To tell DSis we don't want another joint holiday with her family?

[bravefox]

Just returned from a holiday which was my family, my parents, and DSis's family all together for the first time. DSis and I both have two young kids and ages are similar so we hoped they would hit it off but it was just extremely hard work from start to finish.

While I knew it wasn't going to be the most relaxing of times, the biggest issue was that DSis and I have completely contrasting parenting styles with her kids staying up most of the night, grazing on junk all day and one of her kids in particular pretty much bullied my DD all week. My kids were miserable whenever both families hung out together as DSis and her H just turn a blind eye to what their kids are up to and it was left to the rest of us to supervise most of the time. DH and I have pretty much vowed not to holiday with them again for a very long time, if ever.

I'm very happy with this, but now they are suggesting we repeat again at Christmas! We have no other family so it will be hard to make an excuse but we'd rather just be on our own than repeat all of that again!

AIBU to say we don't want to holiday together again, and if so how do I do it diplomatically?

Why would you do anything other than tell the truth.

Your family did NOT enjoy the holiday and ye want to holiday alone.

Or "thanks but no thanks"
"Why not?"

"We didn't enjoy it".
" Why?"
"Because we didn't and won't be doing it again, thanks".

She's a lazy user, married to a lazy user.

Your poor family holiday ruined.
I'd be so pissed.

She knows bloody well what she's doing, but doesn't give a damn about you, your kids, your holiday.

You need to adopt a similar attitude.

Be truthful but not brutal. It took me a while to tell family members no, I like to keep people happy but I got fed up pleasing everyone but myself. There’s no way I’d tolerate looking after anyone else’s kids and pandering to them, which is what I had been doing. One family member will happily ‘allow’ everyone else to occupy her dc, to the point of leaving one at an attraction one day, panic ensued, another family member reminded her it was HER dc, not anyone else’s!

@billy1966

Why would you do anything other than tell the truth.

Your family did NOT enjoy the holiday and ye want to holiday alone.

Or "thanks but no thanks"
"Why not?"

"We didn't enjoy it".
" Why?"
"Because we didn't and won't be doing it again, thanks".

She's a lazy user, married to a lazy user.

Your poor family holiday ruined.
I'd be so pissed.

She knows bloody well what she's doing, but doesn't give a damn about you, your kids, your holiday.

You need to adopt a similar attitude.

Please don't do the above, OP. There is absolutely no need to light a bomb under your family relationships. As I said in an earlier post, kids go through phases and parents go through phases. Had I said something like that to my SIL and BIL when our kids were young and time together was hard work, the brilliant and supportive relationship we all have now (the cousins are now young adults and really close, too) wouldn't exist, and my late parents in law would have been drawn into bad feeling too.

Simply say "we've decided we'd like a really quiet Christmas, just the four of us" and leave it at that. And if another summer holiday is mooted "we had a big family holiday last year, so this time we plan to be just us"

Seriously, keep it really simple and there's no need for anyone to feel hurt or upset.

Crikey this had blown up since I last checked!!!

Thank you for the responses- I will read them all and post again later!

@billy1966

Why would you do anything other than tell the truth.

Your family did NOT enjoy the holiday and ye want to holiday alone.

Or "thanks but no thanks"
"Why not?"

"We didn't enjoy it".
" Why?"
"Because we didn't and won't be doing it again, thanks".

She's a lazy user, married to a lazy user.

Your poor family holiday ruined.
I'd be so pissed.

She knows bloody well what she's doing, but doesn't give a damn about you, your kids, your holiday.

You need to adopt a similar attitude.

Spot on! Sis and BIL are lazy twats and deserve to be called up on it.

I'd be definite I wasn't doing it but not unpleasant. I think I was a bit thoughtless sometimes when the kids were younger.

I had this exact thing!

Parents of bullies always seem to want other families to come on holiday and provide their kids with victims/entertainment while the parents chill out and look the other way 🤔

Tell her that you’d rather catch up with her separately, as your children said it wasn’t a good fit for a holiday. If pushed with ‘but why’ say your children do not want to go on holiday with her children, and that it’s their holiday too, you won’t force them.

They will moan and say that children always squabble etc etc and that ‘but we’re family’ - parents of bullies often pile on the pressure…

Just say no and if they get offended (which they will), they’ll get over it.

My kids were never bullies though. I was just thoughtless about being happy for others to parent them. I maybe would have said something to a sib if their kids bullied mine

Why should the OP spare the feelings of a family that ruined their holiday.

If my children's cousins were little bullies and ruining my children's holiday because their parents couldn't be arsed to mind them and imposed on the rest of the family, their feelings would not be my priority.

My children would be.

It's a common theme that I have heard over the years.
The laziest parents ALWAYS pushing for large family holidays.

I remember a friend of mine having to put her younger sister straight.

They had gone on a large family holidays but each had their own individual family accommodation.
Her sister had never once been available to babysit her nieces and nephews in her 20's.

Now they were on holiday she was expecting them to entertain her young children, take them for walks, babysit in the morning to give them a lie in and babysit at night.

My friends teenage children had enough and got pissed off with it after only 24 hours.
It was their family holiday.
My friend had to pull her sister aside and tell her straight that her children had zero interest in looking after a 1 and 2 year old on their holiday.
She was very pissy but the teens weren't budging on it.
It was their holiday and she killed any goodwill within 24 hours.

Taking them for a walk is one thing, expecting them to sit an babysit at night is another thing completely when the family have gone out for a meal.

When you have very young children you pay a babysitter or eat in.
Lots of people do it on holidays and we certainly did.
It's life with small children.

Exactly Billy!

I really dislike the way that many posters encourage people to take action that could destroy families for the rest of their lives. It's so easy to sit in the peanut gallery and tell someone to throw a grenade into a whole extended family, when there are absolutely no repercussions for you.

There are nearly always ways to achieve what OPs need without causing massive collateral damage to other family members.

It's way worse than telling someone to LTB.

I agree @saraclara

@saraclara you’re exaggerating, this isn’t about destroying families, this is about asserting boundaries. Much better to be politely clear with sister as suggested by Billy1966 rather than making excuses abs then getting brow beaten into it.

No one has suggested a fight. The SIL is a CF, you are suggesting tip toeing around her which is bizarre.

[quote Meraas]@saraclara you’re exaggerating, this isn’t about destroying families, this is about asserting boundaries. Much better to be politely clear with sister as suggested by Billy1966 rather than making excuses abs then getting brow beaten into it.

No one has suggested a fight. The SIL is a CF, you are suggesting tip toeing around her which is bizarre.[/quote]
I'm not suggesting tiptoeing around her at all. In simply suggesting that OP says no in a very brief, simple yet honest way. There is absolutely no reason to berate SIL for anything, or to lie or to tiptoe around.

Saying "no thanks, we've decided to have Christmas just us this year" does the job.

Risking a family fall out is unnecessary, and would only serve to distress the grandparents, who really don't deserve to be caught up in the middle.