'AITA for telling my husband I'll go on vacation with my best friend if he's too busy with work?'
"AITA for telling my husband I'll go on vacation with the kids and my best friend if he's too busy with work?"
My husband and I have been married for over 4 years. Our son is 3 and our daughter is 16 months old. My husband has a busy schedule, due to both his day job and his business after that and on Saturdays (and sometimes if I'm ok with it, Sundays).
We had planned to go to Spain at the end of December for a couple of weeks. Like we've bought tickets, booked a hotel, talked about how we'll spend our two weeks there. Last weekend he asked if we could postpone our trip to the end of June. Like a literal six months after we're supposed to go.
I said no, it was so unfair that he was pulling this at the last minute. He asked me to understand that his business required him to suddenly change his plans, that it was important, that he'd been looking forward to this down time as much as I had. To provide more context this isn't the first time this has been an issue. His business hours had been an issue over the past 2 to 3 years.
He'd made changes and organized his hours better and his job had become wfh too, so we had struck a balance that I could be ok with. But his business hours again started infringing on our family time, and he'd been promoted to a managerial role at his day job so he was now going in to work on some days too.
I told him I'd been looking forward to this for so long, counting days till our vacation. I told him I'll be going regardless whether he wants to come or not, and if he doesn't want to come we can get a refund and my best friend can go in his place. Admittedly I was just lashing out I have no idea of the logistics of it. Yesterday I asked him again what his plan was.
He tried to show me messages from his clients to show how busy he was during that period, I told him I don't care. He gave me his word. According to him I'm being unreasonable. I wanted to know AITA here. Also, I don't even know if its logistically feasible and I don't want it to come to it, but would I be the AH if I actually went on vacation and took my best friend along?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Ordinary-Audience363 wrote:
You are talking about next month, right? Unless your airplane tickets are refundable, a postponement would be expensive. You're not allowed to transfer tickets to another person so your friend will have to buy herself a ticket.
Aside from that, it's a two-week vacation for you to relax a bit with the kids. It's better than sitting at home fuming about a missed holiday. I personally think HE is the one being unreasonable. There's no reason for you to stay home, is there? He is upset that he will miss out so if he can't go, then you can't. That's selfish of him. NTA.
OP responded:
I figured they wouldn't be transferable. I believe our tickets should be refundable I haven't checked because I hate thinking about it and I believe he'll come through.
Jakyland wrote:
INFO: what’s the financial situation? Does he need to be working a second job, and does he really need to please this client this much?
OP responded:
Our financial situation is well in the green. Tending to These clients during those two weeks won't make or break us.
Bitter_grass_6137 wrote:
I had a similar situation when our boys were toddlers. I wanted to travel to see my parents that were an 8 hr drive away. He wouldn't commit. Being a farmer's wife has its uncertainties. I went ahead and washed clothes, cleaned the house and started packing. I said I'm going and hope you will too. Somehow the night before my leaving he was all caught up with the field work.
Life-Yesterday4426 wrote:
Although you say that he has done this before I think you should let him explain in detail why he can’t go. Is he the sole financial provider for your family and will your finances suffer if he loses clients or loses his job?
Does he feel that his family’s future depends on his commitment to his career? However if his intentions are to simply better himself and his career then he is the AH for neglecting his family responsibilities.
Tough_Tumbleweed_404 wrote:
When running your business, it is up to you to make decisions based on your values. Do I value only money and growth or do I sacrifice some of that to maintain healthy balance with my relationships/family?
This is an intentional decision to make, and the several instances you mentioned of it coming up say that either he has already made that decision and is prioritizing business over family and leading you along, or bad at boundary maintenance and saying no when clients want stuff done.
Maintaining boundaries can be hard, but once you enforce them consistently, clients will either get it and work around a December vacation or you will lose a client, which will be a monetary hit but you can then gain new clients that will understand and respect the boundaries.
You are NTA. He has made his choice to either prioritize work, or not defend family time. If you can afford it, you should definitely go in Dec with friend or otherwise. If I was to bail on my gf last minute I’d be like “I’m so sorry I absolutely can’t go anymore for X reasons, but I’d rather you go, I don’t want you punished for me messing up like this!”
Archivist-exe wrote:
NTA - how's he going to feel when both the kids have grown up and he kept rescheduling time with them? When he misses important games and memories? When they stop calling him because he wasn't around anyway? No job that's worth having would even have it a possibility that you'd need to be rescheduling a LONG planned vacation.