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[quote=Anonymous]OP, since you won't go yourself, and DH won't back out this year, I would work with him to find activities at the destination that HE plans for himself and the kids. Research it in advance. And he turns up at the beach with firm plans that on Tuesday they will go to this particular mini-golf followed by lunch at X and then the beach (wherever; don't worry about sitting with family), and on Wednesday, beach early, then he and the kids will go to lunch at Y and see a particular movie that you already got tickets for online... and so on. If he goes on these vacations and just expects that the kids will be on the beach and at the house, and then he is disappointed that none of the other adults pay attention to him and his kids-- this year he could treat this entire vacation as "this is my hotel for so many days and I come and go as I please with my kids." Fill up time with activities and outings for him and the kids, and the kids will have a better time and less time to notice that grandma and aunt pay little attention to them. If MIL and SIL carp that "You're always running off with the kids and aren't with us," he can smile a huge smile and say, "We'll see you at dinner and the kids can tell you all about it!"

Your DH does, as someone else noted, sound a bit passive. It seems as if he feels obliged to do this vacation. I would wager the relatives are people who, though they ignore him while he's around, would also hold it against him if he didn't come each and every time. It's really time to break that pattern if your family has limited vacation time. I'm a strong believer that nuclear-family vacations-- parents and kids -- should get priority over these kinds of extended-family vacations IF the latter become an obligation and a strain. Maybe start working on your husband as soon as this vacation is done, to move him toward the idea of you, him and the kids doing a just-us vacation next year to somewhere totally new and different. He can just tell the family, "We're saving to go to X next year so don't include me in planning for the famiily beach vacation because we can't do that." If they grumpily insist that they'll move the vacation so he can come (and so they can make him feel guilty about their moving it), he should still say, "Don't move anything, and don't expect that I'll come back later to say we'll be at the family beach holiday -- the trip to X with just Spouse and Kids is our only big vacation this year."

I'd focus on this future plan and not on wording some statement to try to make MIL and SIL include DH and kids more this year. They will not change anything; you won't be physically present yourself to call them out on it if they ignore DH and kids; and they will turn it around on you and say you're making drama and exaggerating. Expend your energy on working with DH to change HIS perspective on being obliged to do these vacations.[/quote]

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