Another family beach house story: is this odd to you?

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07/12/2022 17:29

Subject: Another family beach house story: is this odd to you?

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Anonymous

I just read the other family beach trip post and feel like it could be written by me. Ha!

This is about our recent 10 day beach trip. My husband grew up going to a certain beach where his grandparents had a very large home. After they passed away, the adult children, ages 40-75 didn't maintain it. They sold it and my husband's aunt has a small beach house, first row. She is super minimalistic and eccentric, but very kind and giving. For the past four years, my husband and his sister and uncles would squeeze into her two bedroom home and I put my foot down last year and started renting an adjacent beach house. Literally next door.

SIL never rents the home with us. It is just me, my husband's uncle who is only a few years older than us and his partner and colleged aged kids. We have two young elementary aged children. My ILs get a hotel nowhere near the beach and my SIL who lives in town but not at the beach stays over each night at the aunt's, camping in her open floor plan and occupying the guest room which has two twin beds with four children.

This year, my husband invited my sister and BIL. This is the one thing my DH asks all year, to go to the beach for the week. Is this odd to you: we rent the house, which we pay for with his uncle. We don't ask his colleged aged kids or our guests to pay. DH loves having guests and even though my sister and BIL anticipated paying, as did DH's uncle's adult children, we split.

We were there 10 days. DH, his family and my family are very active and get up to run long distances, go to boot camp classes at the beach or long bike rides. Usually I would watch the kids and make breakfasts. I'm a simple breakfast person: yogurt, a bagel, smoothie. Everyday, SIL expects my husband (her brother) to make an elaborate meal: pancakes, eggs and sausage, shrimp and grits, cinamon buns and eggs Benedict. I tried to keep it simple. EVeryday, SIL would come over insisting I make an elaborate meal and then expect me to clean up. After the second day, I refused and said keep it simple.

I went on a run with my sister at 5 am. We ran for an hour and come home. My nephews, who are not staying at our house and are under the age of 10, are at the house, in pjs asking for breakfast saying their parents went on a date. My SIL's DH never takes off work and is working in town. I chalk it up to weirdness but sure enough, SIL and BIL come two hours later when we are at the beach, asking why I haven't made lunch and complaining.

Every morning, my DH would go for a run. His mom and dad would come to our house and enter the code, hanging outside or rooms or watching TV. They would also come back to the house every night and expect to be entertained. As we all got up at 5 am and they didn't get up until 10, we want to go to bed.

I come back from the beach with my kids and see BIL (SIL's husband) entering the house. The kids and I take outdoor showers. We enter the house and BIL is watching a movie, getting out all the items for me to make tacos (!). When I mention we are all going out to dinner, he then proceeds to cook a huge meal we are then obligated to eat.

The next morning, I go to yoga with my husband's cousins, my sister and BIL. We come home and SIL is at the house with a friend and her two children plus her four kids. She is making lunch in our house (!) not the house they are staying and has invited this mom and her children to a playdate at our house. I don't want to make the other mom feel uncomfortable so I ask SIL to come with me outside and she states that our house has a bigger dining table and better kitchen! When I then tell her that it is inappropriate of her to invite people over to a house she is not renting, she acts upset.

DH, my sister and BIL, my children, DH's uncle, partner and cousins go to the beach all day. We come home and SIL and BIL, who are not staying at the house, have invited over friends (!) for a dinner party. Only they have not made anything and when we come back, they are "annoyed" that kids are there and we haven't started appetizers.

This is where I lost it. I told my BIL and SIL that this is not the house that they are staying at and we changed the code.

Next day, FIL and MIL are standing at the door, waiting to get in at 10 while we are back from a bike ride. They ask what is for breakfast and we state they already ate.

Every night at dinner, uncle and I pour wine we brought from a local winery (uncle) and wine shop (me). My sister made a signature cocktail for everyone and a mocktail for the kids. Every nigth ILs turn up their noses and open four different bottles of wine which they proceed to drink. Every day at the beach, in-laws come annoyed that they do not have a tent (we brought two which we set up each day at 6 am) with plenty of chairs. One of our tents collapses and while my sister and I put it back up, MIL walks out to the beach. That is when my cousin discovers ILs ate all the sandwiches we made for the children (Hawaiian rolls with country ham and cheese) and that they have drank all of my sister's beer and hard seltzers (which they mocked).

I called them out on their bad behavior, as MIL acts like she is very mannerly and holier than thou. DH got upset, acting like his sister, BIL and parents behavior was perfectly normal. I'm right that this is odd behavior? These are very wealthy people with the means to purchase their own beach home (or rent one), buy food and drinks and arrange dates at their home which is in the same town as the beach.