MIL and respective family

[thecanaries]

So I hoping for some advice on where to go.
I have been married to DH for 8 years , good marriage and have a DD nearly 3.

My DH's family are from the north and we met down south and I'm lucky that we live near my parents.

DH has a dead beat alcoholic father (divorced) and his mother is very much the matriarch. She's not at all educated (which is fine ) but this has resulted in some extremely ignorant and Unpleasant views at times.

I feel she resents us living far away (we met in London) and blames me. She's got a nasty side (when she talks about her other daughter in law). Anyway I am always extremely polite however my patience is wearing thin now.

My DH and I hired a lovely Cottage in beautiful countryside quite local to all
Of my DHs family so we could have them
Over and some them stayed. My MIL stayed all of time (which was fine) EXCEPT I was just a slave for 5 days. They are a huge family, I cooked fry ups
Every morning , made lunch and a proper
Evening meal daily. 3 of the evening meals were for 12-14 people and every other meal was a minimum for 6 people. I did not receive any help at any point. The dishwasher broke down and I had to hand
Wash (my DH of course helped) but my DHs family Cleared a few plates but MIL did absolutely NOTHING for 5 days. I mean nothing, not Even a plate brought in to the kitchen.

I gave my MIL the nicest room with a lovely en suite as I thought it would be nice for privacy and we squeezed into a tiny double. We spent £750 on the cottage and £350
On the food and drinks for everyone - bit it was a terrible holiday and I feel so angry about it. I ended up having a row with
My DH on the last night as I felt upset and hurt and that my MIL is Being intentionally hurtful. He is not confrontational and always says I'm being "too sensitive " , "it's just the way she is".

She is queen bee but I also am no
Pushover and am getting fed up now. Everytime We have stayed with her I can hand on heart Say I have washed up EVERY Meal she has cooked and make her cups
Of tea etc etc. I didn't expect her to do loads
But I have felt doing nothing was a
Clear snub. Not One plate was Brought into the kitchen When she finished eating.

My DH family are all a bit like that , I want my daughter to have a relationship with them and they adore her but I feel like maybe I should ask her if I have upset her recently ?

It's making me not want to
Go there anymore as I'm Made to feel so uncomfortable and I kind of want her to understand (and I don't mean it In a threatening manner) that if she's like this to me then I won't want to Come up and she misses out seeing her son and granddaughter.

My DH wants to hire he same cottage
Next Christmas but at the moment I really don't want to. I feel
Like I'm holding it in so much after the last few years that I might just explode. I don't want this to happen but where next??

Sorry for the long post ! Advice welcome -
Thank you.

. I did more cooking, cleaning and housework on holiday than at home and as you can imagine that made me feel resentful and angry which is when I voiced this."

I still can't get over you catering for 14 people who did nothing to help but you're focusing on your MIL and calling her a selfish bitch. Maybe if she did a good job bringing up her children under incredibly difficult circumstances, she feels she deserves to be waited in occasionally? Maybe your dh feels the same? The issue is with the other 13 people. . Send a message to all of them suggesting a rota next time. Then stick to it- don't be a martyr.

You are being a bit of a martyr here.

Yes, they were rude, but why did you have to do the fry ups? Why did you have to do the washing up? Why could you just not leave it?

It seems like this is your power play against MiL for all the stewed up resentment. I actually think your H has a good compromise- you stay in a hotel away from it all, and have a pub meal to avoid the cooking/dishes issue.

It just seems you are hell bent on having an all out screaming match with her to air your grievances.

I can see why you might have done this for one meal, perhaps two but rolling over and doing it for every meal for up to 14 people for the rest of the holiday, I can't understand. That's the behaviour of either a pushover or martyr-I'm not sure which.

Sayyouwill
obviously her auto correct said Pedal Stool when she wanted to say pedestal

obviously her auto correct said Pedal Stool when she wanted to say pedestal

Not obvious at all. I've know several people who thought it was 'pedal stool'. However OP has already mentioned this after my post that it was a typo so by bringing it back up now you're not really helping anyone

Thing is, if you were staying in a hotel/B&B and she won't eat in restaurants, then it would force limits on the time you spent with MIL, without you having to limit it.

You book accomodation that suits your family, the compromise is it has to feel like a holiday for you too, not just you 'hosting' his family for a week, and a hotel /B&B near his family would achieve that.

You can then invite her to join you for meals, you aren't under an obligation to provide what she wants. You can go to her house. Or a pub she's happy to eat dinner in etc. it just means you can take some control back.

You seem like a really nice person who is prepared to out yourself out to ensure everyone has a good time. And they did - so much so they want to do it again! A parenting advisor once told me that family members treat me like a slave because I act like one. And she was so right! I do!! You need to practise not acting like the housekeeper for your own sanity. Spending a week with my mother n law fills me with dread so I can't suggest you do that - but you need to define your boundaries with her and make sure you stick to them. Even if she has a change of heart you need to stick to them as it sounds like deep down she won't change. Good luck

Ok I will mention again why I kept cooking - I wasn't being a martyr :

We had 4 nights and 5 days at the cottage.

We were having different siblings of my DH and their respective families over for evening meals with one the sisters family over for every evening pretty much as they are quite close.

I planned what we would eat on each night in advance and I had a tescos shop ordered in the first day we arrived.

E.g. One night was Chicken Pje for 13 of us
One nights was cottage pie for 12 of us and so forth. 50% were different people each night.

So for example we had a sister and her family 'booked' in for one night. When no help was given I could hardly cancel his brother (and his family) for the next night on the previous nights lack of help? And all of the food was ordered. I wasn't being a martyr but of course the lack of help
Was repeated . However I invited them
For dinner and hardly expected loads of help. It's more the MIL and one sister who was there for every meal and didn't help. I'm annoyed the sister didn't help but she's at least nicer than the MIL and she was cold with me the whole time hence the bigger issue is with the MIL.

In terms of the fry ups it was our holiday too and I wanted to make them for myself, husband and son. Again the bacon, eggs, sausages had been ordered in advance. We had fry ups for 3 mornings. It wasn't martyr behaviour.

He main point of my post was that yes, I won't be putting myself in the same situation it was more how do I deal with a family t like this and I appreciate I need to be more assertive from the beginning and I need to deal with my husband but he doesn't see them often at all and it makes me a bit weaker I suppose.

Now, put like that, it was more like they were invited to your house for dinner. You were effectively hosting a different dinner party every night, not being on a joint holiday.

It was you hosting, and while it would be nice for guests to offer to help, normally when you are invited to dinner at someone else's house, they do all the cooking.

This is the problem with having a house and inviting people round for dinner every night, you are basically doing the level of entertaining you'd normally do over a couple of months over a week.

You expected MIL and SIL to help out, but they also were the guests who didn't get a say in what was cooked, they were also "invited" not "hosts".

This is the problem - you need to stop hosting if you want a holiday!

If your DH won't just not invite people to you every night of your stay, then you can't book a cottage. Book a hotel and if MIL won't eat in a restaurant but wants to eat with you, suggest you go to her house. Then she is the host, not you. If you want to have a holiday, don't arrange dinner parties every night.

Did you invite everyone to you first, or did you get your DH to say "we'll be staying near by, would love to see you one evening" and leave it open for them to possibly invite you to them, when they would be the host, not you? If you instead said "we're staying at X and would love you to come over for dinner on Y night." they could only say yes or no, not suggest they do it instead.

If you come from a family where if you are invited round, you still do a lot of the cooking, then it might seem they were rude, but from your updates, it does sound like you invited them for dinner and then surprised they acted like guests, but they were your guests!

If you want to have a holiday, don't arrange dinner parties every night.

I have to say, this is very true.

If you come from a family where if you are invited round, you still do a lot of the cooking, then it might seem they were rude, but from your updates, it does sound like you invited them for dinner and then surprised they acted like guests, but they were your guests!

But in that model you’d offer to help clear up or wash up, even if you were expecting the answer to be ‘no’.

And you would bloody well say thank you. Effusively. Not doing so is even more horribly rude if the person is thinking of themselves as a guest rather than as someone sharing the cottage.

And would you really be in guest mode for every meal for five days simply because someone else was paying? In that situation I’d be falling over myself even more to offer to take over cooking one of the smaller meals or do the washing up.

'At the end of the day you booked the cottage and invited people. Unfortunately most people seem to think that this means they are guests and can do nothing.'

This ^. Op, I get it, you don't want to wave bye to your dh and Dc for days while they go and visit selfish rels, you want to go too just not have them take the piss while you are there.

Accept your mil and others are selfish and manage the situation better. Lower expectations, they aren't going to thank you or be pleased about en suites etc. Just focus on not being a mug, text or ring 'we're visiting on ... I'll need a hand with catering and washing up etc if you eat with us'. Your dh will always want to see his family, just stop letting them walk all over you.

Don't have a 'have I upset you' chat with mil it won't end well. Just take control with meals next time and delegate.

It was our summer holiday hiring the cottage so yes I did want to
Make nice Meals for everyone to enjoy

You want to spend your holiday making meals for others? You are a pushover OP.

Fwiw I don't think you are a 'pushover', many people like catering for others, they just quite rightly expect others to chip in a bit to help.
Some people are thick and lazy though op and need direction.

I cant believe OP is still whining on about 'nobody helped me'
Get some backbone woman. If nobody had helped me on the first nights dinner then they would be damn well washing up on the second,,

My DH would have said something to them,,and helped me..

Were any adult men present? These threads are always about lazy SILs and MILs but nobody minds when brothers in law do nowt.

You don't need an argument with your dh, just tell what you'll do
I.e. You'll cook half the days, but won't wash up on those days
You won't do fry ups.
Just tell him without making anything personal.

Well now you know...

1 - you aren;t assertive - really really you're not. I would not in a million years have done this. Maybe one cooked breakfast, maybe one dinner but apart from that, they didn't drag you to the cooker with a gun to your head.

2 - if you invite people over they expect you to cook (nice people will help to clear up but not always) - if you don;t want to cook arrange to meet them at a pub in advance and say quite clearly that "it was too much work hosting everyone last time and maybe we could meet at XYZ pub as the food is reaosnably priced and everyone can sort their own dinner out"

3 - don't give your MIL the best room, you sound like a martyr moaning that she awasn't grateful enough.

4 - tell you DH he's cooking if he wants anyone cooked for as it's your holiday.

Oh and when we o away with family say at christmas - we work out how many evenings we have and split the cooking into groups for each evening and agree who is cooking which evening and whomever doesnt cook cleans up.

But you have to agree this in advance

If you are cooking and paying for 13 people every night then it would be cheaper and better to go out and pay for just the 3 of you. If MIL doesn't want to eat out then she goes home (or isn't invited to stay at the cottage) It's your holiday

I think part of why in-law relationships go so wrong is that you have the same level of intimacy as you do with your own relatives but you cant easily raise little niggles. So instead of commenting on not clearing plates, because your dh wont let it be raised, you're left stewing and its become a massive thing.

My deal with my DH is that he'll calmly & gently raise issues with his parents & i'll get on well with them. I never ever criticise them as a person though - I explain the impact of their behaviour. FIL went through a phase of ignoring me (literally I would have to get my DH to repeat what I'd said) and I told DH I wasnt prepared to be ignored in my own home. Not sure what DH said but next visit I got flowers, compliments, ''anything I can do"s... Win win for DH as Im ok with FIL visiting again.

It doesn't sound as if the ILS are very nice people. If I were you I would only do a short visit before Christmas, staying in a hotel, and if the ILS can't or won't join you at a pub or restaurant during your stay or invite you to their homes, it's their problem, not yours. Clearly spending any longer than 3-4 days is too much. Then you can have Christmas at home.

I wouldn't be having any more holidays where there was any room to entertain groups of people, and if they wanted to see you and the DC it would be something like a lunch out, or an afternoon tea. DH could see them in the evening if they could be bothered to get off their arses. Basically treat a trip up north as yours and your DC holiday first and foremost. DH will just have to deal with the fact that his family and you don't get on, and discuss ways in which he can see them without a repeat of the last holiday.

So the others were in guest mode, they didn't see op doing same thing night after night, but Mil did Mil was that link she saw op hosting.

Anyway it's up to you to say no op and do things differently next time. Give Mil specific jobs if necessary.

@girlywirly Yes maybe a pre Christmas
Break is a compromise? One to def think about, thank you

@bornfree You have articulated that brilliantly - yes that is exactly right and it's why I feel particularly annoyed at her as she sat on her bum for 5 days while I did everything and look after my toddler which she didn't help with either.

I guess I want her to understand that she is cutting off her nose to spite her face. If she continues in this vain she is only stopping herself from seeing more of her son and granddaughter. And I do not mean that out of revenge I mean that just being unpleasant makes me uncomfortable being in her company and stops me wanting to go up.

In 13 years she has never
Once asked me About my job, how my family are, my life, - Nothing.
Just nothing and I beginning to despise going up there.

She will never understand she is cutting her nose off to spite her face. Whatever happens, she will blame you as you (and your family?) are the scapegoat. I say that as the scapegoat daughter of a narcissist.

Please stop wasting your energy on things, you cannot control. All you can control is your behaviour.