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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To go against dh's and mil's wishes on this holiday from hell?

252 replies

edgedandtaken · 03/08/2017 10:45

We are currently in a lovely part of the country that we would not have been able to visit were it not for mil’s generosity. However, I am feeling less than grateful and would dearly love to pack up and go home. Dh works freelance and a couple of contracts have fallen through recently, which has been very bad timing as I am now on maternity leave. He is confident of picking up more work over the next few months, as the run up to Christmas is usually his busiest time and I will be back at work within 6 weeks, so things are tight but not desperate.

Mil insisted on treating us to this holiday, along with other members of the extended family. We were content to go without a holiday this year, but dh hates saying no to her so here we are. We have no accommodation costs, but the petrol costs are very high (don’t even want to add it all up) and with the bad weather we having to spend more than would otherwise have been the case. This is all fine and I know we are hardly in a place to complain.

My problem is mil and her controlling ways. Everyone (8 of us on total) has to eat together for all meals, and dh the dc and I can’t go out without her as she wants dh to do all her driving as we are down a windy road – she has her own car but won’t drive it here, so we are stuck with her at all times.

What has really pissed me off is that there is an attraction here that ds1 really wants to go to – it’s and EH place and he knew it was here before we came away and really wants to go. According to Mil it is far too expensive, ridiculous and a rip off. We drove to it yesterday, I had to bf in the car, and before I had got out, dh, mil and ds were walking back to the car having decided we weren’t going in. I was furious – we could afford it, but apparently the decision has been made and it would be rude to spend the money in front of mil when she has treated us due to our financial problems. Bollocks. She insisted, we hadn’t asked or hinted or anything. It has cost us to get here and now we are here we might as well spend a bit more and let ds1 go to the place he wants to go to. Who drives up to a place and refuses to pay to go in with a child who wants to go in? We had a fucking picnic in the carpark ffs.

To make it worse, tonight we are booked to go to a restaurant (well-known chef), which, to my mind, is far more of an extortionate rip-off than the place ds wanted to go to. It’s mil’s treat apparently, but I fucking hate seafood and it’s no treat for the dc here.

Wib to get chips for the dc and me and take him to the attraction tomorrow despite what dh/mil say?

OP posts:
AlpacaLypse · 03/08/2017 20:47

I loved Tintagel and was delighted to find dtds did too. Although there're a couple of seriously steep cliffy bits where intrepid small children can successfully scare the living daylights out of their parents.

Meanwhile... MIL is being a bossy cow, probably because everyone has let her been one for years. DH is being a spineless twat, probably because you've not had the opportunity to notice before.

waitforitfdear · 03/08/2017 20:51

As a mil and a gran myself I think your mil is a controlling bitch and your dh a spineless twat.

Enjoy it op and sod the meal too.

llangennith · 03/08/2017 21:15

Well said waitforitdear. I have a lovely relationship with DS and DIL. Very occasionally I'll suggest something to DS and he'll say DIL wouldn't like that and I accept it and I'm glad he thinks about her.

AmberStClare · 03/08/2017 22:19

Another vote for Portscatho. Lovely places there for fish and chips. And, you can go to St Mawes Castle just up the road the same day.

Hulder · 03/08/2017 22:39

Have had RS fish and chips. They weren't even the nicest in Cornwall, let alone ever.

What sort of granny takes a GC to a carpark and then refuses to go in. Or thinks a GC wants to go to a restaurant on holiday?

Never ever accept a 'free' holiday from her again. Clearly the strings are not worth it.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 03/08/2017 23:01

just say you are happy to skip the meal tonight. One adult absent at one meal is hardly being antisocial

Especially as you are breastfeeding - it would be awful if a grizzly baby ruined theme for everyone - you might even be asked to leave or refused entry!

Don't take the risk - sacrifice yourself for the team! Grin

SchadenfreudePersonified · 03/08/2017 23:08

*the meal, not theme

Donttouchthethings · 03/08/2017 23:33

Agree with everyone else that it's fine for you and dcs to skip tonight's meal and for you to take DS to the castle. You just need to find a way to say it that feels good to you.

Your DH sounds like a bit of a lettuce.

BiddyPop · 04/08/2017 09:22

I'm only on page 1 but could you take the family car and DS and baby to the attraction, leaving DH available to drive MIL I her own car?

Of course, you will make every effort to get back in time for the shared dinner but my need to stop for something if you get delayed (wink)

juneau · 04/08/2017 09:28

Yet another thread about a miserable holiday made worse because a spineless DH can't stand up his DM - unbelievable! Yes, take your DS to the EH attraction and let your DH deal with his selfish DM. Who the hell takes their GC on holiday and then denies them a visit to the one place they want to go???? Posh seafood restaurants with small DC and baby sounds horrendous (and I love seafood!). I don't understand the mentality of some people. It's like they want to be seen to do the right (give their skint kids/grandkids a holiday), but then they want to dictate what is done every day and insist that it's something that they will enjoy, rather than the kids. Selfish arses.

NataliaOsipova · 04/08/2017 09:36

It's like they want to be seen to do the right (give their skint kids/grandkids a holiday), but then they want to dictate what is done every day and insist that it's something that they will enjoy, rather than the kids. Selfish arses.

Exactly. And - do you know what? If the little boy had wanted to go to somewhere like Alton Towers, which is a day from hell at a cost of several hundreds of pounds for the family, you could just about see her point (although it would still have been rotten to take him for lunch in the car park and not let him go in Sad). But he wants to go to an English Heritage castle, FFS. It's educational. It'd cost more like £20 and could be done in an hour.

LindyHemming · 04/08/2017 09:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 04/08/2017 09:52

Brilliant solution Biddy

SchadenfreudePersonified · 04/08/2017 09:55

It's educational. It'd cost more like £20 and could be done in an hour

Though it may take a very long time to drive back Natalia. What with traffic and roadworks, and as these are winding country roads, having to stop for badgers and sheep and tractors and bunnies and stuff.

They may miss the meal - but never mind - they can have chips.

Supermagicsmile · 04/08/2017 09:58

enjoy the castle!

ContinuingPrim · 04/08/2017 09:58

It is just so sad when people are the this MIL. Why enforce obedience when you could spread joy?

When I am old, I intend to be a joy-spreader, champagne buyer, jinks and larks organiser, cake baker, babysitter, freedom facilitator, staunch supporter, wind beneath your wings kind of mother/grandmother. That's what my late father always did for me.

NataliaOsipova · 04/08/2017 10:03

Though it may take a very long time to drive back Natalia

Yes - I'm forgetting those treacherous Cornish roads. You get stuck behind a farmer and you're there for, well, hours. Can't be too careful with children in the car either Wink

livefornaps · 04/08/2017 10:10

Omg just read your update re. thimblefuls of wine - I'm so sorry OP, I was the one who told you to suck it up. I hereby take back everything I said!!!!

I'M SO SOOOORRRRYYYY!!!!

I have a friend who is married to a much older gentleman and when we have dinner together he always produces an (admittedly very good + expensive) bottle but with this irritating flourish as if he's some sort of benevolent fucking king or something. THEN, like with your husband's family, we all get a "thimbleful" and, here's the clincher, regardless of the number of people round the table there will always be an annoying piddly little amount deliberately left languishing at the bottom of the bottle thereby ruling out opening another. I'll often be sitting there with my fingers itching in full knowledge that I will have brought a less expensive but nonetheless fully serviceable bottle to the dinner...and that there's no way I'm going to see a drop of it! I swear sometimes I see his greying whiskers twitching with a secret smirk he gives knowing that each sip of his fancy plonk is going to have to barely wet the lips of his parched guests if we're going to make our one (barely half full) glass last the meal. But then I am also a booze hound.

Sorry - had to get that off my chest.

And I'm really sorry again, OP!

Dowser · 04/08/2017 10:19

I was shocked at EH price of £15 to go and see a pile of stones...Stonehenge
We had Eh membership so went in but it would have been £30 for us two without kids.
They've ruined what was a free site.

If it was anywhere like that I can understand family members not wanting to pay.

TestTubeTeen · 04/08/2017 10:26

Duh to self!

I had forgotten MIL's car lying idle!

You take DS to castle, your DH taxis MIL to a car park of her choice for a picnic.

NataliaOsipova · 04/08/2017 10:33

You take DS to castle, your DH taxis MIL to a car park of her choice for a picnic.

😂😂😂

Yes - there's nothing like a sandwich in a car park to get you in the holiday mood. The sound of the car doors slamming. The evocative smell of exhaust fumes. MIL will have a ball.....Grin

RudeDog · 04/08/2017 10:36

I endured one holiday with DHs family, we had to do what they wanted, eat when they wanted, sleep when they wanted....
At the same time being told how brilliant it was and I must be an amazing time (fucking awful and boring)

I can remember being sat in a restaurant and MIL complaining about what I had ordered and I should order the same as her (which I didn't like) and just went on and on

It's not a holiday - it was just a worse version of going to stay with them

Holidays are so much about choice, you make compromises (especially with children) and when that's taken away it's not a holiday as far as I'm concerned

moonbells · 04/08/2017 10:40

if you want to make someone go puce at prices, suggest going to the Eden Project... Wink

We have been going down to the Tintagel area for nearly 20 years and never grow tired of it. Small child + Trebarwith Strand and lunch in the Port William... and no mobile reception... bliss. Hope you manage to have fun.

ps have also been to RS's, both restaurant and chippy, but it's not a place for seafood refuseniks. DH is allergic... so you have my sympathy. He can't even cope with the smell!

Lunde · 04/08/2017 11:57

Hope you got to go out with ds today

woodhill · 04/08/2017 12:22

I know what you mean OP. My ils are nice but I remember going to Centre Parcs years' ago and having to insist on taking dds on a pony ride there. They tried to stop us as we had to pay for it probably but the dds enjoyed it I think.