'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.

I thought this type of post was a Mumsnet legend, now I know better

The two situations arent comparable

Your family dynamic was clearly totally different to the one in the OPs famil. That's a fact of life and it's valid for the OP to have an issue with it.

OP, there must be a way to change your booking, surely? Are you staying in an AirBnB?

It’s obviously been a really difficult time for you and your family and people saying you shouldn’t have invited the in-laws won’t be helping….

Are you sure you can’t cancel your appartment? Or just move to a different one, different city etc? Sometimes an email setting out the circumstances can work.

If you really can’t, then I would email the in-laws saying how upset you are that they are intruding in your much needed healing time by booking 10 days. That you invited them for 3 days so they wouldn’t miss their grandchild, but 10 days feels really intrusive and has spoilt the built up to your break. Say that you are now looking to cancel as you can’t face being with others and that was the whole point of your break. If they have any sense of decency they will cancel. If they don’t well, that would be a hill to die on for me I’m afraid and I wouldn’t be able to get over that.

@Ismellspring

So you said yes to a visit from them while your in this trip?

That was your chance to actually say no but it's done now.

Your there for a month and they are visiting for three days?

Well then them three days could be spent having a meal altogether somewhere nice be it breakfast lunch or evening meal and it's a chance for you and dh to get a couple of days of time to go out by yourselves and the grandparents can spend time with the grandchild surely?

It's only three days out of a whole month so set the boundaries for them three days and then might actually enjoy the more relaxed time with them for a short visit then off they go and you can carry on with the break

Please tell them you want to plan which 3 of their ten days they would like to spend with you and ask for the dates - make it clear you are doing your own thing for the rest of the holiday and want to plan things for DD. I've seen it said on this site many times that "No" is a complete sentence! (For when they overstep the boundaries it is not too late for your to put in place). Enjoy your holiday - it's not about them.

You invited them. Bit unreasonable to expect them to go abroad for only 3 days. They’re not staying with you, is it really that big a deal. Maybe they could take your child out and you spend some time with partner? You only see them 18 days a year, they probably just thought it would be nice to see you a few extra days. Unless they’ve done something you haven’t mentioned I think you’re being a bit unfair. If it was a private holiday you shouldn’t have invited them

You suggested they visit you there!

I agree with the be available the 3 days you suggested but the rest of the time if they ask to meet just say no or turn your phones off.
Doing give them your apartment number so they can't turn up unannounced, when meeting meet away from where your staying.
Enjoy your holiday Op, don't let this change things

Some of these posts! the OP can't invite her parents on holiday then fuck off somewhere else while they're there just because they took her up on her offer 🙄 The whole situation is ridiculous

I agree with the other posts, it was you that invited them and you can't dictate how long their trip is for. Also you are assuming they will want to spend the whole 10 days with you which is probably unlikely, I am sure they will want time to themselves too.

Nobody normal. Only on mumsnet do people contact their mother in law with the same tone as handing in your notice letter to HR.

To be honest it all seems like a load of drama over very little. You desperately need a month to ‘recuperate’ in another country, and can’t possibly be contacted by anyone else, and to facilitate this you… invited someone you don’t want to be there. If you don’t want to see someone don’t invite them, or offer them to visit before or after you leave. Don’t invite them then start sending snotty little messages like you’re their boss.

Maybe you need to work on why you would invite someone then get all worked up about them accepting but not sticking to what you wanted them to do, or why you felt the need to invite them to placate them. That would go a longer way to ‘recuperating’ than a month in France will.

I can understand how you feel having had in in laws gate crash several of our holidays. Fortunately only for a few days each although I suspect that they would have liked to have joined us for the whole holiday.

We get one holiday a year if we are lucky due to having a disabled/medically complex/SN dc; I don't want to be spending that with other people!!

Have a few days with them and then book a holiday within the holiday for a few days to escape? Also, definitely take advantage of babysitting opportunities.

This is such a weird message to send to family who YOU invited. It makes you look bizarre. And all this wet lettuce ‘we need to rest and heal’ is just silly. Sending bizarre little messages to family is hardly going to help ‘rest and heal’ is it? I mean these are doting/loving grandparents. If you want to ruin any relationship you have with them this message is the way to go.

To elaborate on this, as you're getting so many 'shut up and put up, you made your own bed' replies -

I think there can be times in a life when you have to retreat to where you feel safe; to where the ground is solid beneath your feet: to where you can rest, and breathe; to where hopefully in time green shoots will sprout; for you to water and grow; and from there move out into the world again.

If this is where you are, then you do whatever you must to find and protect that space. The future grows from there. Trying to create the edifice of a happy functioning life, when it has no solid ground, when there is no genuine healing - well, that just sets you up for years of problems further down the line.

I also think that traumatic events can completely reshape our lives, in ways that go beyond the specific loss. Our perspective, our values, our way of interacting with the world, our entire network of relationships receives a shock and are have to be formed anew.

It sounds like this is happening with you and your wider family, OP, as your current needs force a reckoning with previously poor boundaries. Which is difficult and painful but not necessarily a bad thing. Either univite them or move your own holiday, but protect your space for rest and healing.

Exactly this, by inviting them you made them feel they were wanted there, feel quite sorry for them tbh. You really need to be clearer in your intentions. I think now you just need to get on with it or you are going to cause a lot of upset.

I can see both sides, you’ve invited them, they are now travelling to a European city, so the usual 3 days with you would probably mean a day either side taken up by travelling so they booked longer.

can you suggest entertaining them for three days, then do trip/trips so you don’t have to see them for longer?

You see them 12 times a year, I’m sure they also missed out seeing their granddaughter during lockdown too so I’m for them to spend a few days away with you isn’t so bad. Days one and 10 will be arrival and departure days so that leaves 8 days out of 30/31 days. Nobody says you have to spend all those 8 days together.

12x a year? Bloomin heck isn’t that really quite…. Regular?!

Exactly.

I genuinely can't envisage how any kind of familial relationship would be revived after a message like that. I can't envisage anyone sending it in the first place.

This is a bit of a tangent, but it sounds like the relationship between the OP and whoever it is (mother/MIL?) is an unhealthy dynamic, and perhaps the invitation came from that FOG that toxic parents create so there’s a sense of obligation to appease, fear of the reactions that may come etc.

@Ismellspring you might want to have a look at the Stately Homes threads on the Relationships board - you might find some tactics for handling this there.

I think you are regretting inviting them, so now you will have to manage how to spend the time when they are there. That’s a burden you didn’t want but you now have it. But it’s not the whole time, just a proportion of it. I think there’s clearly some struggle within you about control, and an Internet forum isn’t really the place to unpick that, but if you have had a trauma, or are trying to examine your behaviour in this relationship, perhaps some counselling would help (you might be able to get this through a work employee helpline).

Is there another city or attraction nearby? Say if you were in Lisbon you could get the train (I believe) to Faro and do a few nights in the Algarve, might be nice to have a change of scene and oops- it clashes with the last week of their stay! You can be vague about your exact departure and return dates. Don’t mention it until they arrive and blame the holiday chill brain

She says every other month- 6 times a year. 18 days out of 365

Sounds like you guys need counseling more then a get away holiday op
Sell your holiday to a friend.
And book a holiday elsewhere. And dont tell your in laws
And start setting boundaries!!! If you want time away with just your dh and child THEN dont invite the inlaws. You are setting yourself up for failure. Yes they are intrusive. But you need to stick up for yourself FIRSTLY.

12 days out of 365, how is that quite regular ……