Shared family beach house - how to handle politely?

[Anonymous]

Did you tell your MIL about the surprise party? Maybe she isn’t thrilled two strangers are going to be staying at the house? Maybe she doesn’t want a party to happen at the house and prefers only family use the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not your house, owners are clearly not that willing to go out of their way to arrange it for you. Your post about your being busy coordinating camps and the summer is your own thing. It has nothing to do with how much or how little effort it will take for MIL's nephew to accommodate you. You are starting to grate on how demanding you are just in your post. Of something you have no right to.
Rent an airbnb. You control the times, the place, everything.
Why would you keep being such an intrusive, entitled person?
Who demands they be given the time at someone else's house?
How odd and impolite.

You really don't get it, do you?

What don't I get?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You want a beach house for certain dates? Go rent one. Like a grown-up. Be grateful that MIL and DH's cousin have given you free rides this long. You entitled brat.

With respect, you sound pointlessly aggressive and like someone who just doesn’t get the common dynamic of a large family sharing a summer house. Usually two elders or whatever “own” it, but everyone splits dates. This sounds typical to me, not like mooching. This board loves to hunt for ulterior motives. You need to take a step back.

OP, you are so rude and entitled and sock puppeting. Why post and get all pissed when you don't get the answers you wanted? Nobody gets what you are posting. You used the MIL's and cousins beach house for years and think you are entitled to it after years of use for a pittance?
What like a Soviet apartment where staying there makes it yours?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I feel for you. It seems ridiculous that you can’t just get a firm yes or no on a week and there seems to be so much drama.

1) why can’t your DH just call his cousin directly and ask?

2) why can you do a zoom like someone suggested, everyone gets their calendars out? Knock it out in 10 minutes.

3) if people are making it difficult it appears it won’t work on your timeline. That’s unfortunate. But them the breaks it seems.

Because MIL, an actual co-owner, has told them not to contact cousin about this!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, I'm the OP and just came back this morning to see all these messages calling me an entitled brat, spoiled, and telling us to rent our own house. Sometimes this board can be just...callous. I guess I should know that.
For my own peace of mind because it's not fun to be derided, even if it's by strangers on a message board, I guess I should clarify:

There is no mortgage. This was a house built from scratch by DH's grandparents. It is a small modest home that he has grown up going to every year of his life, for free, since birth. Every year that I have known him, 20 years now, each family member has automatically taken a week. This isn't "mooching." This is how it's always been done in the family. We always knew we'd be going for a week this summer. The question I was posing is how to navigate "when." There was no question of us going. His mother would be insulted if we offered to pay for a week. DH would be flabbergasted. This is the house where he carved his initials in the walls, measured his height, grew up celebrating every milestone. We're not some random second-cousin trying to mooch for free at a five-star resort on the Riviera. Maybe that's a fun narrative on a Saturday night anonymous message board.

Literally all I wanted to know was how to navigate the complicated family dynamics of everyone trying to schedule a week. DH is doing the liaison with his mom. I am not involved at all. He has flatly refused to rent a house in the same town -- and his mom would be mortified if we did. Talk about causing a family rift. We literally just need to nail down our daughter's birthday, which she has celebrated at this home every year since 2004 without question or funds exchanged.

I really hope the people who get off on being so nasty on this board can take a pause. And I thank everyone who wrote in with honest replies for the feedback. I wish we could have a shared google cal. Would make it simpler.

OP, you know this many people agreeing is rare. You should rent somewhere. You can’t demand a fast answer, free, and a set date. You can only pick two of those. So if you need a set date, you have to forego the other two. That seems to be hard for you to hear but this is the reality when you don’t own the home. And having a parent as a partial owner is not the same as owning. I’d rent a place and hope to have a cake or something at the house to celebrate her birthday for sentimental purposes. That should make all happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I feel for you. It seems ridiculous that you can’t just get a firm yes or no on a week and there seems to be so much drama.

1) why can’t your DH just call his cousin directly and ask?

2) why can you do a zoom like someone suggested, everyone gets their calendars out? Knock it out in 10 minutes.

3) if people are making it difficult it appears it won’t work on your timeline. That’s unfortunate. But them the breaks it seems.

Because MIL, an actual co-owner, has told them not to contact cousin about this!!!

+1 I would be very annoyed having a zoom call scheduled for everyone to claim dates on a house I own. MIL did give an answer, a passive no.

[Anonymous]

Rent a house for the week and have your DH let your MIL know. Just say it's not a problem if the nephew needs the home for that week, or alternatively we are happy to cancel the rental if the week doesn't work out, but we needed to make a back up plan. Get cancel for any reason insurance. If MIL would indeed be "mortified", you will hear from her and can cancel the rental.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You want a beach house for certain dates? Go rent one. Like a grown-up. Be grateful that MIL and DH's cousin have given you free rides this long. You entitled brat.

With respect, you sound pointlessly aggressive and like someone who just doesn’t get the common dynamic of a large family sharing a summer house. Usually two elders or whatever “own” it, but everyone splits dates. This sounds typical to me, not like mooching. This board loves to hunt for ulterior motives. You need to take a step back.

And it also ignores 20 years of history. Very strange.

OP, I think your real issue is with your MIL here. She's the owner, and is entitled to use the house as much as her nephew. She also has coordinated schedules in the past. She's being a little unreasonable, given the particular circumstances here, not getting in touch with her nephew, and saying, "Look, I know you're swamped, and we don't have to decide the entire schedule now, but we need one of these two weeks, and need to figure it out quickly. We'd prefer week 1, but week 2 works as well. Do you have any issue if we take week 1?"

This is an easy email, and if she doesn't hear back in 48 hours, a 3 minute phone call.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DCUM bullies are all here!

Yeah, and all the entitled brats too!

Yes, they're one and the same. The bullies think they're entitled to pass judgment on every OP by filling in their own delusional "facts."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You want a beach house for certain dates? Go rent one. Like a grown-up. Be grateful that MIL and DH's cousin have given you free rides this long. You entitled brat.

With respect, you sound pointlessly aggressive and like someone who just doesn’t get the common dynamic of a large family sharing a summer house. Usually two elders or whatever “own” it, but everyone splits dates. This sounds typical to me, not like mooching. This board loves to hunt for ulterior motives. You need to take a step back.

And it also ignores 20 years of history. Very strange.

OP, I think your real issue is with your MIL here. She's the owner, and is entitled to use the house as much as her nephew. She also has coordinated schedules in the past. She's being a little unreasonable, given the particular circumstances here, not getting in touch with her nephew, and saying, "Look, I know you're swamped, and we don't have to decide the entire schedule now, but we need one of these two weeks, and need to figure it out quickly. We'd prefer week 1, but week 2 works as well. Do you have any issue if we take week 1?"

This is an easy email, and if she doesn't hear back in 48 hours, a 3 minute phone call.

I think everyone understands the MIL is the barrier, and may have reasons for it that OP isn't privy to - but the simple fact is there isn't much OP can do about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MIL co-owns a beach-house w/ her nephew (her brother died, and he was original owner with MIL, and it went to nephew/DH's cousin).

For about 20 years we have split up weeks during the summer between DH, DH's twin brother, nephew and nephew's family. MIL is typically the liaison coordinating the summer schedule. We've split up weekends all summer for years. As more people have gotten involved and kids have gotten older, it's become tougher. We rarely go and didn't at all last summer during the pandemic. Others go a lot more.

MY DD's 16th birthday is in July. Two of her camp friends are considering traveling a distance to surprise her at the beach house, which requires some coordination. We're trying to nail down summer dates and offered two possible weekends before/after her birthday. I'm trying to coordinate it with the camp friends' parents and keeping it a secret from DD.

MIL says she'd coordinate timing with nephew but we did not hear back. This was maybe three weeks ago. Yesterday we gently brought it up again and she said she doesn't want to press her nephew because he's really busy and doesn't want to make him feel like he has to arrange his vacation or change it based on anyone else. He lives 20 minutes away from the house and goes a lot, so it doesn't require as much coordination for him to plan. Meanwhile, our kids have camp, summer job, etc., and we do need to plan our travel soon, to say nothing of trying to coordinate with these other friends of DD and their families. And it means a lot to us to give my DD a nice birthday of course.

DH and I don't want to rock the boat at all, but we also just need to nail down our plans. I don't think nephew, who is 74 (he's MIL's age but is her nephew due to huge sibling age gap), remembers what it's like trying to organize kid schedules and stuff. And I get that he needs a vacation and is the rightful co-owner...we just need to plan around it accordingly. Everyone else is on board with our proposed dates. WWYD? MIL has asked us not to ask nephew directly, so we won't. Thanks.

Rent your own place at the beach (with a good cancellation clause) and tell MIL. She'll either work it out or not, but you won't be left hanging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DCUM bullies are all here!

Yeah, and all the entitled brats too!

Yes, they're one and the same. The bullies think they're entitled to pass judgment on every OP by filling in their own delusional "facts."

Where is the delusion in:
1) The fact that the only actual owners of this property are MIL and her nephew
2) The fact that MIL has told OP/DH not to contact the nephew directly about scheduling.

Dispute those facts. Show me the delusion. I'll wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rent a house for the week and have your DH let your MIL know. Just say it's not a problem if the nephew needs the home for that week, or alternatively we are happy to cancel the rental if the week doesn't work out, but we needed to make a back up plan. Get cancel for any reason insurance. If MIL would indeed be "mortified", you will hear from her and can cancel the rental.

+1000.

Or your husband needs to be honest with his mom. I find it really strange that you've used the house for 15 years at the same time for your daughter's birthday and now this year it seems to be an issue. And if this is a large extended family that other family members aren't calling dibs on dates for the summer. If it was my mom, I'd tell her that and see what happens.

[Anonymous]

I assume this post was really just one big vent, since there is really no advice to offer for OP's situation. BUT, it sounds like right now there are not a lot of written policies and everything is managed very informally. Now that the 3rd generation is getting to their teen years, your MIL and her nephew are going to be navigating more adults wanting to use the house. It's probably worth it to start writing down some formal rules about who gets what weeks, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I assume this post was really just one big vent, since there is really no advice to offer for OP's situation. BUT, it sounds like right now there are not a lot of written policies and everything is managed very informally. Now that the 3rd generation is getting to their teen years, your MIL and her nephew are going to be navigating more adults wanting to use the house. It's probably worth it to start writing down some formal rules about who gets what weeks, etc.

The only way a "formal rules" process is to start is for it to be called for by...wait for it...the property owners.

It's not for OP, DH or anyone else in the family to suggest this.