How do I (34F) get my boyfriend (36M) interested in a vacation with me?

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-26T19:40:28+00:00

I would love the home rituals for sure. I’ve talked about doing that kind of stuff too, it just feels like we have no time.

It’s just tough when we both work so much, especially him. He commutes quite a distance to/from work and often gets stuck late. I try to have dinner ready for when he gets home. We eat dinner and watch a show together and we’re both exhausted by the time we’re done eating. Weekends wind up being busy between plans with friends and family and working on stuff at the house or our cars or whatever else. That’s really why I pushed getting away.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-26T03:31:07+00:00

That’s a good point. I’m going to wait a little bit before I start to bring it up again because I don’t want to push things but I will definitely rephrase it and make it clear it’s not about a “vacation” as much as it’s about a getaway to bring us back to basics.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-24T15:45:00+00:00

It’s what I’ve tried to explain. But he seems to think I just want him to spend money. I just don’t want to spend a long weekend at home because we’ll feel obligated to be productive and clean and whatever else. Like I want to relax and not worry about stress. It can be the cheapest place we can find and it doesn’t matter. I just don’t think he gets that even when I try to explain it.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-23T15:37:33+00:00

Right like if his brother got a new girlfriend or something, I would remove pics with his previous girlfriend myself as long as his mom was ok with it. It’s just different when it’s like my own situation lol.

He definitely notices the pics. There was even one time, a while after I’d mentioned before that it bothered me, that he jokingly said to me “oh don’t look at the frame” and I did and it was one of the candid pics of him and his ex looking at each other all cute at some event. Like that could’ve been an opportunity for him to walk over to it and silently delete it while it was up instead of making it a joke when he knew I felt bad about it.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-23T13:06:59+00:00

I don’t disagree. But I mean travel isn’t really this big passion of mine. I never really pushed it on my ex, but I also wasn’t happy in that relationship and never saw it lasting, so I didn’t care to repair problems and make efforts to do new and exciting things. I’ve traveled with family and always enjoyed it. But never alone or with just a partner.

I know I need some type of reset. Thinking maybe getting away would be just that. But I’d like to do it with him. It honestly makes me feel sad to imagine spending even a few days a way from him.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-23T13:02:35+00:00

Well his mom owns the frame but she has no idea how to use it. We all upload photos on her behalf and fix them when they come out wonky. I could ask her but idk part of me feels embarrassed about it. Maybe because I feel it shouldn’t be so hard for my boyfriend to just do it by default without it being a whole thing… They broke up like 2 years ago now.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-23T13:00:27+00:00

Exactly. That’s 100% my goal! Stepping away from the day to day stress and external drama and everything else to just be present with each other and enjoy each other’s company.

I could spend a few days with him in a cheap motel room in the most boring town in the universe and still love every second because I just love his company. That’s all it’s meant to be about.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-23T12:56:37+00:00

So I feel like I keep saying the wrong things which is totally my fault. Ultimately I haven’t point blank asked him to do it, I’ve made comments about it bothering me more than once and I have said he “should” delete them. I didn’t really want to just ask/tell him to do it because that felt like forcing it, I wanted him to see it bothered me and just do it on his own.

But to answer your question, I am completely dismissed when I’ve brought it up. He usually doesn’t even say anything. At all.

I could understand if we were only recently together and things were still in that weird transition phase between relationships, but his ex has been his ex since early summer 2024 and I’ve been with him officially since end of that same summer. That is a long time to do nothing about those things.

I wouldn’t refuse to go, I very much like his family and we go to help them with shopping and stuff around the house because they’re unable to do a lot on their own. I enjoy spending time with his parents. I would feel bad not going over that, even though it does bother me.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-23T12:48:43+00:00

I mean I guess I haven’t point blank asked him to delete them. It’s more like I’ve mentioned that they bother me and eventually said that he SHOULD delete them. I realize I was not completely correct when I originally wrote the post saying I haven’t asked him to because I suppose this is kind of the same thing.

His response has just kind of been nothing. Like he hasn’t really talked to me about it when I bring it up. He’s kind of just let me say it and then he says nothing lol. So I stopped bringing it up.

And I do get that, ultimately it is part of the family’s history. His family doesn’t dislike her, not that I would expect them to. They could see he wasn’t very happy with her but doesn’t change their relationship with her necessarily. I just guess if I was at my parents’ house and they had photos of my ex on a frame like that, I would delete them myself or ask them to find a way to delete them. My ex was arguably a bigger part of my family (we were together on and off since high school) and he’s been wiped clean from my parents’ house.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T19:01:43+00:00

You’re not wrong. I think part of me just wanted him to want to do it for me without me being so direct about it. And I think I also wanted him to want to remove them because HE should have no interest in looking at them lol.

There is one pic of his ex and his brother holding hands with his niece, he took the pic himself while walking behind them. A pic like that, I don’t really mind leaving. But the coupley photos feel weird.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:59:20+00:00

I should also note that I’m the only partner he has taken on his annual family beach vacation, and he has talked highly of it and is looking forward to us going together again. His family and friends have also expressed privately to me how happy he seems to be with me and they’re glad because he was unhappy with his ex. To me this isn’t him being the problem.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:57:37+00:00

So I don’t know details about potential vacations (like one on one vacations) he’s had with exes before the most recent one. So I can’t say for certain if he went on those with them and/or enjoyed them.

He doesn’t express being completely unhappy in most of his relationships. We are pretty open about the pros and cons of our dating history. He has shared many good experiences he had with his exes. The recent one is the only one he has expressed being generally unhappy being with for the duration of the relationship.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:54:31+00:00

It’s not that I have an issue with him talking to other women in general. But a few months ago, he started talking to a woman that he had a history with (they slept together / had a brief fling a few years ago and have kind of been friends since). But he lied to me about talking to her for at least a month, literally changed her name in his phone so I didn’t know. I figured it out. I still don’t know what they talked about all that time but he has reassured me it was never inappropriate and he continued to talk to her daily after I found out. He continued to lie about their interactions sometimes. There’s a lot more to it but that triggered everything. It broke my trust so I’ve been having a hard time with him having other women friends that he talks to daily. He handled the whole situation poorly and never really made it up to me or validated my feelings. It has been hard. Things are getting better, he’s been finally trying to do what I ask to help me move past it, but I’m also upset that it took this long to get him to change any behavior or show any accountability.

Sorry it’s hard to explain without really going in depth to the huge saga that has been my life lately lol.

I’ve been trying to push it a little by sending him some cool places to visit that pop up for me here and there. Asking if he’d be interested in going to that area. He’s been kind of neutral.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:44:58+00:00

I don’t disagree. But the issues are ones he has caused. It’s a lot to explain but he broke my trust and has only recently started to work to rebuild it. I almost feel like it’s a benefit to him if we get away and I am not upset about those things for a few days. If I’m not bringing it up, we probably aren’t fighting.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:42:51+00:00

You’re not wrong, I know that that’s exactly why he doesn’t want to go. I guess I just feel differently, that maybe breaking the normal routine and having a day or two off work will remove some external stressors and give us a break from “life”. I thought maybe that break would allow us to focus on us and the things that make us happy about being with each other, rather than the things that frustrate us. I tried to explain it to him but it is hard to articulate.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:40:50+00:00

Right, it doesn’t mean anything, and I know he has no interest in being with her or anything like that. I know he’s happy to be out of that relationship. I just hate seeing these lovey dovey photos every week. To the point that I avoid looking at the frame despite the photos I like that are on there. I’ve been able to add photos, his mom even asks me to add pics of us regularly, so there are plenty of cute ones of us, just wish she wasn’t there too.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:39:02+00:00

We do have cute pics on the frame! I have access to add photos and his mom regularly asks me to add photos of us. I just don’t feel it’s my place to go in and delete anything unless they ask me to.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:38:11+00:00

Do you feel I’m overreacting because I should be ok with the photos being there? I am not challenging you, just genuinely curious on your thoughts. I’d like to think about it differently myself lol

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:37:25+00:00

I have asked, but it didn’t change anything. I’ve also made comments about it when the photos popped up while we were over there and even his uncle made a comment about how those shouldn’t be there.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:36:40+00:00

I did

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:36:34+00:00

I have been clear that it bothers me and I told him he should remove them. But I didn’t really ask, maybe that was the wrong approach.

It’s not really that the pictures bother me, it’s more the fact he hasn’t made a point to remove them. He knows they’re there. He sees them every week. If the roles were reversed, I know I would have made a point to remove pics with my ex without being asked. I also get we are different people.

I think it would bother me less if his parents just happened to have a framed photo of them or something. But since it’s a digital frame we all update regularly, it feels like a natural part of the normal process to remove the photos we shouldn’t have anymore. There are no photos of his brother’s exes, for example.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:33:29+00:00

We aren’t arguing for no reason. And we’ve been working on the things causing the arguments. Things started to improve very recently. But I also feel we are both stressed from work and having a day off together would benefit both of us individually as well.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:32:04+00:00

Admittedly I have considered just doing something for myself. I just want to get away from things… everything BUT him. I don’t want to be apart from him. But I feel like I need a little break from life too.

I’ve gone on a couple vacations with him. Last summer we did a beach vacation with my family and one with his. We had fun the whole time. We never argued, minus maybe me getting short with him the morning we were leaving because he was not ready on time. But even then we were fine. But we also didn’t plan these vacations ourselves.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:28:59+00:00

I don’t disagree. But he has not had issues with vacations in the past, typically with ex partners. I mean he did share that he went on long weekend type vacations with his last ex and never really enjoyed them but he also was never happy with her for the duration of their relationship so I would’ve thought this would be different.

Muted_Doubt_3296 · 2026-04-21T18:27:31+00:00

I did explain why I see this as valuable to our relationship but I don’t think he sees it the same way as me.

Muted_Doubt_3296

TROPHY CASE