Rude guest or rude host?

[njfhow]

So my brother lives many hours' drive away in Scotland. He works a job which requires night shifts, weekends etc. He is married and 2 DC (8 and 10). We (me, DH and 3 DC) are visiting Scotland for another reason and have something organised during the week so try to take the chance to see him and his family (bearing in mind we haven't seen each other since Xmas 2015). We only have the option of two possible weekends so we suggest a visit either at the beginning or the end of the week we are visiting.

Brother says great, I will arrange shifts etc and have time to see you on X weekend. Come and stay with us (they do have large house). So we arrange plans around that weekend being with brother.

Fast forward and two days before we head off, I message sister-in-law to ask if there is anything we should bring etc and we hope to arrive about 5pm on the Friday. SIL replies that they will not be home as DB is working Friday night shift but is off rest of weekend. She and the DC have sports club and not home until 8pm. They have no food in so we will have to manage with a sandwich.

No problems I say, we will arrive 8:30pm and will have a meal before we arrive so we don't need food Friday night.

SIL then replies - oh by the way we will need you out of the house on Saturday morning as she is working from home and has customers coming to the house and it would be best if everyone out of the way. Can we be up and "go for a walk or something" at about 8:30am till 11:30am. Brother will be asleep and their 2 DC will be going to sports club competition at 8am getting lift from friend.

At this point I think WTF? Speak to DH and he says he is not up for that and we will stay in local hotel for a night and come to them lunchtime Saturday.

So I message back saying change of plan we will come lunchtime Saturday. Which we do. Hardly any food in house so we all eat out and of course we offer to pay. No beds made for us or DC so we make our own. But we get on with it no problem and fairly enjoyable evening. Sunday morning their DC have yet another sports club so we decide to cut our losses and head off as long journey ahead.

I was a bit disappointed to be honest but never mind I think we have done our best and made an effort and a shame we didn't get to see very much of DB and his DC but was nice to catch up on the Saturday evening.

Just spoken to my Mum on the phone and she is saying how upset my DB is about how we wouldn't put ourselves out to stay on the Friday night and how he couldn't believe we would rather stay in hotel and how rude we were for doing that. Was it rude?

" is that DB works really hard and is always exhausted but whenever he is home she expects him to do everything."

Clearly not on this occasion though!

Very very rude host - your SIL should have done everything she could to accommodate you even if she wasn't fully briefed by DH.

Hang on. SIL asked them to go out on Sat am which is not brilliant but sort of understandable given the type of work.

But all the rest of it, no beds, no welcome, no food, not getting the kids back or arranging for them to stay home - they were BILS guests, he arranged it, he okayed it, why the fuck should SIL have been expected to do it all? It was a shame, but I can totally understand SIL being furious and not putting herself out. Why did SIL need to be 'briefed' so she could do it all? Is she a maid? Does she get orders?

I highly suspect if SIL had posted on here that her DH had invited family but didn't expect to be home, hadn't checked if it fitted in okay with her work, expected her and the children to cancel their plans and wasn't going to make beds or get in extra food or prepare dinner she would have been told to do exactly what she did - just leave it to him and if his guests didn't like it his problem.

It's a shame for the OP, but I don't see why SIL is being blamed. It's her DH who is in the wrong and he has no right to complain the OP had to stay in a hotel because he didn't bother running it past his DW first.

Based on my dps, I'd be very wary of allowing them to get involved between you and your db. I'd call/text your brother saying it was great to see him and his family and you hope he didn't mind your decision to stay in a hotel but you just wanted to make life easy for sil as you know Satursdag are hectic for her.

I also think OP did her best in the situation - because I would have told them to forget it and gone home - or somewhere else!!

Normal people plan for guests - make beds buy extra food organise tea or takeaway -

Yes I've rearranged sports clubs because family are more important when you see very little of them! You make the effort!!

And no SIL shouldn't do it all - he should've helped they had notice so not unexpected to get beds out the day before or order food online - I mean you have to shop anyway!

Work I think his slightly different - but she could've let them know in advance that she'd be needing peace - but X do a great breakfast and Y is open for the kids.

Both Bro and SIL were incredibly rude. Going to a hotel was a good solution, although I probably would've skipped the family visit altogether after that and either gone home, or had a mini holiday elsewhere.

If your brother, SIL, and mum all have separate email addresses, or you have some sort of online family social media, I'd write a bullet point letter for them all to see. Just outline that X, Y, Z, A, B, C happened. End with the fact that you felt very unwelcome, and that you are now bowing out and won't be discussing it anymore, but you want everyone to know all the facts. This way everyone is on the same page. No way would I stand by and allow my good name to be tarnished because bro and SIL can't get their act together.

If SIL and brother want to have an argument about it amongst themselves about it then that's on them. If they try to drag you into their marital discord don't respond.

That said, if someone was staying for the whole weekend, I probably wouldn't cancel the kids' events if I had to pay for it and/or it was some sort of team activity where their absence would impact on others'.

Thanks all. I am happy to know that most people think we were not rude.

I think my Mum, Brother and SIL are in possession of all the facts already (well my mum might not know every last detail as I did not mention unmade beds as that would seem petty). They just have a different perspective I suppose.

From their point of view, we were the ones who wanted to come and visit with little choice of dates (as I said in my OP we were taking the advantage of being relatively close in Scotland - we were still 2.5 hours from where they live but thought it worth a detour to see them). So they see it as we should have wanted to "fit in around them" and not be so precious as to prefer a hotel to staying with them just because we were "asked politely" if we could go out on the Saturday morning.

On the food front I think SIL just cannot face catering for family of 5 plus their own family whilst DB was at work and after having been with her DC to the sports activity so was probably trying to avoid the problem on the Friday evening by offering a sandwich rather than get food in. Fair enough. That's why we said we would eat first. And no one saying that was rude but it was just part of the overall welcome I suppose.

Then they probably thought it was easiest going out Saturday evening (which was fine). They did provide the usual basics for breakfast, cups of tea etc. So I guess it is just a matter of perception.

I was just surprised to be told we had been rude so I guess it boils down to whether it was reasonable, having said we wanted to visit, for us to choose to go to a hotel that first night rather than stay over and leave the house so early the next morning. We were tired!

I think they probably also thought we should have stayed longer on the Sunday to watch the sports and then maybe go out for a late lunch especially as DB had that day off but I know my DC would not have enjoyed it and we had a really long journey to make so decided to head off.

Oh well I am going to let it go... I am going to conclude that both families were just trying to manage their time and priorities as best they could and it is a shame that they came across to us as having been rather unwelcoming and we came across to them as being rude! Maybe we can joke about it at Xmas how we were all juggling too many commitments.

OP, I think you sound
like a really nice and understanding person. Good on you for just putting it all to bed now. Probably best all round. I am trying to be more like this with my family.

" So they see it as we should have wanted to "fit in around them" "

I agree with that.

However, if you didn't want to get 5 of you up, breakfasted & out before 8.30, I also agree with that.

I don't see how the 2 are mutually exclusive tbh.

Unless I have misread/misunderstood, there was noone about to see you until lunchtime Sat, which is when you went to see them.

Nothing done re food/beds by them as presumably SIL had been working & brother sleeping after working.

I also don't think that having to make up your own beds/eat out is a problem when there are 5 of you-ie you are more than the family you are visiting!

The timing and hotel etc are potentially all neither here nor there, but 2 days before and it's all agreed that you'll be there on the Saturday, there's no food, no beds made up, only basics?

That is classic ftfo territory. Your db might not be astute to pick that up, but his dw has shrieked ftfo loud and clear.

The reason you haven't seen them is because she doesn't want to entertain the notion of it. He's probably oblivious

Call. Him. Up. Explain how you felt and why, that you did feel that you weren't wanted and were just trying to make the best of it, while still seeing your db.

I don't think there is anything to be gained by raking over this.

What I absolutely would do though is to send a nice card to Bro & SIL saying how nice it was to see them and say something nice about their DC.