NC for this
At the beginning of the year, MIL said that she wanted to take us on a family holiday abroad (me, DH, SIL, MIL and FIL). We hadn't gone away properly since before covid and everyone had been saving. She said she would find somewhere, book it, and we would all pay for our share. She suggested it in february and we decided on dates so everyone could book off work...decided on 26th Aug-5th Sept. 2 days time!!!!!!!
Over the last few months she's been showing us potential places, enquiring about prices but nothing stuck for too long, we'd ask how it was going and she would say "oh that place didn't work out, now i'm looking at a different country". This happened so many times, there would be an excuse why nothing could be booked such as "oh I left it too late and now they're fully booked" or "it wasn't close enough to the beach" etc.
She kept putting it off and we were offering to help find somewhere so she didn't have that burden but nope she wanted to do it all on her own... Fast forward to the beginning of this month (August) and we asked why nothing had been booked yet as we were due to leave really soon. She said she was waiting until the week before we go to get some last minute bargains.
Then it was the week before we go (last week) she says that FIL wasn't sure if he would come (the stress of flying and going away would be too much for him) so maybe we would go without him. But still nothing was booked.
DH and I privately started looking at last minute deals for ourselves because we didn't think MIL was going to book anything, and we are both desperate for a holiday as he doesn't get much time off throughout the year.
Then yesterday, MIL said to over text that she's decided we aren't going abroad because FIL can't handle it and she doesn't want to leave him home alone. DH said that's fine, and then explained that we want to still go abroad because he has booked the time off and we have saved the money to go abroad.
Cue massive row. She says that she wants to go on a UK beach holiday so that FIL can come, and we are incredibly selfish and closed-minded for leaving them behind while we "swan off into the sun".
DH said that we will go abroad for 6 days and then time meet them for 4 days in the place they're staying in the UK, so there is a compromise as we are holidaying abroad, and still spending time with them. Nope we aren't allowed to do that either.
I want to add 2 more things - Firstly that it would not have been a money issue as to why she was putting it off. Secondly, in 6 weeks time MIL and SIL are going abroad to visit family (spending 2 days with family and then 5 days on the beach in a posh hotel) so they are having a holiday then without FIL but disguising it as visiting family.
Now we are a bit stuck because we don't know what to do. We've found a place abroad we'd like to go with a last minute deal but want to know if we are being selfish and closed-minded by going when the original plan was to go with everyone? I don't want to upset anyone but also MIL has been stringing us on for months making us think we're all going on a nice hot holiday together which we got excited about, saved up and booked time off so now we want to go. And we have compromised by saying we will go for 6 and then spend 4 with them. I don't know what else we can suggest?