"Vacation" with Il's

[Anonymous]

Anyone survive it? How? Would love to hear from people who have been through this.

Also, what if you only have a week vacation and Dh insists on going with the IL's, even if you don't? Separate vacations? I would rather not. Ideas?

[Anonymous]

Do you visit the ILs otherwise?

I think you ask DH to make going on vacation them no tan every year thing, but an every few years thing, so you can take vacations together as a couple/nuclear family.

[Anonymous]

My only suggestion is to keep it as short as possible. Use the leftover time at home to drink some wine and recover! Good excuses are: class for kids, husband has a meeting, wife has a meeting, need to be in town for landscaping estimate, etc. etc. etc.

But, if your ILs are game, and many people suggest this, get a free babysitting night and run off with your husband, no regrets. I am always too uptight to do this, and if it can be done, do it as much as you can on the vacation, no regrets.

[Anonymous]

Why does your husband want to spend your one vacation a year with his parents? Can you split the time, half with them and half without? Can they visit you for a week at another time so you can go by yourselves on your one vacation?

[Anonymous]

OP here. Dare I chime in prematurely? I so appreciate the support, it is much needed, more than you know.

IL's are local. We do not generally see them. DH does not make the effort, nor do the ILs. I don't feel like it is my job to "make it happen", or anything like that, but the possibility is certainly there. There are no hard feelings on their side, and no reason for any, it is just the way they are. Half of the family lives across the country, and do not generally travel.

When they are together, they do not talk to each other much. The IL's IL's (so to speak - the ones that married into the family) - provide any conversation, but only stay at vacation two or three days max, presumably for similar reasons.

They definitely would NOT babysit, here or there, which is fine, I am not asking them for anything. MIL babysit frequently, at least once per week, for SILs. Not sure what MILs reasoning would be. She does not seem to like children. That would be my guess. Presumably IL's would want to see their grandchildren?!

Anyway, sorry for the background. I am just looking to have DH spend his limited vacation time with his nuclear family. It would be in a different location (nothing exotic).

DC had an assignment at their first day of school. DC was asked to describe the best and worst parts of summer. The ILs vacation was listed as the worst, which made me really sad, since that was our only vacation.

It has been this way for years. Sometimes I attend and sometimes not, but I have never spoken ill of it, certainly not around the children. Now the children are old enough to judge for themselves. I had no idea the children did not like it. They haven't been enthusiastic, but they have not complained too much. Their friends have been to fun places (one went to Disney, I don't know if we would do this or not). I feel really bad for our children. I don't know what to do.

DH is a people pleaser and wants to please his birth family, but at what expense? Thanks for listening.

[Anonymous]

We have. However, there's no way, no how I would spend my only week of vacation for the year with them. If I have plenty of wine, it goes ok....

The time I was pg was rather unbearable as they simply couldn't understand that I needed to eat more frequently than every 8 hours and they got really upset when H and I would say we wanted to eat dinner around 6. And it was mortally offensive when we said it was fine if they didn't want to eat with us, but we needed to go eat then. We were at a resort that time where there was nowhere for me to go to get dry goods to keep in our room or anything to snack on outside of the times that the resort restaurants were open for business.

I've found the more separate space you can get, the better. It always goes worse when we split a condo because it feels like there is no place to go to get away. Also, make sure you talk up front about eating out, groceries, cooking if you are renting a condo, etc. I was making some eggs one morning on one trip and my FIL came out from his room, said "that looks good" and just grabbed the plate of food I had made as I was dropping the eggs onto to it. I hadn't signed up to be the short order cook, then BIL came and did the same thing "Well, you made some for dad."

And if you are splitting space, talk about who is sleeping where. Last trip, ILS got there first, comandeered the master bedroom where we could have actually fit a pack-n-play, left the bedroom where the full sized bed touched 3 of four walls for me, H and our 2 year old and told us the 2 year old could just sleep in the living room that everyone had to walk through to get to the bedrooms or bathrooms. Which also opened right onto a lake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Dare I chime in prematurely? I so appreciate the support, it is much needed, more than you know.

IL's are local. We do not generally see them. DH does not make the effort, nor do the ILs. I don't feel like it is my job to "make it happen", or anything like that, but the possibility is certainly there. There are no hard feelings on their side, and no reason for any, it is just the way they are. Half of the family lives across the country, and do not generally travel.

When they are together, they do not talk to each other much. The IL's IL's (so to speak - the ones that married into the family) - provide any conversation, but only stay at vacation two or three days max, presumably for similar reasons.

They definitely would NOT babysit, here or there, which is fine, I am not asking them for anything. MIL babysit frequently, at least once per week, for SILs. Not sure what MILs reasoning would be. She does not seem to like children. That would be my guess. Presumably IL's would want to see their grandchildren?!

Anyway, sorry for the background. I am just looking to have DH spend his limited vacation time with his nuclear family. It would be in a different location (nothing exotic).

DC had an assignment at their first day of school. DC was asked to describe the best and worst parts of summer. The ILs vacation was listed as the worst, which made me really sad, since that was our only vacation.

It has been this way for years. Sometimes I attend and sometimes not, but I have never spoken ill of it, certainly not around the children. Now the children are old enough to judge for themselves. I had no idea the children did not like it. They haven't been enthusiastic, but they have not complained too much. Their friends have been to fun places (one went to Disney, I don't know if we would do this or not). I feel really bad for our children. I don't know what to do.

DH is a people pleaser and wants to please his birth family, but at what expense? Thanks for listening.

Who is the one pushing to have a joint vacation? You said your DH is a people pleaser but he doesn't make any efforts to see them even though they are local?

Plan your own vacation to where you want!! If your ILs balk, then have them plan something on the weekend. Done.

[Anonymous]

IL vacation accommodations are a WHOLE new topic!

Since we have a rather demanding work schedule, we do NOT have the option of arriving early and choosing the more desirable rooms (SILs favorite past time), and older (certainly too old to sleep together) nieces and nephews (especially those not belonging to SILs) are expected to sleep together; which would be inappropriate ANYWHERE.

MIL insists on cooking, but also insists on not cooking enough for everyone; and assumes that the grown grand children will eat "chicken nuggets", just like all of her SILs children did??!!

Everything about it is horrible

MIL delights in bragging rights about who attended, yet won't include our family in the photos (supposedly her camera was out of battery, just when we suggested being in the photo). Very strange. Clearly, I don't think MIL cares if we are there or not. As if she wants to brag when we don't attend? It's kind of blatantly antagonistic, at this point.

Somehow, she thinks I did something to offend her, which would be impossible, because I never see her!

I just don't know where to start.

[Anonymous]

Damn. Start with putting your foot down and planning your own vacation.

[Anonymous]

yea, wow. if you MUST go, renting your own place would go a long way. blame it on the "kids needing a quiet environment to sleep."

[Anonymous]

I take it this trip is a beach vacation? We used to do vacations with the IL's and I hated it. I wanted to spend my vacation time with my nuclear family not a trip that I didn't want to do with IL's.

I realized that my tolerance level with IL's only lasted for an extended weekend, so when they were doing the whole beach house thing, our family only stayed until Tuesday. Enough to give IL's time with our family but before I went crazy.

The beach vacation no longer happens (yippee!!!). Now we will just go someplace with the IL's for a long weekend and that is perfect. They get the family bonding time and I get to have my longer vacations with my family. And the vacations the 4 of us have taken have been fantastic. Highly recommend taking vacations with just your nuclear family.

So...take a real vacation with your family but then do an extended weekend with the IL's (Memorial Day and Labor Day are perfect for this. You don't have to use up a vacation day!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I take it this trip is a beach vacation? We used to do vacations with the IL's and I hated it. I wanted to spend my vacation time with my nuclear family not a trip that I didn't want to do with IL's.

I realized that my tolerance level with IL's only lasted for an extended weekend, so when they were doing the whole beach house thing, our family only stayed until Tuesday. Enough to give IL's time with our family but before I went crazy.

The beach vacation no longer happens (yippee!!!). Now we will just go someplace with the IL's for a long weekend and that is perfect. They get the family bonding time and I get to have my longer vacations with my family. And the vacations the 4 of us have taken have been fantastic. Highly recommend taking vacations with just your nuclear family.

So...take a real vacation with your family but then do an extended weekend with the IL's (Memorial Day and Labor Day are perfect for this. You don't have to use up a vacation day!)

OP here. I would love this! Unfortunately, there is no talking to ILs about "better ideas". They think their ideas are the best, and it is a personal affront to them if we suggest another place/time/date/etc. In fact, if they were open to any one of those, it would work SO much better for everyone, themselves included. But again, there is no telling them anything, unfortunately. There is no changing anything, they fear - no, are deathly petrified to an unreasonable and detrimental measure - change. Therein lies most of the problem, I suppose. Sigh.

I think the key is getting DH to agree to a few days of "laughs a minute, mayhem and foolishness" (sarcasm) - which would imply they actually converse. I apologize for using sarcasm as a coping mechanism, but its a really negative experience, all around. It just plain sucks.

[Anonymous]

We vacation with them once or twice a year. The key is to go someplace where there's lots to do, and to not stay in the same condo/hotel room.

[Anonymous]

Just say no. This is a DH issue! Tell him you are taking the kids to Disney because they deserve to have fun, and you will spend one long weekend with the ILs at a place and time of their choosing. Vacations are precious family memories, don't let them get destroyed!!!

[Anonymous]

Paying for one's own vacation. This is what grown-ups do. You can vacation in the same location together if you would consider going there anyway.

Make sure going with inlaws doesn't equal a "free" vacation.
DH might be wanting to economize.