. Personally I’d tell him that if he chooses the ‘lads’ (cringe), then not to bother coming home again.

Yes!
‘Wife points’
Has to be a wind up -surely
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

Did you ask him why he didn't check with you? If this is the only time he hasn't checked then it looks like it may be deliberate and he did remember. Especially as at other times he has cut holidays short and come back early. I'd be raging.

Completely this.

Absolutely. I’d be ‘it’s lucky this happened to give you the kick up the bum you needed to start taking some adult responsibility for remembering some fucking dates yourself, now you know your personal holidays get canceled when you fuck it up.’

No you don’t have to be ok with that.

Maybe it will tip you over the edge into divorce. Or maybe you’ll be mad and then get over it. Both are completely your decision.

Ooh, did he pat you on your head and give you a lollipop too?

This is the type of man that brings back more than Covid from a lads lads lads holiday.

Urgh!
This is not 'cool' though.
There's a difference between agreeing something in advance and dumping the work of looking after 3 kids on your spouse without prior agreement.
It's his daughter's birthday celebration and a commitment he's made to her, his wife and their friends. Choosing to go on a lads holiday instead makes him a piece of shit and any wife who puts up with that isn't being cool, she's being a doormat!

Oh for goodness sake. I think you are blowing it out of all proportion. It was an oversight on his part. I can see that it will make things a bit inconvenient for you but you will have friends there on your weekend away, and their kids presumably, so its not like it will be just be you and kids that he is leaving alone.

That said, he has acted shitty by turning it back on you when he should be apologetic and finding ways to make it up to you. But I agree with PPs who say that you should let him choose and if he chooses the lads break, he needs to find a way to make it up to his family at a later date. Don't take it so hard or blow it up into something that it isn't.

The fact that he even booked without checking the dates with you?? Especially when he know he’s bad with dates? It’s genuinely unthinkable to me. I would be incredibly upset by.

My DH and I always check with each other before booking major events and similar commitments. We’re not checking whether we’re „allowed“ to go, we‘re checking that the date works for both of us.

edit: and turning it back on you? That’s just adding insult to injury!

one thing I would however want to emphasise: please don’t tell your DD in a manner that suggests she should be upset about this, that her father didn’t care etc. „breeze“ over it, focus on the positives and let her enjoy her birthday.

I think choosing this battle would be a good decision, with a husband who priorities himself over his family.

he can do his trip any time in the year, when he didn’t already commit to his family’s trip.

it’s disrespectful to his family and their friends.

Absolutely. If you don’t choose this battle then you’ve accepted the dc and you will never matter.

I bet he remembers important dates at work by keeping a diary

he fucked up and his solution was to prioritise himself

Does the man not use a diary or calendar? How does he manage the rest of his life?
He is being appallingly irresponsible and blaming you is the icing on the cake.
FWIW , I have a very forgetful DH these days and I put things in his phone calendar as soon as they are arranged and remind him to check it every day or two. He can't help his memory but I suspect that your DH is deliberately refusing responsibility for family stuff. If not, it might be easier for you to manage his calendar than leaving it to him.

I don‘t necessarily disagree (edit: with the sentiment behind your post). But I am glad that this poster didn’t suggest to her DD that she should be sad.

my DF missed my… 8th? 9th? Birthday as well. Which obviously stung but my mother made sure that I knew that he didn’t prioritise me and that this was a really bad thing.

so my father missing my birthday is pretty much the one thing I still remember from that day.
Not the other people who loved me and chose to attend. Not the cake my grandmother must have baked (seeing as she baked all my birthday cakes). So how did that benefit me?

It sounds paradoxical but that user‘s approach of just continuing with business as usual and glossing over his absence might have been the best solution for her DD.

She can’t change her DH‘s priorities. But she can shield her DC from feeling second best and unwanted…

I can't believe how many people suggest cutting your DH some slack. I mean, what if you had also randomly booked a trip away with friends over the same weekend without checking the dates with him? Would the kids be going to the festival by themselves?

I can't understand the messages that say one missed weekend won't irrevocably ruin his relationship with his daughter, and she can manage etc. as though a missed lads holiday will irrevocably ruin his life. The 8 year old can suck it up, the wife can deal with the extra work but Jesus Christ he can't miss an annual event with the lads! Different if it was going to the World Cup and he came to her first, different if they never go away and these dates are set in stone and he came to her first. But he didn't.

Actually this whole situation brings us back to the same old same old….. default parenting.

He didn’t make any effort to check family plans. Nor to check your plans. He has 100% assumed that you are around that weekend with no plans of your own in order to parent the children.

And as it turns out there are plans that included him he expects you to default parent anyway.

This is the sort of stuff that ends relationships, because it’s a fundamental inequality between men and women and he is upholding it.

If it’s not this OP, then he knew about the festival and has deliberately decided to book anyway.

Neither represent a healthy relationship, and this is likely why you’re so upset. As I would be too.

Logistically I could not imagine 3 kids on my own at a festival

Is there anyone else who could go with you? A mum, sister, pal?

He will moan the whole to time so if it was me I would put him on the plane and go with someone who wanted to be with me and the kids.

You have longer to decide on wider implications but I would be filling his spot with someone who cares about me and the kids

I think if you take on the role of parenting him in regards to diary planning and as enforcer that’s bad news for your marriage. He is an equal partner so let him choose and deal with all the fall out from your daughter and judgement from the group you are going with. Step away and then every thing goes back to him let him deal with all the crap that goes with making shitty choices. Don’t smooth the path for him just let him explain his choices and priorities to everyone.