I may have moaned about this before but my FIL is now coming with us on our annual summer vacations upon invitation if my partner
For context my FIL is 74 and been widowed for about 7 years. I initially accepted that having him on a summer trip was a really nice gesture in terms of overcoming grief. However it now is now becoming apparent my partner's idea of a summer vacation one is a 'family' one where my FIL will be welcome
I am nearing the end of our summer vacation in the US and I have to admit it hadn't been entirely enjoyable. FIL tried to take the lead in family decisions, told children off in my opinion unnecessarily, assumed a sort of patriarchal role where I think he felt he was taking the family on holiday and criticised some of our holiday activity decisions.
I have to add his health is not optimal and this has lead to a restriction on some of our joint activities. There is also a generation gap between him and my children (13 and 11) which is hard to bridge; this is understandable but the critisicm of young girls' CV choice in music, food choice, clothing, internet use etc was wearisome.
Ultimately it is a sense of encroaching family space that I found really difficult. We have stressful lives and the summer vacation is to the only real relatively stress free prolonged family to one we have and that has been compromised.
One week we had to have shared accomodation with FIL where although he was in separate bedroom did not exactly promote any attempts of the romantic type between my partner and myself.
We need to have a conversation but has anyone been in a similar situation?