Anonymous wrote:Be constructive with your DH. Eight days is a long time flying solo with young kids. Can your mother help with childcare - his mother? Now that your Mom is paying can you afford a babysitter for a couple of hours over dinnertime / bedtime. Throw him a bone.

And get on top of the family finances....

Yes, I am hoping to find a constructive place for this discussion. Again, this trip isn't perfect in my mind either, but it is hard for me to be objective on it because I need to make a quick decision and convince him to be supportive or at least neutral to let me make a clear decision.

The kids are not that young and we have a part time nanny. The reason we are tracking finances is that DH is a spendthrift, and I am a saver. Again, we need to tweak cash flow, we are not broke or going broke, although he might believe it because we had big expenses in the spring for transportation and hotel for the family vacation and I have been trying to get him to focus on what he is spending.

Mom can't do childcare while I am gone on this trip.

8 days is a long time to be away from small kids. Can you make it shorter, like 5 days?

I would go and my DH would be supportive (though would probably grumble about the actual logistics.) I have in fact gone for almost 2 weeks a few years ago and was slated for another 2 week trip this year but other factors intervened to prevent that.

That said I also support DH on trips away with friends and this dynamic works out for us. Would love to have more trips just the 2 of us, but at this stage of life with childcare family or solo trips are far easier to arrange logistically than couples trips.

So can you talk with your DH to figure out what the real issue is? From assorted points in your post I sense a lot of unrelated resentment on both sides, and I'd bet large dollars that the unrelated resentment is influencing attitudes about this trip.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: This is not a question of living beyond our means, just beyond our cash flow.

Okay, that aside - you sound selfish and I think you're being ridiculous wanting to go given everything you laid out.

+1

I don't even know what that statement means. What is the difference between living beyond one's means and living beyond one's cash flow?

We sock a boatload into retirement. We have a ton of equity in our home. Our 15 year mortgage is our only debt. We are well asset-positive.

Be constructive with your DH. Eight days is a long time flying solo with young kids. Can your mother help with childcare - his mother? Now that your Mom is paying can you afford a babysitter for a couple of hours over dinnertime / bedtime. Throw him a bone.

And get on top of the family finances....

Go on the trip. Sounds like a once in a lifetime opportunity. I had a friend who went to Cuba and loved it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: This is not a question of living beyond our means, just beyond our cash flow.

Okay, that aside - you sound selfish and I think you're being ridiculous wanting to go given everything you laid out.

+1

I don't even know what that statement means. What is the difference between living beyond one's means and living beyond one's cash flow?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

OP here. The timing of this trip is actually excellent because DH is a teacher and will still be off school. It is not like my many work trips when I have to find early am child care so DH can actually get out the door for work.

Maybe this + your "many work trips" is just not the lifestyle your husband envisioned now that you have kids, but this trip is the breaking point for him and instead of talking about time apart, he's just focusing on this particular trip. Something to think about - guys aren't always good at digging to the root of the issue (some are, but many aren't). What is "many" work trips? How many nights a month are you away from your child? Adding 8 on top of that might be more than he wants for his family.

I take two trips of two weeks or so to Asia per year. He did mention those this morning as if he thinks I am having a good time on those trips. They are in fact painful. My trips cannot be during the summer, as a matter of course. I'd take him on one of those trips with me, and did once. But when I am in Asia, I am working all day and into the evenings. Last trip, I had one day between stops where, instead of seeing anything worth seeing, I slept. I took him with me once, but now he can't because his work schedule does not allow him to take a full week off work during the school year. A career choice on his part, btw, that cost me a full year of taking care of the kids full time while he was in grad school (days teaching, nights in class). And, btw, when I am away during the school year, he has no more chores than when I am not. He is responsible for bedtime routine on any given day, because I do mornings, and my parents do morning care when I travel. My parents are not an option for doing mornings, btw, for the Cuba trip, nor should they be if DH is not working.

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. How is that other moms seem to take girls trips? I know is not quite my situation, but I see other moms all the time heading to Jamaica or Vegas or some other such place and it appears to never be an issue with their spouse? How does one make this work in a marriage?

Financial issues aside, because quite frankly, with my mom giving me the money, it is no longer a financial decision. As for my mom being against it, she is anti-Castro, pro-embargo.

I do girl trips every 12-18 months with a group of friends. Our DH's aren't douchebags and have no problem handling the homefronts while we're away. I work OT and squirrel away money to make it happen, no hit is landed on family finances for this.
I think you're hoping that complete strangers on the internet to validate this trip and give you permission to go. Personally, it sounds like those 8 days would better be spent staying home and working on your marriage.
And I'm dying to know how the second poster picked up that it was Cuba you were wanting to go to?!

Do you and your husband have other conflicts or differences of opinion about the structure of your family life?

OP here. Let's just say I'd have the 8 days more than have covered in comp days.

I would love it if my husband would do something like this, and frankly, I'd bend over backwards to make it work. I'd regret I wouldn't get to go, but I'd suck it up. I surely wouldn't say he should miss the opportunity because I just didn't think he could take the time away from the family. Hell, I'd start saving money now so he could do something like this at the next opporunity, if I thought that would make a difference.

Anonymous wrote:

OP here. The timing of this trip is actually excellent because DH is a teacher and will still be off school. It is not like my many work trips when I have to find early am child care so DH can actually get out the door for work.

Maybe this + your "many work trips" is just not the lifestyle your husband envisioned now that you have kids, but this trip is the breaking point for him and instead of talking about time apart, he's just focusing on this particular trip. Something to think about - guys aren't always good at digging to the root of the issue (some are, but many aren't). What is "many" work trips? How many nights a month are you away from your child? Adding 8 on top of that might be more than he wants for his family.

Anonymous wrote:Considering that your mother offered to finance this trip, at least that takes any financial issues out of the equation.

So now basically your hubby will be mad that you are using your vacation time to be w/your BFF vs. him + the kids.

If you did this every summer, I would see why he would be upset. But it sounds like this is a unique opportunity to do something fun and different and you have every right to be able to go.

Your hunch is correct, your husband most likely does not want to be saddled w/caring for the kids for 8 days straight. Oh well. Tough, I say. They are his kids too and he should care for them as much as I am pretty sure you do.

Honestly, if you have to decline this vacation due to your husband not "allowing" you to go, I promise you that you will always resent him for not letting you go. Your negative feelings will build up inside until one day the anger and bitterness will emerge after something minor occurs.

I say, TELL do not ASK your husband you are going and have a great time.

Agree. Sounds like DH is being a baby. And I bet, if you don't go, he'll be be saying that you should have after the fact. And then he'll take a trip with his boys. YOLO!

Does it have to be 8 days? Cuba is not that far.

I've taken one girls trip in 6 years, to Mexico. Left wed, returned Sunday, DH takes one week long trip
A year with his older child, my stepchild, which I wholly encourage but that's family,

So the money issues aren't an issue.
The crux of it is if you take 8 days now (let's assume 5 work days for vacation) that's 5 less vacation days to spend with your family sometime in the future. You are already spending 10 vacation days with your family this summer, so it's not like they got no vacation time.
I don't know how much vacation days you earn. But Im guessing you probably get well over 20 vacation days a year. You don't do this every year... So your looking at less than 10% of vacation time spent on yourself over 3+ years. That's really not that much. My husband gets 5-10 days on himself each year. I genuinely enjoy my family and don't want to be apart so mine is 2-4 days for myself each year.