Reply to Vent: “gift” of a trip that I don’t want and requires me to spend lots of money and time

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Reply to "Vent: “gift” of a trip that I don’t want and requires me to spend lots of money and time"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This whole conversation makes me extremely anxious about my relationship with my future DILs/SILs.  Am i going to be expected to pay for time with my children in the future by footing the bill for everything always and if I don't I am A$$hole MIL?  Like if I want to plan a trip to go skiing, am I even allowed to ask if they want to come without assuming the costs for their flights, car, food, lift tickets, everything?  My only real splurge now is our family trips and there is no way in the future I can afford adding 3 spouses and all their children to the tab.  Isn't realistic to expect adults to pay some of their way?[/quote]

Yes adults do pay. But normally it's not considered a "gift". My parents and I coordinate on what we'd like to do and where we'd like to go. I also bring in budget because my parents are much wealthier and my family of 5 can't afford as much as they can. We are going on vacation with them at the end of the month. They paid for our timeshare and made sure it had enough rooms for us all (ie everyone gets a bed! My kids share a room). They explicitly said what they're paying for and asked if we wanted to go. When we get there, we'll pay our own way for everything else. We will likely buy my parents dinner one night to thank them, but the rest of the time we'll split checks.

My inlaws don't coordinate, so I don't want to go on their trips. DH and I both work and are extremely busy. We can't do Disney a month out. It's just too stressful and not feasible to work around work schedules, taking kids out of school, trying to book hotels late. Inlaws never ask what we want or where we want to go. They expect my kids to sleep in sleeping bags, which means grumpy children and I can't take that. So we usually decline, no hard feelings because they didn't care about our feelings when they booked things without asking.

So yeah, it's about how you present things. If you want them to go and expect them to pay (and for us the most precious thing is our annual leave), you need to make it something they want to do. If you want to go skiing and they don't ski, there's a problem. [/quote]

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