MIL expects to come on family holiday

[DisneyBaby]

My husband and I have been together 10 years, I am 30 and he is 28, we have just had our first baby together this year.

I have a big family and have always been very close with them throughout my life, and when I got together with my husband 10 years ago, my parents welcomed him in to the family like one of their own and we have had numerous holidays and good times altogether ever since.
My sister and brothers partners are the same and have been welcomed into the family, and we all get in very well and have a great time whatever we do.

My MIL, was a single mum and has always been a little jealous of the amount of time we spend with my family compared the amount of time we spend with her. We have fallen out with her numerous time over this, as well as over other things eg most recently when she made comments about how we are doing things with our baby daughter (which she says is caring, but we find negative and judgemental).

My family have gone to Florida every 4 years since I was young and have continued to do this even as we’ve grown up, we’re all big kids and love all the rides and shows, and now that we have started having children, we still intend to keep up the tradition of going frequently.

My MIL feels that we should invite her on long to Florida with my family as she is single and wouldn’t have anyone else to go with.

This puts me and my husband in a difficult situation because my family enjoy going to Florida as our family and wouldn’t want an additional person coming along on our family holiday.
My family do know her as she has been there for the odd Xmas etc, but they also know about all the rows we have had with her in the past and find her a little annoying, so aren’t particularly keen on her.

I appreciate that she is single and doesn’t have as many people to go on holiday with, but why should my family have to have her tag along with them?

We have suggested doing a separate holiday to somewhere else but she is adamant that Florida is where she wants to go to and she thinks we are being inconsiderate that she’s not invited to come along with us on my family’s holiday. I think she’s being unreasonable, and find it strange that she wants to come away with a family that isn’t hers.

Am I being unreasonable or is she being unreasonable?

Of course the mil has no right to be included in this cycle of holidays. However the dh would have every right to not want to spend so many of his holidays with his in-laws, and might (if he has a backbone) ask for this to change.
Maybe OP you need to think a bit more about what your dh might think is fair, and also what your child will want in the future.

You sound a bit mean and I feel sorry for your MIL.

You obviously love your dh. This is the woman, who single handedly brought him up. For all those years of hard slog, she gets the prize of outsider looking in. I can see her upset.

Maybe she’s grouchy and argumentative because part of her is like this or maybe it is because she’s jealous or a combination of both. I know it seems so far away until your dc is 30. But it really isn’t.

Idk what the answer would be. I understand why you don’t want her to come. I think regardless of the outcome of your decision, you need to make more of an effort to see her and go away with her for short breaks. Just because the one parent is difficult or different rather than abusive, you shouldn’t cut them off. It is cruel.

Someone upthread said you come across like you think your family is somehow superior, I completely agree. She will be better off not going because she's clearly not welcome.

This isn't relevant, it's nobody's business how often OP goes away with her own family, even if she went every bloody month it still doesn't mean MIL is entitled to go too

Does mean that MIL is justified in her complaints (that OP seems to find unreasonable) that much more time is spent with OP's family than with her, though?

I like my in-laws better than my parents. But (in non COVID times) DH and I try to spend roughly equal amounts with both sides because we realise that both sets of parents love us and their grandchildren and they both want to see us. OP clearly prefers spending more time with her own family, and doesn't make much effort with her MIL.

I think there is a great deal of hinterland here - how are Christmas, Easter, summer holidays, bank holidays ordinarily managed? Proportionately how much time is spent with your family? Is she feeling left out and could that be solved differently?

Why is your family so interested in your disagreement with your Mil? My brother and I are very close but I'd never complain about my in-laws to him.

If she really fancies Disney have you offered to go with her? Or if it a group dynamic she likes can your DH pull together his family to do a similar group trip?

I have a sometimes fractious relationship with my in-laws but I'm fond of them, I know how much they love their son and our children so I try to do my best by them. I hope any future DIL will do the same for me.

Unless mil is paying she has no right to dictate the new holiday either.

Florida is paid for by ops parents by the sounds of things. I’m sure if mil paid for Florida for them as a smaller grouping they would go to Florida again.

Wow thanks for all your replies.

Just to add a little more info about our situation.

My husband has a volatile relationship with his Mum. She's very up and down, one minute she is genuinely lovely and the next she'll bombard him with essay texts about various different things, and has got quite nasty in her messages in the past. Quite often we will spend the day with her and thought we'd had a lovely day and then as soon as we get home they'll be a long text complaining about something or another, which has resulted in us spending less time with her because we never know if we're coming or going and it just feels like 'hard work' all the time.

My husband is literally the most laid back person in the world, so tends to just ignore her messages and puts up with his Mum doing this, whereas it drives me silently mad how she is so inconsistent with the way she is with us.

She is also exactly the same with my husbands brother and his gf so it's not just us, and also recently fell out with her sister, so it's definitely not just us that find her difficult.

In answer to a few of you asking, my husband enjoys spending time with my family as much as I do, my siblings and their partners are all a similar age to us and we often have drinks and a laugh together. As much as it's us spending time and going on holiday with my family, we're more like a big group of mates sometimes.

Look - it’s impossible to judge this sort of situation without knowing the characters involved. It’s easy to say, “oh, she’s left out - poor lady”, or “one more won’t make a difference”. But, as with most things in life - it depends. My mother is a very difficult woman. It’s her way or the highway. So she would come along on a group holiday and be tutting at all the things she didn’t like/didn’t want to do. And would completely change the dynamic in the process, not least for my DH and me who would feel obliged to deal with her. My aunt, on the other hand? Completely different kettle of fish. She would muck in with what everyone else was doing, be an extra pair of hands with all the kids and generally wax lyrical about what a nice time she was having. So, yes, the OP doesn’t want her MIL to come on “her” family holiday. But maybe she has good reason for feeling like that....

Nasty way to behave towards your family.
Yes, MIL is your family too since you married HER SON.
So very glad you’re not my DIL.

Considering you don't get on I think it's lovely of you to invite her on a holiday with you

TBF OP didn't say that they didn't get on, only that MIL was jealous of the time spent with OP's family. She might be a perfectly lovely woman otherwise or she might not

Since she's apparently single I wonder if she makes an effort to involve herself socially in other things outside the family - clubs, groups, whatever - and if not why not?

Sorry DisneyBaby - you forgot to mention your suggested holiday with her?

I wonder whether she feels like a poor third choice with her son. That is for him to remedy of course

It depends on the personality of your MIL and what your DH wants. I would invite my FIL if he was alone no problem as he fits in. My MIL would demand that everyone does what she wants. She thinks restaurants are a waste of money so refuses to eat in them which means you have to cook every meal and stay very close to accomodation. She crys and sulks and shouts if she doesn't get her way. When I think of ex boyfriends Mothers, I would definitely include them or indeed any of my friends mothers. Every mother I can think of would be invited but not my MIL. I would never inflict her on my family. Maybe the OPs MIL is like this. Who knows.

Of course the OP shouldn't bring the MIL along, as others have said it's not actually her place to invite the MIL and the other family members' opinions should count as well.

That said, the overwhelming sense that I get from your post OP is that your family is very much a self-contained tribe that absorbs the people who marry in but don't bother with the married-in people's own relations. It also sounds like you've been happy to bring your DH into your family life and have made zero effort to do likewise with your MIL. Most of all, what I sense is that your DH has been happy to go along and it seems like he's abandoned his DM and adopted a new family.

Perhaps I"m reading too much into this but my family is very much like yours OP, fortunately I am happily selfish enough to stay away from all the clannish behaviour.

I just hope my future daughter in law includes me in things. I feel a bit awkward round my MIL but she lives 500 miles away so it’s probably because I’ve not been around her a lot. I invited my Mum along on our holiday next year and it only occurred to me about 3 months later than I should invite MIL. She was so happy we’d asked her. I need to be mindful of not leaving her out. If left to my DH she’d never be invited anywhere so I have to make sure I remember.

Shocker: OP likes her family (with whom she gets along famously) better than her MIL (with whom it sounds like relations can sometimes be a bit strained)! Big surprise there.

Each family's dynamics are different. OP hasn't said that her family is better, but she probably feels it is. So what? She also hasn't said that every Christmas, Easter, etc. is spent with her family, so not sure where that assumption is coming from... But even if it IS, maybe that's because MIL doesn't invite them over.

You don't have to spend equal time with each side of the family. Sometimes it just doesn't work out that way, and it's not necessarily proof that someone is a horrible, mean DIL.

The fact that OP has suggested a separate holiday with MIL speaks volumes. That's not the action of a shrewish, MIL-hating bitch. Her only "crime" is not wanting to disrupt a long-standing family tradition that predates her marriage, when honestly it's not even her decision whether or not MIL should be invited.

If anything, I'd say that it sounds like MIL just can't stand it that OP has a big family that does things together. She has FOMO. I can sympathise with that, truly, but it's not OP's family's fault that MIL is single and didn't have a large family and you can't just invite yourself along on other people's holidays and maybe she's not the most fun person to have on your expensive, once-every-four-years holiday-- AND she's been invited to go on a holiday of her own, but has refused. That last bit tells me she's not as worried about spending time with her son's family as she is about not "missing out".

She's being unreasonable.

Okay, so from your update your DH already has a volatile relationship with his DM, and on top of that she has history for falling out with other family members with quite a bit of two-facedness thrown in

No doubt she'd tell a completely different story, but on the face of it I'd say you've got your answer as to whether it would be wise for her to come or not

You mention you do the Florida trip once every four years and by the sounds of it continue to keep up the tradition for years to come. Would it really hurt that your MIL joined just one trip to Florida this time? I understand you say the relationship with your DH and his mum can be a bit up and down but perhaps this is partly due to her feeling a bit left out with things. The holiday might actually be an oppurtrunity for the relationship with you all to positively develop but you must treat her like an equal/fairly whilst she is with you. If the holiday doesn't go so well then you know where you are with things. Your MIL won't come to Florida with you again and you will still continue to go in the future as you did before.

MIL HAS REFUSED A SEPARATE MORE INTIMATE FAMILY HOLIDAY! I wonder what that intimate family holiday is? Maybe I missed it but I've got visions of 2 weeks in Florida with one family and a weekend in Blackpool with the other. No disrespect to Blackpool, I've never been but a B&B for a weekend in Blackpool isn't going to compete with a fortnight in Florida. I've never been to Florida either but it sounds more exciting.

I don't think you're being mean at all. You have a strained relationship with your MIL, for one, and her demanding to go on a holiday planned by other people is outrageous. Her going could also cause a lot of grief for your siblings with their in-laws.

I think your MIL sounds like very hard work. If she tags along she will ruin your holiday.

• AND she's been invited to go on a holiday of her own, but has refused. That last bit tells me she's not as worried about spending time with her son's family as she is about not "missing out".

Too true.

OP you are not being unfair. You go on this holiday only once every four years and it would be awful if your mil spoiled it. I only once went away with my pils and it was awful. They wanted us to spend all day, every day with them, doing the things they wanted to do, which often amounted to just sitting in a bar! If we said we wanted to go somewhere they would moan that they didn’t want to do that and it wasn’t fair to leave them alone. Never again! We had to save hard for our holidays, as I expect you have to, and they completely ruined our enjoyment!

I think you are being very fair, in saying that you will go on a separate holiday with her, as long as it is a proper holiday. She should not get to muscle in on your family’s holiday, as she will probably expect you to spend all your time with her and completely ruin the dynamic of it!

Her wants are not more important than the wants of everyone else going away! If she cannot accept this, that is her problem, not yours.

I would invite her along, with the approval of the rest of your family. It would be a good chance for her to be included. You might find she is negative because she harbours ill feelings about being put second to your family which I think is the case by the sounds of it. It can be hard to bite tongue at times when something makes you feel unhappy

I think that you are being unreasonable. It sounds like you are pushing her to one side. I'm sorry that you don't like her. However, unless you give her a chance, you will always dislike her. You assume that she would ruin your holiday. A bit harsh!! Perhaps if you had included her more, she wouldn't be feeling so left out and asking to come along. I'm sure that she just wants to watch her grandchildren's faces when they go to Disneyland. You might be annoyed with her, but does your annoyance outweigh the hurt and loneliness that you are causing her. She may well feel bitter and jealous if she's had to bring up children on her own, or if she sees everyone else having fun and no body includes her. Try and out yourself in her shoes. You may find yourself in the same position one day.

Some of these responses are hilarious, it was clear from your OP that the relationship you and your husband had with his mother was strained.

I would be making it clear that an invite to Florida is not up to you to extend and that it will not be happening. Tell her that she is welcome to join you on a separate holiday with you, DH and LO. If she blows up at this it's less about the holiday and more about control.

You need to start setting boundaries for her, DH may be laid back but he needs to start protecting you and LO. As children get older her demands may increase and you both need to be on the same page about what you're happy with.