For not pulling my weight

[Starlightstarbrights]

DH and I are currently staying at his parents’ second home, which is in a remote part of a popular tourist destination. Ever since we first got together, we come for a week in August and it’s always just us. We laze around, go down to the beach, go out for dinner or buy something we can shove in the oven and just generally chill.

This year, his parents have been here since the start of July. I don’t know if they discussed it or he simply assumed, but DH thought they would go back home when we arrived, but they’ve haven’t. They’re staying here for our entire stay and we will all head back to our respective homes next week. It genuinely doesn’t bother me that they’re here as I like his parents and I get on well with them. It just means we don’t have the privacy for some intimacy but that’s ok, DC doesn’t spend enough time with paternal grandparents as it is so I’m glad they’re spending that time together.

However, I’m still treating the place as I usually do when we’re on holiday here, which is lazing around, only superficially tidying up after meals and not cooking. We always spend our last day doing a good clean before we leave, which is why I’m not cleaning and we don’t really cook when we stay here, which is why I’m not getting up to cook meals (apart from meals for DC). We’ve had a very stressful and exhausting few months so we needed the downtime, and DH is helping his mum with cooking.

I didn’t see anything wrong with it and DH knows how exhausted I am with DC (been very unwell recently, doesn’t sleep well, very clingy) so he’s happy for me to take it easy. I also don’t think our annual weekly relaxing stay shouldn’t be relaxing because my in laws are now here.

However, I assume MIL must have said something to my SIL, as she text me asking me to help out more, that her mum is getting older and shouldn’t be taking care of us whilst I sit on my arse. I don’t get on with SIL at all, which is why she feels she can text me that. I haven’t responded and don’t plan to but should I be doing more? As I mentioned, DH is helping with the cooking and I am still cleaning up after DC, and the one who is waking up every hour over night. DH doesn’t object at all, and this week away was so overdue I simply don’t want to spend it as though we’re guests.

You’re being unreasonable. Different rules apply when they’re there (albeit that it was unplanned). Quite ok to slob around en famille but it is their house and consequently you are their guests enjoying free accommodation so very basic manners would dictate that you work together as a team when it comes to cooking and cleaning. I’d also offer to cook them a really nice meal given that they’re allowing you to use their second home.

And your SIL sounds like an absolute weapon incidentally. I wouldn’t grace her with a reply!

Yeah, I've totally changed my mind after it's been said that FIL is doing Jack shit.

Any half decent person would be more inclined to help on that basis, not less.

@girlmom21 what because her pil have decided to adopt a sex based domestic decision of labour where men do fuck all and women do all the work….the OP should pick up fils slack. Erm???

Well considering her husband is helping out a little bit that's not the case, is it?

Instead of just FIL treating MIL like shit, they're all at it.

I love the simplicity of this answer. It perfectly sums up the situation 😁

But at some point we women have to break the cycle. For generations since Year dot we've all complied with the status quo.

We have to draw the line somewhere. And now we're the bloody breadwinners, what more do they want? I'm not having it any more. I have two daughters and I'm not perpetuating this bullshit any longer.

MIL has a DS problem 🤷‍♀️

@anon666 but it's not about the OP being a woman. It's about her being a guest and not helping out.

I doubt you're raising your daughters to be rude or ungrateful guests.

@girlmom21 no it’s not. OPs DHs sister messgrd OP to tell her to do more. Didn’t message her brother and mils son.

Why should SIL be sending her brother the same message as he is helping out as explained previously? I think the terms of the holiday changed when his parents stayed on. Wouldnt have occurred to me to expect to lounge around and do nothing with older people there I would pull my weight absolutely! I had 3 kids in under two and a half years....I returned to work, high stress CCU nursing when youngest was 4. Worked full time plus as I had another job as a rehab nurse in the community. I had an au pair who helped out as my husband a GP in the days when they worked 70 hours plus. When my inlaws came, four times a year for a week each time, I took holiday and looked after them, doing everything as I knew they never had that looking after themselves as they had 6 kids. Its not a big ask...its a week.

Well aren’t you wonderful. Don’t forget to polish your halo.

If MIL is feeling like she's having to do too much, it sounds like FIL is best placed to pick up some of the slack, since he's not up with a poorly toddler most of the night.

Honestly OP, why not just go home. Your DC may sleep better in familiar surroundings and you can just laze around at home. You'd get more time with DH too.

I think what you're doing sounds fine, but clearly MIL has a problem with it.

Alternatively you home by yourself and let her see the difference when DH is doing the night shifts. He won't have so much energy for food prep and cleaning when he's barely slept!

Did you miss the part where she’s been in hospital with a very sick child, she’s up every hour with said sick child and she’s also doing a lot of looking after the kids (cooking and cleaning)?

Or do you just have zero compassion?

MIL has a lazy DIL problem 🤷🏼‍♀️

Spot on!

A few people have asked, but I haven’t deliberately not answered. After meals, we all get up and clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher.

But no, I’m not changing. And I don’t really care if MIL (and others here) think I’m lazy. I’m so exhausted I’m literally crying. And I mean literally literally. I got a total of three hours sleep last night, and I have no energy to be cleaning and tidying. DH is pulling his weight (MIL made lunch, DH made dinner tonight). We go back in a couple of day, and this is the first time I will return from a holiday more exhausted than before I left. SIL and I simply don’t get on and I have no idea if MIL has been complaining or SIL has been shit stirring, but I’ve spoken to DH and he’s going to have a chat with his mum.

And the three hours sleep has been after weeks and weeks of either no sleep at all or no more than 6 hours of broken sleep. I just don’t have it in me to be a guest. It’s DH’s family, he can sort it out.

@Solonge yep and you walked to work in your bare feet. Had no money for lunch so starved. All children were trilingual by 5. Blah blah blah

I would say DH is pulling your family's weight well enough for both of you under the circumstances. Isn't that the point of marriage, to share the load?

Hope you can get a bit of rest. 🌺

I would speak to mil and DH avout the message

@Starlightstarbrights l wouldn’t change either in your shoes. Division of Labour in your marriage nothing to do with in-laws. Especially if FIL is doing nothing

@Starlightstarbrights - take it from someone who has been there, you are doing more than enough. It’s brutal and the shitty comments are from people who have no idea what you are going through.

Let them see how broken you are though, not SIL, but the others. Stop doing so much and ask for a proper rest.

What the fuck? I assume you are a troll or you haven’t read the thread. Lazy? Up every hour with a sick child and still doing really quite a lot of work during the day to cook, clean and tidy for the kids, clear after meals etc. Would prefer to go out for meals but is being blocked.

You either have poor comprehension skills or you are a bad person. Take your pick.

Be as sarcastic as you like. You have more energy when you are younger. I am surprised that so many people are exhausted all the time. You can take the piss out of me but my great grandmother had 14 kids and worked as a washerwoman for ten hours a day whilst her husband worked a market stall in the East End. She had no choice but to get on with it. My grandmother has five kids and lost her husband at 39 and had to go out cleaning houses for as many hours as she could to feed her kids. Most people now couldnt even compute how to do that, why do you think?