AIBU to expect people to do things together on holiday?

[Pineapples198]

I’m currently away with my DH, 2 DS’s and my parents in law. It’s been lovely but a hard week. I would expect that the 6 of us do things together. It seems we make a plan, go to do said plan and people wander off in all directions. We can’t even walk through the village without people going in 3 directions and end up waiting about or trying to find people. One day everyone wanted an afternoon in the house except me. I said ok we’ll stay in. Parents in law then went for a walk by themselves and DH went to sleep for 2 + hours leaving me on my own with the kids all afternoon. Today we decided to do a beach day. It rained for like 2 minutes and parents in law left the beach and didn’t come back. To be “helpful” they took most of the beach toys up with them. DH then said he ought to go and check his parents had remembered to get themselves some lunch (??) so left me on my own with the kids again. When I asked him to stay he said you know I don’t like the beach anyway. I said we’ve barely been on it all week so I don’t know why we bothered booking a beach holiday. Husband was like “well you and the kids can go on the beach if you want!”. Similar story most days tbh. We will be out as a group and then DH and FIL will disappear into a museum leaving me with the kids and MIL (who has dementia).
If I say something like I really want is to all go on the beach together or just stay together my husband just shrugs and says “we can all just do what we want!” However this doesn’t work for me as while others go elsewhere I need to do what the kids want to do. I wouldn’t dream of just wandering off so inevitably I get left til last and it’s assumed the kids will always be with me. My parents in law have largely ignored the children most of the week except to shush them and haven’t played with them at all. On the beach they just sit or go for a walk by themselves only to go back to the house after an hour.

AIBU to think that I’m getting the short end of the stick here? Maybe I should just take myself off and away and do what I what to do but I don’t want to leave other people in the lurch either!

I’ve been on holiday where I’m told what to do and when to do it by the in laws. Soul destroying. 100% would not recommend. Let people be their own people.

Not read the thread.

WARNING ! The family will say ‘oh that was great ! Let’s book again’.

do not agree. Ask for a helper to also come. You are being used as a skivvy and they don’t give a monkey’s arse about you or the kids.

you DH skipping bedtime and your FIL leaving MIL to you is shocking

Well everyone is having a holiday apart from you OP.

You're the hired help.

Personally I'd get up early tomorrow and bugger off on my own for the day.

Leave them (especially your DH) to it.

We take any opportunity to lift a day out of the ordinary! Any new job / promotion would absolutely be celebrated whether by dinner out, a nice takeaway,bottle of champagne or whatever. Why not? Day to day life is so same-y, why not jump at any opportunity to make a day a little more fun 🙂

No idea how I managed to post on the wrong thread! Gin I suspect...

There's a few issues.

1. Group holidays only work if you all like holidaying the same way. We've been joking about this at work, one of my colleagues described the type of holiday I like as a school trip whereas I would hate her ideal holiday of spending 2 weeks on a sun lounger and never leaving the AI resort.

2. If your MIL is in the early stages of dementia then she probably finds some things quite overwhelming at times that she could cope with perfectly well a few years ago.

3. The big issue here is that your DH is leaving the parenting to you. He might just be lazy or he may genuinely be finding his DPs are being quite demanding of him and so he feels torn and he assumes you understand and will take on the childcare. You need to tell him how you feel and have a discussion. DH and I both find our DMs can be more demanding than our teenagers at times, difference is our DC are old enough that they can help manage the GPs which helps!

YABVU to think 6 people across 3 different generations should all do the same thing throughout every day on holiday.

Of course, what should be happening here is that your dh should be doing his equal share of caring.

What should have happened LONG before you even booked the holiday, let alone went on it was had conversations about who this holiday was for, who was responsible for what and who was caring for who. It sounds as if your PiL need some care, rather than them being there to help you and dh, or even just a sort of neutral status where they are quite independent but not quite active enough to look after dc, so that is quite a commitment in itself.