I have a sister who won't vacation with my parents and I. My parents didn't want to vacation without her and were upset by it. The solution is that my parents don't pay for my family's vacation- we pay our own way. That way they feel less guilty over unequal distributions of money. They aren't spending 5k on my family's vacation and sister didn't get anything.

I'm not in this situation (mostly because we only have one sibling and we like vacationing with our parents) but I don't think it's weird at all to exclude parents. There's nothing wrong with saying that it's a siblings only trip.

SIL also has a point and you guys should be standing up for her more. If your inlaws are making the trips miserable, why don't SIL and your dh sit them down. It's not okay to make everyone miserable with long dinners that start at specific times. I've flat out told my parents that we aren't waking up before 8am and they better not make noise before then. My dad used to wake us all up at the crack of dawn on vacations, which no one liked even my mom. Now my dad just reads the news on his ipad and makes a coffee. He'd rather appease everyone else than not get invited.

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.

Right. If the grandparents only want to vacation all together, and the SIL never wants to vacation with them again, the grandparents are NEVER going to get the vacation they want. This "ideal" vacation will never happen. So does that mean that none of the family ever gets to vacation together? Makes no sense to me.

Now I wonder if you're trying to force SIL into including the grandparents (and maybe you have a lot in common with DH's parents ...). If that's the case, SIL will throw in the towel and never ask you on vacation again. No family vacations is the end result.

Is SIL your dh’s sister? Or is her husband dh’s brother?

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.

Let's say I asked Amy and Becky to go to dinner for Saturday night. They both say no. Later, I find out they went out together, without me, on Saturday night. This feels bad and possibly rude, unless Amy and Beckie had made their plan prior to my invitation. I would ask myself, would it have been so hard for them to include me too, since they knew I was free Saturday night? But maybe Amy and Becky wanted a night for just the two of them, and that's really none of my business.

Let's say I asked Amy and Becky to go to dinner on Saturday night, and later I find out they went out together, without me, on a different night. Here I have no right to be upset. It is NOT normal/healthy to decide your friends can't do anything without including you too.

So your situation is family, but it's basically the same. Being family doesn't give you more rights over other people's autonomy and leisure time. I think the grandparents are being unreasonable, and you're being unreasonable by being so accommodating of their unreasonable demands. The fact that you described your DH as a "golden child" suggests that his family has an unhealthy dynamic, and that you are aware of it. Sounds like you are all too ready to play into and defend the unhealthy dynamic, all while totally ignoring your DH's feelings/opinions.

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.

But it’s not that you’ve said no to the ILs. You’ve said yes and they reject your yes because SIL says no. ILs absolutely could still vacation with your family, they chose not to because it’s not exactly to their preference.

Now, separately, SIL is asking on a different vacation, to which you as the invitee, can also say yes or no.

The other outcome is you never vacation with any part of H’s family since it is clear that the 3 families will not agree to go altogether. Which sounds perfect to me since all this drama over vacation would not be my idea of a good time.

First of all, vacation is “supposed” to be low stress and fun. The turmoil you describe seems problematic. If you agree to this vacation, insist that the sister in law and husband inform the parents before you pay a deposit.

From what you say, SIL doesn’t get along too well with parents and is dragging you into it. IMHO, vacation with your nuclear family.

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.

Ah. So, since your husband is the favorite, you probably get treated quite favorably when your in-laws are around. And the sister-in-law and her husband are not treated as well. She doesn’t want to put up with that for a week, but she wants the cousins having fun together.

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.

It's almost as if you don't even have a husband and these aren't his parents and instead they are yours. I guess you can just tell tell them you were dragged and kidnapped against your will and had nothing to do with it so your image won't be tarnished. You're a DIL, not a daughter or son, I doubt they care that much about your role in this vacation if it happens.

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.

I see you OP. I would also not feel comfortable in this position. It would be one thing if you sometimes did things all together, and then this time was just siblings/families. But since the parents are never included it’s just kind of mean. I either wouldn’t go, or would give the ILs a heads up before agreeing to go, But that will likely cause issues between them and SIL.

Anonymous wrote:Grandparents: Only want to vacation with the entire family. May be offended if parts of family vacation without them.

SIL: Does not want to vacation with grandparents. Wants to vacation with brother's family.

YOU: Wants to please everyone, while pleasing nobody

YOUR DH: Who know what he thinks, maybe nobody cares.

My take is that it's totally OK for siblings to have sibling time, and it's really too much for the parents to take exception to that. Your role in the family OP, is to see what your DH wants to do and go with it.

+1. Well put.

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.

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.

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.