don't know what I've done wrong. Help me see the error of my ways...

[NannaNoodleman]

Family visiting from abroad, staying in our house, they're very welcome.

They wanted to go out to a certain place this afternoon but I was cooking dinner for everyone and clearing up lunch pots. So they went out and I stayed home.

Two cars: 4 adults and 4 children.

I called at 5pm and asked what time they'd be home and was told they wouldn't be setting off for another hour.

I asked my parents to bring my kids home sooner as they're tired and I wanted them to be in bed at a reasonable time tonight.

Well... it's caused a massive hoohah!!!

I've been told that they're on holiday and don't want to be summoned back for dinner at a certain time. There's been an argument and I'm being ignored!

• this is also my holiday (we stay in England for the summer so we can see them when they visit).
• they could've told me they didn't want dinner when I stayed home to cook it.
• I wasn't asking them to come back.
• I thought they were here to see us.
• my house is not a b&b.
• my children are so tired from many late nights that they've been crying at everything today.

So, why am I the villain?

I am upset for you reading this. Sibling is self important twat who needs to learn sun does not rise and set with them.
Never agree to hosting the family like this again.

I have yet to read a CF thread where the OP actually pulls the CF’s up on their appalling behaviour. As to your final question in your OP, why am I the villain? The answer is because you let them treat you that way.

The sibling is a vile bully. I can understand why you don’t feel able to tackle him/her now, but why on earth would you choose to visit them at your parents’ home in the coming weeks? Why do you feel obliged to socialise with them at all? Let them have their four weeks here with the parents, stay away from the lot of them, and when the cunts trot off back abroad you can start seeing your parents again without them.

Your brother's a right shit, OP, isn't he?

Ignore the rather unpleasant posts on here

OP YANBU at all!

I have no idea why you’ve been given such a hard time on this thread, unless your sibling is posting on here under several different names...

Your sibling is a bully and your parents are cowards who have enabled that bully. I agree with the suggestion of trying assertiveness training (my normally VERY assertive mother did this to help her deal with my manipulative and selfish sisters and it really helped), which may help you prepare tactics and phrases to help you to deal with your vile sibling. Think of it as helping you to change the dynamic and teach your children how to deal with this kind of behaviour so they are never made to feel like this in their own home.

I feel they should be ejected from your home immediately (parents too) but I understand if you aren’t able to do that right now. My advice is to do the absolute minimum for them (no cooking, or shopping - do not supply the wine!), have as much time apart as you can and keep your kids separate and under your control at all times (i.e. take separate cars to the unavoidable events so you can leave if/when you need to) to minimise the impact of their awful behaviour. Make sure you never agree to have them stay with you again, you owe that to yourself as you should never be made to feel like this, never mind in your own home.

Good luck

You win the arguement by stating the fact.
Agree with them, then say but this is my home, so my rules.

Never host any of them again.
They are rude and ungrateful.
I think you would get a lot of support on the relationships board because everyone there would understand immediately.

I read most of this thread's responses wondering how on Earth PPs had read the same info as me.
From those responses, you can now see how your family have taken offence. In my view stupidly petty offence, but at least PPs have shown you their perspective.

My perspective on it is that they knew you were prepping dinner when they decided to go out, and they insisted on taking your 2 & 3yo even when you objected. Therefore the onus was on them as good guests to ask what time you'd like them back for dinner. They were the ones going out on an impromptu trip. You would have been unreasonable if it had been a planned trip and you'd insisted they return early. You didn't.
Next time you'll know to be clear as crystal, as you now know you can't assume they'll be sensible.

They're being a bunch of dicks, and your sibling is clearly aware they hold the power if no one dares to tel them when they're wrong.
Your parents are just as bad, they must know your DCs usual routine vaguely at least?
Hope they regrow their manners by morning and it blows over, if not, it may be time for you to stand up to the lot of them.

Tumour don’t need to reason with him. You just need to tell him that they if he cannot act in a reasonable manner towards you whilst in your home, then he is not welcome to stay there any longer. No reasoning required, statement of facts. I’d be saying the same to your parents.

The reason they treat you like this is that you let them. They know you won’t challenge them, they know you’ll suck it up and put on a smile m, carry on like nothing happened. If you are happy to be “bright and breezy” whilst they treat you terribly, in your own home, then fine that is your perogative. But little point in crying in private as nothing will change and your unwillingness to tackle the issue is the reason. Though you should remember you’re children will see them acting like this (perhaps not now, but as they get older) and you need to think about what messages they are picking up. None of them particularly positive, from where I stand.

If I said anything with sibling present I would be verbally torn to shreds.

Ah, well that’s the problem then surely? People will disagree and do things differently but you have to be able to say what you want to about it.

Is your sibling the favourite op?

Nanna, stay in your room. Have a nice bath and relax. Get DH to bring you up some comfort snacks and your favourite tipple. You are doing fine, cooking so much. Seriously, who eats a hot cooked meal for both lunch and dinner every day. I bet that they don't do that every day at home! I would chill, tomorrow get up and say that your children cannot be missing bedtime every day so a return time must be established for any trips put and kept to. I would then stop cooking lunch, just do salads, cold buffet help yourself or go out. Just say that with all the cooking you are missing out on quality time with your visitors so from now on this is the way it is. It's your holiday too! When I have guests to stay I make clear I don't get up before 10am, they should help themselves to breakfast. I would never offer a sit down hot lunch. We'd normally be out and about anyway. I'll happily cook a full dinner but anything after that like late night tea etc is help yourself.

Your sibling was irritated being told to come back early for the sake of the DCS and took it out on parents who took it out on you. You are now being punished.

Stand up for yourself. It feels empowering. Frankly, they have no respect for you so what have you got to lose? Their good will? Fuck that.

I think you've had a rough ride here OP. I think YANBU.
Toddlers and preschoolers can be a nightmare when tired and it's clear you were making food for teatime.

It's really bad of them to ignore you in your own home. They're all acting like spoilt brats.

If it gets worse (hard to see how that would be possible though) have a private word with your DH, make sure he knows he has to be in your corner. Then tell her you've run out of patience with her & to fuck off to a hotel, yours has closed up shop. Don't respond to anything she says except with "Hotel. Now".
If she or your DPs get stroppy your DH needs to step up & tell them no-one speaks to his wife like that, especially in her own home, & maybe fetch her coat for her. If your DPs go too just shrug.
Nobody has to put up with that nonsense. Have a bunch of flowers {flowers] & a nice glass (or 10) of wine

I was cooking - it was planned and approved.

They said "let's go to that place" spontaneous trip

^There it is OP but I'm sure you know that. You showed them eh?

A 2 and 3 year old do not need lots of late nights. Your guests are very rude IMO to not respect that and are showing little regard for your children. If they are anything like my FIL they will be the first ones to point out that 'the children are acting very bratty' but the last ones to respect nap/bed times and the fact you told them not to feed your kids tons of sugar though.

YANBU and did nothing wrong.

Hope you are in bed now nananoodleman. I totally empathise with how you feel. Even if you hadn’t made it clear what time you wanted the children back, as they are so young, I am surprised they (or your parents at least) did not phone to check or just come home early.

And ok, they might feel disappointed that their trip ended earlier than they wanted, there is no need to have been so rude when they got back.

Hope tomorrow is better and that the outing is successful.

Of course the 'guests' are the OP's sibling and sibling's' family. Surely this is pretty obvious even if the OP hasn't said it. The fact that she refers to them as 'guests' shows that she does not get on particularly well with them and/or there is tension at get togethers.

I get on ok with a sibling and my family stay with her for short stays. She sees us as 'visitors' not family. She cooks a lot. We can't eat where we want as she 'has food in the fridge that will go off'. She says what we will eat and when we will eat. She once shouted at us when we returned because we had stopped for an ice cream before returning 'and we knew dinner would be ready'. She is a nice person but three days is the maximum we can stay in the house before tensions arise and she starts criticising me and bringing up 'hilarious' (embarrassing) incidents from my childhood that are designed to 'put me in my place'.

Op you sound afraid of your brother who frankly sounds like an abusive bully! He has engineered it so that the nice thing you were doing for them, is now evil and manipulative because How dare you tell him when your children should return home. Yet you didn’t order him home- you asked your parents (aka his childcare) to bring your two toddlers home. So now he has kicked off and successfully engineered it so that you are the bad guy and he is the morally superior brother who just wanted to spend time with family.

He is pretty good at controlling and bullying people into doing and reacting how he wants isn’t he! If you dare to say anything against him he will verbally abuse you/ tear you to shreds verbally. This is a toxic relationship and frankly I would be telling him to leave! Let them go to your parents early! You are in YOUR home, you are an adult, he isn’t not the boss of you, don’t let him continue this dynamic of bullying you and making you feel small and unwelcome/ unsafe in your own home! If you need to have your dh tell them to leave and why!

ETA I don't think the OP did anything 'wrong'. I can see this particular situation from both sides and I think that asking for the children to be brought home early did break up the party and was unreasonable. Also not saying what time dinner would be ready was unreasonable because cooking for ten people is a huge deal and the whole point of it surely is for everyone to eat together.

That all said, there obviously is a bad dynamic in the family (as there is in mine). I have family members who don't speak to one another and I admire the OP for trying to facilitate family members. But it is dysfunctional, probably for hundreds of reasons and the timing of today's dinner is just another thing to add to the pile.

Put a brave face on OP and soldier on for the last couple of days. Prepare cheap one pot food and if it doesn't suit some people to eat that, offer a green salad. And it is far too expensive to cater for dietary requirements. You are not running a restaurant! They can easily eat out if they can't find anything they want to eat in your house. The next time they enquire about visiting, make sure that you are not available to host them or better still book your own holiday at the same time they are visiting!

It just sounds to me as a case of too many people spending too much time together so everyone gets ratty. These sort of family holidays only work if you have times where families do their own thing - eg they don't all feel obliged to be at home for bedtime , you don't feel obliged to let your children go on every trip - and also you don't feel annoyed if people are excluded
I can see how your text might have been interpreted as a summons and a bit passive aggressive - they would have felt obliged to come back- just to keep the group united and they may have felt you were saying "stay out" through gritted teeth.
clear expectations up front.

Sulking/ignoring you is not right no matter what

Can see both sides but the guests sulking is beyond rude.

I would be asking them to leave if that continues.

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all.

I'm with you OP. Every discussion about dinner up until that point had clearly indicated that you would be cooking for them. You've spent all afternoon working for their benefit and they are acting horribly. Step away from the kitchen for the rest of their stay.

NannaNoodleman Thu 08-Aug-19 22:50:49
If I said anything with sibling present I would be verbally torn to shreds. You can't reason with someone who knows how clever they are and has an answer for everything!

Why are you trying to reason with someone who is goading you with his irrationality?
Stop playing his game!

The way you deal with this is:
Speak your mind.

Don't respond to anything the sibling says.
Don't try to argue or reason or explain - simply don't engage.

Fold your arms.
Look him dead in the eye.

When he gives you your cue to try explaining civil behaviour to him, or to try to explain your pov or decisions to him, tell him instead, 'Interesting perspective' or, 'Sorry you feel that way'.
Shut your mouth.
Shake your head sadly in silence at further goading.
Tell your parents you are sorry they feel that way too if they join in.

Leave the room while your brother is speaking.
You don't have to wait around to find out what's the next piece of shit he feels like throwing at you. None of what he says matters.

..........

Under no circumstances should you try to do the bright and breezy act tomorrow morning.
That would constitute handing yourself to your brother on a plate, to sneer at you or act superior or continue the silent treatment.
Go to the kitchen, make yourself breakfast, retain your resting bitch face. You can look at the family if they get up and come down, but don't speak to anyone. Don't acknowledge anyone's greeting besides your DH's and your DCs'. Warn your DH ahead of time.

............
I strongly urge you not to participate in tomorrow's outing. Keep your children at home.
Announce your decision. "We're not going. Enjoy the day.'
Don't offer an explanation. Don't give one if asked.
Tell them all that you are sure they will enjoy it more without you.
Fold your arms and do not engage further except to shake your head sadly and tell them you are sorry they feel bad about your decision. Repeat ad nauseam.

.............

You need to talk to your DH about this visit, really pick it apart when they are gone.
While they are still there, give him a heads up about any of the cold shouldering you decide to do.