Easter Hols aibu tired MIL wants to visit

[Brighteyes27]

Long sorry. FIL died earlier on this year. DH and I are both in the midst of restructures at work, DD has been bullied at school recently and both kids play a lot of sports on a weekend so sick of housework treadmill etc. I would love week away abroad or anywhere really. But we darent book anything as worried about our job uncertainty but we could all really do with a break and some down time. I work PT and I had booked some days off either side of the Easter weekend incase we had some good news and could manage a couple of nights away somewhere in this country. Or failing that just have some chill out time together and maybe a day or two out. Anyway tonight MIL phones to say she has decided she wants to visit us Easter weekend as apparently her DD my SIL is off on holiday abroad for a long weekend with her BF and her DS my BIL and his family are off on holiday abroad for a fortnight at Easter. So obviously we are last choice. She wants to visit Thurs afternoon to Tues when DH is off work. We have had her to visit us for a full week last month and DH is seeing her for a weekend next month. What we can do is extremely limited with MIL here as we won't all fit in one car, our house isn't massive so one of the kids has to sleep on the couch and we can't go many places as she is eldetly. She stays up until midnight even though much of that time she is asleep on the sofa (so we get no time together at night) and she doesn't get up until well after 10am. I do really feel for her but her visits are too long and quiet draining. If she visited the week before Easter or the week after it wouldn't be quite so bad but she is insisting on visiting Easter weekend. AIBU to be totally fed up and cancel my annual leave and let her come when she wants to visit and feel resentful or should we say either the first week or the second week when the kids are off or visit another time? Or should I lie and say I had booked a couple of days away for us as a surprise before we knew of job situation (tomorrow night)? She knows the situation with DH'swork and asked him on the phone tonight if we were going away at Easter.

"Throwing toys out of the pram" is a horrible expression. Particularly horrible when used about a recently bereaved person.

"He said she said we can go out if we want without her and she'll stay home if we have something on but to me that wouldn't be right"
Of course that's all right. Why wouldn't it be?

I would feel a bit shitty and guilty leaving her at our house home alone where she knows no one nearby especially if we had a couple of long family days out like I was intending.
I would feel I had to modify our plans completely and can just imagine her saying what time do you think you will all be back and her calls to her DD or anyone who will listen it'll be well x (me) arranged for everyone to go out all day so it was awful I've not seen anyone all day etc.

I hope you don't treat your own mother like this. Poor lady lost her partner of 30 years and you don't seem to be showing much sympathy.

"Throwing toys out of the pram" is a horrible expression. Particularly horrible when used about a recently bereaved person.

Oh come on, there has to be something else you can say to shame the OP about daring to have feelings on an anonymous forum?

Any chance you could go in stay in SIL or BILs house for a few days whilst they are away and see MIL that way? You can the limit the visit and a break from the routine of being at home????

YANBU to want complete down time with DH for a couple of days and have MIL Sat - Tues/Wed.

Then, frankly it's you that's making it difficult. Tell her what the plan is. Tell her when you'll be back, adding an hour to be on the safe side. And off you go with a spring in your step.

"Oh come on, there has to be something else you can say to shame the OP about daring to have feelings on an anonymous forum? hmm". I've made loads of helpful suggestions. The OP's not up for them.

When both my mum and my mil were recently bereaved they wanted to be out of their own houses. Too many echoey memories. She'll be fine alone in your house.

I would feel rude leaving a visitor alone in my house too op. To me it would imply that I didn't care much about them and was avoiding them. That's certainly how my mother would have interpreted it if I'd done it to her.

Let her know she can babysit for you on Saturday night - you and yoru husband can go out for the evening while she takes charge

katyberry - you do know she has 2 large teenagers? Or are you suggesting she house-sits to stop them having parties or orgies?

Putting the bereavement aside, your MIL sounds exactly like mine! Hard work, inflexible about when she comes (despite being retired), wedded to her routines, wants to chat all the time ( I have other things to do) , claims not to be a fussy eater but is and because of health problems limited in what she can do. I get cross because I always end up suffering brunt of visit as work part time.I would either insist she comes before or after Easter as it is not a god time for you OR cancel your leave and take a day after she's gone to treat yourself. You have my sympathy

Then, frankly it's you that's making it difficult

How exactly? OP had planned her weekend break - MIL invited herself and DH has agreed to it - OP hasn't said no, but offered alternatives - DH expects dinner cooked beds sorted and a timetable of events that should he chose to go - leaves OP at home due to limited car space -

So how is SHE making it difficult?

Yes game of chance kids 12 & 13 but the heights of teenagers but not quite old enough to be left alone whilst we went out on an evening. No MIL wouldnt dream of that if their was a meal out she would want to be there. DH and I haven't had a night out together on our own since last summer. And haven't been away anywhere as a family since August apart from one night away in October and the days around FIL's funeral. So could really do with a break.
I have said my piece now DH didn't like it much but if agrees to let her visit for longer than I have offered at Easter it's totally putting her needs above our needs and at our expense i will be making plans and taking off and leaving him to it.
She has form once phoned up and informed us she was on her way up to see us just before we got married we were out for the day and DH abandoned our plans and rushed home. Another time three weeks before we got married she phoned up and informed DH she was coming to visit us the following day. We had booked a fri night away in a b & b and planned a days fell walking on the Saturday but this got shelved and we left soon after breakfast to get back for her and we only went after work on Fri night so it was a bit of a waste of time. She usually rings up about something else then slips in she's intending visiting.

"can just imagine her saying what time do you think you will all be back and her calls to her DD or anyone who will listen it'll be well x (me) arranged for everyone to go out all day so it was awful I've not seen anyone all day etc."

I think we have to accept that the OP has experience of this particular person and we don't. If this is the kind of thing she does, then this is the kind of thing she does.

It may be that no one dares do this to BertrandRussell, or if they do she doesn't care! But that isn't the case here.

My mum had difficulties like this with her FIL. She remembers many happy evenings with aged relatives as a teenager while her parents merrily got on with her own lives, during stays of more than a couple of days. Like Bertrand Russell, she was very much culturally inclined to think that when people come and stay for a while, they fit in with your life and you don't have to hover around them for weeks on end. This simply was not possible with my grandfather, her FIL. He would announce he was coming, with no reason to pick Tuesday as opposed to Monday or Wednesday, but Tuesday it would be, even if things had to be cancelled to meet him. He would then expect the world to revolve around him and simply did not grasp that my mother was WOH in a very demanding job and he was making a huge amount of unnecessary extra work for her - unnecessary in the sense that he was very welcome to all the meals and comforts you would expect that the rest of the family were enjoying, but he always wanted something subtly different, or at a different time, or at no notice, that kind of thing. He complained all the time and wanted someone to hang on his words and his complaints. Rather than put his feet up on the sofa, his "thing" was to dump his shoes in the middle of the sitting room. yes he would sleep in the sitting room and snore and my mum would wonder why he didn't just go to bed.

My dad tried his best to take the burden from my mum, especially in later years when he got worse. but he really viewed my mother as a domestic appliance that came with the house and really thought that when he arrived - or from the moment he announced his intention to arrive - she would be at his disposal.

I wonder what BertrandRussell would have done with him? (serious question - maybe we can all learn from it)

Oh the other salient point about my grandfather is that he was bereaved too. Always. My grandmother died in about 1980 and he was defined by that loss until about 17 years later when another relative died. That bereavement pretty much lasted him out till his own death. Like suits, his bereavements were made to last and he made sure he always had enough years in the one he was wearing

OP I think your latest post changes things quite a bit.

She has form - presumably on the occasions you've quoted, just before your wedding, your FiL was still with her? So the Easter weekend isn't really anything to do with her loss, it's because everything has to be about her.

You said you thought you and DH were third choice because her other DCs couldn't have her. Does your DH feel that he's the least favourite child and so he has to jump to her every demand to try to please her?

If you had recounted her attitude towards visiting at Easter, and cited previous examples of her behaviour, without mentioning FiL's death, you would have had almost unanimity that you have a DH problem, not a MiL problem. You still do. Try putting it to him that if he's always dropping everything for her because he felt third best, he's now telling his wife and children that they are second best to his mother. Does he really want history to repeat itself?

Yes I know he should be firmer with her and we often fall out about this. He is the oldest and I would say he is probably her favorite but with her she is quietly manipulative with all her DC's and plays them all off against one another. Oh x did this for took me here the other week etc.
They rarely communicate with one another most things usually go through her which keeps this going.

One day you might have a DIL. Then you'll be a MIL. I hope your DIL will treat you as a member of her family, as she should.

Perhaps my point is clear.

Gosh I cringe to say this OP, but the writing was on the wall about DH's relationship with his mother all along then (pre wedding).

Stick to your guns. I think; get through this easter in the way you have planned (ie do your own thing if she comes on the days you've asked to keep free) and then when the dust has settled a bit have a proper convo with DH about how you plan your free time as a family.

If it means whipping the diary out and sorting who's going to be where for all the following year's major holidays and long weekends then so be it. Do it. Tell him you need to know when your time is your own over the next few months and when it's going to be MIL visit time. Make your family plans and agree to stick to them. You'll both have your agreements written in front you next time she rings up off the cuff this crops up.

Ignore all the 'you'll be a DIL one day' shite. It's so incredibly patronising and PA. Sick of hearing it on here.

It is indeed: your failure to mention OPs daughter's partner having any responsibility towards his/her own mother and any onus on OP not to be as unreasonable as this MIL is speak utter volumes.

One day you might have a DIL. Then you'll be a MIL. I hope your DIL will treat you as a member of her family, as she should

And maybe you'll be the considerate MIL who is flexible, understands pressures on people's time, won't impose her choices on TV in another's home, won't criticize the meal plans etc

It's a two way street and being a MIL doesn't make you boss!

You are all adults in an adult relationship that requires respect and understanding.