Aaaargh, what do I do?
I’m sorry for the length of the below, it's probably not an AIBU as I really don't think I am being unreasonable but anyway...
We had planned to see my parents (mid 70s, both have had major health problems in the past but are basically ok at the moment) at Christmas.
Hubby and I have been very careful throughout the pandemic – no eating in cafes/restaurants, no mixing indoors with anyone, both lucky to be able to work from home. Biggest risk has been from our kids (7 and 5) going to school.
My parents have gone the other way, acting like there is no pandemic, largely ignoring the restrictions (“I’m not having the government tell me what to do!” etc) – they eat out, go to the supermarket, my mum gets her nails done. This has continued even if they went into tier 3 after the lockdown (they live right on a T3/T2 boundary and to be fair to them the rates where they live are actually relatively low).
Back in the summer we booked a outdoor lights trail at a stately home between us for Xmas eve, then about 6 weeks ago we said we’d also be happy for the kids to stay over with them for one night on the basis that the risk of young kids spreading Covid seems to be much lower (albeit there is obviously still a risk) – hubby and I would not stay or be inside with them though. I’ve kept saying to them that they should avoid making concrete plans or getting their hopes up about it as we might not be able to go ahead with the plan – kids might need to isolate etc.
Now with rates escalating everywhere, multiple cases in our kids’ school (for the first time – son’s class has just finished a stint of isolation and at one point last week more than half the school was off), and us now bordering some T3 places I felt increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of letting the kids stay. My parents will hopefully be vaccinated within the next 1-2 months, and the kids won’t have been isolating because they’ll have been at school - it just felt like a risk that’s not worth taking.
I called my parents to tell them that we’re still v happy to go ahead with the lights trail but we’d like to postpone the sleepover bit (for the reasons given above). My mum responded by throwing her toys out of the pram and saying that if that’s how we feel, we should probably cancel the whole thing (ie the lights trail too). I reiterated we were very keen to go ahead with that bit and said we’d be happy to meet them for another day over the Christmas period and go somewhere else outdoors (I suggested a woods we’ve visited which is about halfway between us), so they would still get to spend the time with the kids, but she made it clear she wasn’t interested in this.
The difficulty is she has always been the queen of cutting off her nose to spite her face but it has got much worse in the last few year. She would genuinely rather cancel everything out of spite and spend the next month wallowing in self-pity, even if that means effectively punishing our children who won’t be able to see them at all.
After the initial call, hubby talked me into suggesting that we push back the sleepover until the end of the school holiday (probably new years day) – it would mean breaking the rules (no mixing of households by then, plus we’re not meant to travel to T3, which I wouldn’t be happy about), but obviously the risks would be much lower as we would have largely been isolating as a family for a good 10 days by then.
I called my parents again and spoke to my dad who said my mum was ‘very very upset’ by us postponing the sleepover, and that she now planned to try to arrange a minor surgical procedure on her knee for the day the kids were due to stay over with them (ie the day I’d suggested we now go to the woods) which would likely mean she couldn’t do the lights trail the next day either. We suggested the new year’s sleepover plan – my dad relayed this to my mum, but my mum said “Well they’ll only change their minds again so what’s the point?” and “We might be doing something else then, it’s too far ahead to plan” and “Well, we might give the children Covid, mightn’t we?!” – basically full of excuses. Because now she’s psyched herself up for a nice long pity party, she doesn’t want it to be snatched away from her, right?! Even if we were now willing to back down completely and go ahead with the original sleepover plan (which I am not willing to do), I think she would actually refuse.
I completely get that she is disappointed and upset, but she has zero interest in even trying to understand our point of view in all this which on any analysis is not unreasonable (again, this has become a recurring theme with her – she treats my views on many things with utter contempt).
I don’t know what to do now – the ball is in her court but knowing her I think it’s unlikely she will change her mind having slept on it – she is extremely stubborn and bloody minded. I would just leave her to it if it weren’t for the kids missing out.
Does anyone have any suggestions or any experience of dealing with this kind of behaviour please? Hubby thinks I just need to wait to hear back from her and if she still wants to cancel everything (which is very likely) we just say to her that we’re very disappointed, in particular for the children, and that we will have no choice but to tell them that their grandmother doesn’t want to see them over Christmas. That might be where we end up but I think that would shut the door on any chance of her agreeing to meet at all, so part of me is tempted to panda to her behaviour, objectionable though it is, just to try to salvage something for the kids.
Sorry this has been so long.