'Escape from it all' holiday gate-crashed

[Ismellspring]

After a very traumatic and emotionally draining 18 months that have pushed us to the brink, my partner and I plus our 6 year old daughter have rented an apartment in a European city for a month this summer. We just need somewhere to escape to, to regroup and unwind. We absolutely need this 'getting away from it all' opportunity to allow us to heal and begin to move on. The looking forward to it is already beginning to have a positive impact.
Now, there is a child involved and that child has adoring grandparents. You probably know where this is going...
Doting grandparents don't live near us (4 hours away) and we typically visit each other every couple of months for a weekend. Come visit us in * instead, we say. The usual 3 days, we say. Remember, we're getting away from everything, we say.
10 DAYS THEY'VE BOOKED.
Don't worry, we won't intrude, they say. We know you need space to recuperate so we'll keep a low profile, they say. You'll never know we're here, they say.
Their apartment is round the corner. She is very demanding and needy. She thinks there's a life rule book and she wrote it. Everyone around her dances to her tune - it's easier as she is a sulker and stropper. We have all been guilty of pandering to her in the past as we are never in her company long or often enough for it to be worth challenging.
I've hit rock bottom. We were so looking forward to a whole month of a different normal and the space and sanctuary to begin to live again.

@Kanaloa I agree - What a way to treat people. There is nobody I know in real life who would behave like this. Turning off phones (if the OP and her DH are in such a bad place I would have serious concerns if they were unexpectedly uncontactable) / not answering doors / inviting people to join your holiday and then buggering off somewhere else.

The OP had already wound herself up and people here are just making it worse with the ridiculous suggestions of things that they would not do or say or text themselves.

Would it be possible to have a mini holiday within your holiday, once you the gate-crashers dates are fixed? Maybe 5 days away to a not that local attraction?You shouldn't have to, but it may help to save your sanity🙂

Projecting what? I wouldn't have invited them in the first place. Why should the visitors go to all the expense of flights/ trains and booking a place just for three days? Why can't they have a week to themselves as well as three days with OP and family?

@MakeMineALarge1, I'm glad you said it too.

I agree that there is an element of "I told you so" on this thread (I am also guilty of this), but there is plenty of advice on here for the OP to manage her expectations and those of the grandparents. It might be easier to advise if we knew what the relationship is - parents or in-laws. I searched the OP's posts, but couldn't find any reference.

Misses point but going away for a month, don't you both have work to think about and another point, you're going away to heal and regroup, in a city centre? with a toddler?

Sorry, not a toddler, but still, it doesn't sound very relaxing

Is it possible to book a few days to a difference city in the country during their ten days?? I’d be doing that.

im sorry they are ruining this for you

Why does it matter whose mother it is? Or is it the usual MN mantra of her MIL is evil but his MIL is angelic?

Turning off phones while on holiday is a perfectly normal thing to do.

Cooking while on holiday is a perfectly normal thing to do.

They invited them for three days and can interact for three days. The rest of the time they’re on holiday.

Why are so many people so crotchety on this website these days?

To be honest I don’t think it was ever going to be relaxing because of the incredibly unrealistic expectations they’ve put on it. All this sanctuary/healing/safe space Instagram therapy talk puts these unrealistic expectations that everything can be solved easily in this wonderful ‘safe space’ etc. But realistically things aren’t going to suddenly improve because you’ve spent a month in Spain. It’s proven by this thread and op’s catastrophising the relatively small issue of someone she has invited to visit them visiting them, because she won’t have a full 30 days. When realistically who here has had a full month to ‘recuperate’ at any time of their life? I know I haven’t! And even if I had been able to rent an apartment somewhere it would just be all the same stress in a different place. Improvement and healing doesn’t come from around you but from within you.

Inviting people and then turning your phone off and ignoring the door isn’t a ‘perfectly normal thing to do.’ It’s weird and very poor communication.

Ok Op, how about going for the holiday and then have a few days away exploring the area when the grandparents are there? You won’t see them and it is still part of the holiday, yours make sure you turn off your phones from the start of the holiday.

Book to go to a different city/town for the lat 5 days of their visit so you only have to spend half of the ten days with them

From another POV: you invited them to join you. You can't dictate they travel so far but only stay for three days. They are older. They may need to recuperate. They may well have their own plans for some of that time. You'll be a lot less stressed if you just look forward to the 20 days without them as your sanctuary time and the 10 days with them as you obligatory catch up and some free babysitting.

Thank you @Kanaloa for verbalising what I was trying to say! Yes I can understand going to a hotel where you're catered for but spending a month in an apartment in an unfamiliar place doesn't sound very healing to me.
It seems to me that OP is hoping that she will come back healed and recovered, and if she isn't then what?

Well then what indeed? I imagine somehow the grandparents will be to blame for ‘ruining’ it and violating their ‘sanctuary.’

I didn’t say ‘invite people and then turn your phone off and ignore the door’.

I said interact for the three days that you invited them. Other than those three days, you are on holiday and can turn your phone off/not answer the door/cook/see the sites/whatever.

Why are you twisting what I’ve written?

If I invite someone for the weekend, it is not any of their business what I do the rest of the week because they were only invited for the weekend.

This ^

p.s. don't tell them that you have done this.

If they complain... repeat that you wanted to get away from it all and didn't want to spoil their holiday with your needs to get away from it all. What can they say?

You said op should turn her phone off and then not answer the door. She has invited them. So ‘invite them then turn your phone off and don’t answer the door’ is what she’d be doing.

As a functioning adult she should be able to communicate or better yet not martyr herself by inviting people when she doesn’t want to see them. Making a passive aggressive little point by just totally blanking them outside of three days when they’ve told you they’re coming longer is immature and points to lack of proper communication skills.

Well they can say ‘why did you invite us to visit you at this place then go somewhere else without communicating this to us?’ Why would you let us pay, thinking we were visiting our grandchild (who you say we are doting grandparents to) then secretly go elsewhere? What a toxic and odd way to behave.

That sounds utterly unhinged

I’m not sure why you’re so insistent on misquoting me. This is what I actually wrote -

‘Before and after the three days, switch your phones off and don’t answer the door.’

its done now, so you just have to make the best of it. You did invite them, but you cant tell them they have to leave the country or the city after 3 days. Theyre staying a few more days, so youll only have 3 weeks to yourselves instead of 4.
Next time dont invite people that you dont want to spend time with

@OnlyClothes turning your phone off while on holiday is not a perfectly normal thing to do. It’s likely to cause distress for the OPs parents / in-laws who are probably quite concerned for the OPs well-being given the trauma she has been through.

@OnlyClothes this is not how people generally behave. It’s not normal to turn off your phones for days on end and not answer the door.