DH's sister wants to take a vacation with us but exclude her parents...wwyd?

[Anonymous]

OP are you concerned that if you and your spouse go with SIL excluding the in laws, the in laws will feel snubbed;. possibly resulting in a diminished albeit imaginary inheritance being left to your spouse at such time as the geezers kick it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You said the parents only want to vacation on their terms, it has to be everyone all together. They won't go if you offered to do a long weekend another time or if they came for 3 or 4 days at the start/end of a sibling vacation.


If they truly wanted everyone to enjoy vacation and truly wanted to make others happy, they would be willing to compromise. What they truly want is to control everyone. This behavior would extend to the vacation. They would expect meal times, day trips, activities to be what they want when they want it. Your SIL knows this and doesn't want to put up with it.

It is a shame you are depriving your SIL, her brother, & cousins from having a relationship outside of one controlled by the parents. Everyone should be unhappy so the parents can get what they want. Mentally healthy parents wouldn't want that for their adult kids and families.


You just want to protect your husband's "golden child" status. If he really could do no wrong, he could go on the vacation and they wouldn't hold it against him.

I suspect OP’s DH isn’t actually the “golden child,” he is just a people pleaser that his parents take for granted. They are chasing the affections of their daughter, who is that sense is the real “golden child.” If her DH was the favored child, the ILs would have gone on vacation with just OP’s family, but instead the ILs rejected a vacation with just them as not good enough if it didn’t also include SIL and her family.

I think OP’s real concern here isn’t her DH losing golden child status, it’s that she knows her DH’s standing with the ILs is fragile because he is not the favored child, and they will retaliate against him if they go on vacation with the real favored child because that will make clear that SIL’s rejection of the family vacation was truly only a rejection of her parents.

[Anonymous]

There is a very different dynamics when it's just siblings, I don't know why your parents would be offended that only siblings want to get together on occasion without them. Right now, the rest of my family all live in the same city, but when they didn't, we would go visit one sibling at a time and no one was offended. One time, my brother's family and my family went and visited my sister's family without my parents and they were not upset. Similar, my parents have gone on vacation with my sister's family before and not invited us. It's fine. It's super weird that you think you all have to do everything together.

Also separately, your SIL clearly has issues vacationing with your parents-in-law and that is none of your business.

[Anonymous]

LOL, I'm visiting my family (parents and two siblings all live in same city, we don't) next week and my siblings and I are taking off for own mini vacation the first weekend that we're there. My parents were invited but bowed out saying "we know you guys want to have fun together, we'll see you when you get back."

Your ILs sound controlling.

[Anonymous]

The family dynamic seems off. The in laws want to run the vacation and the SIL doesn’t want to vacation with her parents. I wouldn’t touch this with a 10 foot pole. DH and SIL need to work this out with their parents. This isn’t difficult, they need to communicate.

[Anonymous]

If your DH is the golden child, your sil may not want to go for that reason - the dynamic between your family/il’s and their family/il’s is different and that hurts.

My dh is one of 3, and we have been vacationing with one of his siblings throughout the pandemic. There are two issues with his other sib - her family cannot afford the same things that our families can and she is codependent with her mother. When sil and mil are together, it’s really obnoxious and dampens the experience for our families because mil caters to sil’s kids and ignores ours. But, when just sil’s family is involved, is fun (but she needs her parents to subsidize her financially so just her family going isn’t usually a choice).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The cost is minuscule and not a factor. I just wanted to get a sense of if others would feel guilt about this and I guess most wouldn’t. DH at first wanted to go, but when I asked how would he explain it to his parents he said he didn’t know and didn’t think of that part. He agrees they will absolutely be hurt and now isn’t sure any more. He is the classic “golden child” and a people pleaser. SIL is constantly at odds with the in laws so I guess it bothers her less.

I just keep thinking, if I asked two friends out to dinner, and they said no, but then afterward went without me, I would be very hurt. This feels like that to me.

Except it’s not that. You and your nuclear family are happy to vacation with your in-laws but that’s not enough for them and they declined that. So, go make your own plans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what if Its are mad? What are they going to do, cut everyone off and never see you again? SIL obviously has her reasons and you should not be creating drama between parents and their daughter since you haven't even said what the core issue is.

SIL is free to manage her relationship with them however she likes. I reject your assertion that she also gets to manage my relationship with them.

And yet you are letting the parents manage your and your DHs relationship with her.

It’s clear your DH likes his position as golden child, and that your SIL sets boundaries and they don’t like that.

[Anonymous]

If you’re uncomfortable, say no to your SIL and tell her you cannot say yes because feel badly about excluding the in laws. And you should both leave it at that. She doesn’t get input on your relationship with your in laws and cannot force you to begin excluding them, and you don’t get to have input on who she invites on vacation or how she interacts with her parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you’re uncomfortable, say no to your SIL and tell her you cannot say yes because feel badly about excluding the in laws. And you should both leave it at that. She doesn’t get input on your relationship with your in laws and cannot force you to begin excluding them, and you don’t get to have input on who she invites on vacation or how she interacts with her parents.

But on that note, let SIL know she can ask your husband if he wants to go with the kids. He can make his own decisions regarding his own family. You can go hang out with your parent ILs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what if Its are mad? What are they going to do, cut everyone off and never see you again? SIL obviously has her reasons and you should not be creating drama between parents and their daughter since you haven't even said what the core issue is.

SIL is free to manage her relationship with them however she likes. I reject your assertion that she also gets to manage my relationship with them.

Your SIL isn't trying to manage your relationship with your ILs. She is trying to establish a relationship with your family independent of the one with her parents. You are making decisions on that relationship based on her decisions regarding her parents. You are fanning the flames of family drama. You are showing your disapproval of her choices - choices that have nothing to do with you - because you support your IL's position that you all should vacation together. That's BS.

If your ILs are hurt by your SIL's choices, that is their hurt to manage, not yours. If they have questions about why they weren't invited, they need to direct those questions to their DD. It says a lot about them (and nothing good) that they won't vacation with you if your SIL doesn't go along. It also doesn't say anything good about you that you won't vacation with your SIL without your ILs. Again, you're fanning the flames of family drama and sabotaging your SIL.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like your SIL doesn’t have a great relationship with her parents or contentious at best. Not everyone likes their parents or enjoys vacationing with them. It’s fine for her to not invite them. This isn’t any of your business OP. Don’t get in the middle of whatever is going on between her and her parents. Either vacation with her or don’t, but dragging the parents into this isn’t your place. Just stay in your lane.

[Anonymous]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with vacationing with SIL outside of her parents and I don’t think it was appropriate for you to try to convince your husband there is a problem here. Your in laws won’t be invited to every outing and that’s ok.

[Anonymous]

As a parent I would love for my kids and their spouses to be close enough to vacation together regardless of whether I come along. It just wouldn’t enter my radar to have an issue with this.

[Anonymous]

I would leave myself out of the decision making. It's up to your DH and his sister to make this decision and manage the communication with their own parents.