My partner’s family booked a holiday without me

[Isthisrea]

Hi, looking for opinions on this situation:

I’m from another country, my partner is from England. We used to live in London, but shortly before our children were born we moved out of London so we could buy a house. We settled near to his family; after our children were born the relationship between me and my partner’s family deteriorated. I found MIL very overbearing and after a few intense situations, I have limited contact with her. MIL and FIL see children weekly.

I used up all my holiday for visiting my home country with my partner and children and have no holiday left for this year, I work part time (3 days during the week and every Saturday).

My partner’s family ( his parents, sister and her partner) have booked a caravan holiday next weekend and my partner and children are expected to attend. There has been no mention of me attending (I’m working on Saturday and can’t book any time off).
My partner is more than capable of looking after the children. However I feel sad and don’t think it’s appropriate to book a holiday for my children(both under 5) without me being there…Am I over reacting or you think this is ok?

Exactly!

Its a caravan holiday weekend

Keeping things civil and not crossing into hate each other takes work. From the MIL point of view OP has set out her stall and the OP has control of (all) the children so if it not broken dont fix it.

The OP is doing the work on her side by insuring the children and MIL's child visits on a regular schedule.

MIL is doing the work on her side by not sticking her nose (directly) into OP's business anymore and communication is via MIL's child.

MIL's child should be communicating better with the OP and MIL.

Plus OP laid out how PIL had not ever demanded a chunk of Op's annual hoilday then had not bothered to directly invite their DS or await DP's reply before booking along why she would not go and only wanted the invitation not the oppertunity to spend time with MIL. OP is not saying MIL instructed her child not to bring OP

Starting a fight with DH over an invitation OP's was going to refuse anyway......

MIL's child should be communicating better with the OP and MIL.

I'm not convinced is on him to do so, to be honest. OP hhaschosen to go low contact. MIL is respecting that. None of this is by DH's choice as far as I can tell. Why should he have to pick up the pieces?

Without knowing how the conversation between the IL's and the OP's DH went, it's hard to know if OP is BU.

There's a million miles between

"We've managed to book a few days in a caravan at the last minute, how would you all like to join us?", followed by DH saying "fine but OP can't get the time off work". (Clearly NBU in the slightest)

and

"We've booked a caravan for a few days and thought you and the kids would like to join us. We know @Isthisrea hasn't got any leave left, so it'll just be us." (Possibly BU)

or even

"Tell us when @Isthisrea will be working, and we'll book a caravan for then so you can come on your own with the kids". (Defninitely BU and sneaky with it)

My assumption is that MIL did not say "OP can not come" if she did it is his choice with how he deals with this. My assumption is that as OP is not reporting MIL stopped OP it did not happen that way. DH needs to say WE have been invited .....
If OP's family agreement is "100% family unit holidays only" he should have said that to MIL at the start of the "FIL and I are booking a caravan" conversation.

He picked the OP, piggie-in-the-middle comes with their marrige

You say the 4 of you come as a unit, but that you have limited contact whereas the children (?and your partner) see your inlaws weekly. So I don't think you can blame them for thinking that you don't in fact come as a unit, but that your partner leads on family time that involves them, and that you do your thing. I think your partner could have checked/discussed this with you, but I wouldn't expect your MIL to contact you separately.

Also a good point.

I honestly think that the most likely scenario is that MIL was offered the use of this caravan for the weekend (and only this particular weekend) at very short notice. She invited her kids and their families if they were free, DH said that he and the kids were but OP was working and wouldn't be able to get leave.

I wouldn't read any more into it than that. If you're going to go LC you have to realise that practically, you're not going to be part of conversations. And that reading as much negativity as you can into something that's probably entirely innocent, is not going to be good for your mental health.

I think you are projecting onto this decision feelings you have in general about being accepted both within the family and in the local community.

If you look at it logically, you do not like them and they do not like you. You have no annual leave left. The idea of holidaying with them in close quarters cannot be one that you would look forward to. This isn't a week or two, just a weekend so I'd let it go.

Also, you have not said what exactly was said to your DH, or what he said, in the initial discussion.

OP, in your initial post, you didn’t say that your MIL and SIL didn’t like you.
You indicated that YOU didn’t like them and that YOU were the one limiting their time with you because your MIL was ‘overbearing’.

Do you think they might feel the hurt/injustice of that measure you put in, even though, without question they have just had to accept not seeing as much of you as they would have liked.

Is it possible you could have misinterpreted their enthusiasm and delight at your family unit as ‘overbearing’ because of cultural differences.
We can only go on what you tell us.

But it still seems to me that you can’t curtail them on the one hand, whilst on the other, expecting them to keep up their enthusiasm with your company by issuing a specific invitation to you.
You can’t have it both ways.
They probably thought you wouldn’t want to come. Maybe they thought inviting you would cause more drama which they were trying to avoid. Only you know.

Ordinarily, of course you come as a family unit and an invitation specifically excluding you would need more communication to figure out if there was any misunderstanding (such as they knew you couldn’t get time off so knew not include you in the head count) But you didn’t paint this as an ordinary situation …you told us that you have already deliberately limited contact with them. (Rightly or wrongly…not for anybody else to judge) So to my mind, your ‘low contact’ could have well produced this consequence of not including you.

I think this depends entirely on how the conversation with your MIL and your DH went.
If she mentioned the weekend away and said , 'Will you all come and join us' and your DH said, 'I can bring the kids but @Isthisrea is working. I'll check with her' then fair enough. But if it was more along the lines of, 'We want you and the kids to come along but not Isthisrea' then that's rude. Or she might have suggested that just the kids come and DH said he'd need to be there?
Only you guys know how the conversation went!
Oh and I don't know where in the country they are but crammed into a caravan in the pissing rain with people you don't much like would be bloody miserable!!!

Why would they ruin their lovely family holiday by inviting you?
You're a family unit but not joined at the hip. You can individually enjoy things.

Sorry, but I think you are overreacting. Frankly it sounds great, enjoy having the weekend all to yourself!

"Be honest, if a family member organised something and just didn't invite you, would you not be a little hurt?"

Not if I'd gone low contact with them and they asked dh about it first.

@Isthisrea i totally get it and I think you’re completely right. However I don’t think the issue is your MIL. I think the issue is your DH- he should have consulted you, he should stand up for you when you’re threaten in such a disrespectful manner and he should make sure his family includes you.

Where did you get any of that from? I simply said it’s rude to not invite the OP.
My in-laws would never put us in that situation to begin with but we all get along well and I love my in-laws dearly but even so he wouldn’t go on holiday without me but that’s due to our own circumstances and how our unit works.

As already mentioned I feel that my partner, kids and I are one unit and we go together. @Isthisrea
The whole 'we are a family unit and come as a package' thing that gets trotted out on mum's net is really codependent and over the top.
In this past year DH has been on a stag do abroad, we've had a family holiday, I've been on a girly weekend away and DH has taken the DC and stepDC for a fishing weekend away with his dad. Just because we get married doesn't mean we all have to morph into a homogenous blob. We're all individuals with separate interests and holiday/school allowances.
And I also say this is a foreigner in the UK OP.

he should stand up for you when you’re threaten in such a disrespectful manner

How is it threatening OP not to invite her on a holiday she can't go on with people she doesn't like?

The absolute hyperbolic language on this site is something else.

Yep. My DH had to give up work due to ill health, while I was still working. He took each of our daughters on short holidays while I was working, and with my blessing. He also had days out with his parents and our children.

And of course @Isthisrea you're only a unit when it suits you. You've been quick enough to not be a unit when it comes to visiting your children's grandparents.

Threatened? Who's been threatening?
Not being invited to a weekend at a caravan with people you don't like, when you can't go as working, and don't want to go is not being threatened!

I’m having a break at work, so a few minutes to spare, will try to write an update later.

I feel the need to respond to you, as your message is one of the latest and rudest ones. Are you trying to be purposefully hurtful or are you lacking self awareness..Would you like it if someone told you that your family is not inviting you, because your presence will ruin their lovely holiday..

Don't act like objecting to excluding a mother from decisions regarding, and holidays with, her own pre-school children is some traditionalist nonsense.

Actually, thinking that it's acceptable for a father to make family decisions by himself and with zero consideration for his wife is very misogynist.

It’s likely a typo, I’m guessing it’s “treated” not “threaten”.

If I were in this exact situation I'd expect my DP to ask me re: him and the children going.

I'd also have no objection but yes would like to be asked in advance.

I mean let's get real, everyone here is laying into the OP and suggesting she have a "lovely" break in the house by herself and gaslighting her by insinuating she's needy or horrible or that she's brought it on herself, but equally we see plenty of AIBU threads full of women going "Oh I could never leave my kids for a few days, I can't even bear a night apart from them".

For whatever reason this thread has got peoples backs up, possibly a lot of controlling MILs replying.

Its just insane to me that people wouldn't see that this low contact the OP has initiated was probably brought about by the familys vibe. I mean, the OP left London to go and live near them, and she wouldn't have done that if there had been a bad atmosphere with the family. So clearly something changed once the OP got to their neck of the woods.

To me it feels like this family treat OP like some kind of walking womb. "Thanks for popping out our darling boys kids and uprooting your life to live next door to us, we will now take your kids on holiday as we see fit and btw you're not invited because you dared react to our toxic behaviour by "going low contact". Now you will be punished for that". That's what this is about.

You have to wonder what sort of people don't have the generosity of spirit to tend to how the OP might be doing, their DIL and SIL, not just the kids: and yes, despite there being an edge to it, because thats the decent thing to do when theres a rift between you in a position of strength (surrounded by family) and the other person in a position of weakness. In fact you have to wonder what kind of man doesn't make this a priority too.

What's DPs stance on this OP? And as was said above, why are you still living there?

Maybe different people are responding to this thread?

I have a baby. Not a MIL and I’ve left my baby for a weekend before.