MILs family ski trip

[Distressed2023]

DH's and I have two little girls, aged 3 and 8 months. His mother has invited her whole family including kids, partners and family skiing after xmas 2024 (27 Dec - 2nd Jan ish) offering to pay for flights and accommodation for everyone (very generous, I know). I saw a snippet of the invite email, the baby and I didn't appear to be included (this would not be the first time). DH assured me he wasn't prepared to go without us (4 days ago). However, something has changed. This morning he said he had looked at all the costs and options (we would need to pay for our own ski passes, ski school and gear rental) and couldn't make it work for all of us, so he proposed just he and toddler go. I became pretty upset to say the least. I was so upset that he'd even entertain the idea of leaving me and baby here for 6 days over the Xmas break when we get so little time as a family. I feel so hurt. AIBU?

Will the 3 year old be 4 by Christmas? It's pretty unthinkable that he goes just with your eldest and leaves you behind. You either all go or no one goes.

Unbelievable that your poor excuse for a husband would even think of doing this. What a total cunt.

Who on earth are the YABU voters?!

If my dh planned to go on a "family" trip that I had specifically not been invited to, I would ask him where he plans to live when he gets back. I'm appalled he's considering this.

Suggest that dh stays home with the baby while you go skiiing and watch him decide that leaving half the family behind is not such a good idea after all.

If he has decided it will be easier to keep his mum happy and upset you, show him he's got that the wrong way around.

And what did he say when you said hang on a minute!

Just tell your husband that you don’t plan on skiing so don’t need a pass or rental and as MIL is paying for the accommodation and flights you shouldn’t cost any extra and see what he says.

If she is purposely excluding you he needs to give his head a wobble if he isn’t fucking outraged

Nope

The baby obviously won’t be in ski school and will need looked after so surely if you don’t ski and you look after the baby, the ski passes/hire/lessons will be exactly the same cost whether you go or not!?

I think your DH either does not want to take turns looking after the baby or is covering up that his mother has not invited you and baby.

It’s not an appropriate kind of holiday for the toddler either, so no reason at all to go

Have you read the email properly? If not, why not?

What would the toddler do while he skied?

Why cant you all go and and you and dh take turns skiing?

Sorry to say, but on the face of it you have a massive dh problem.

Hell no! Either she pays for you ALL to go, or no one goes!

Is she paying for anyone else's partners and kids??

Well the 4 year old can attend ski school, it will just be pottering around on skis and then inside crèche type of thing. So she’d be looked after for a morning while he could ski. But are you happy with her being looked after by strangers in another country? You could get a childcare set up to look after the baby and toddler in the chalet together while you ski too. Perhaps you’d not go everyday so can just get a lift pass for a day or three. Or you can take it in turns, one gets the morning one gets the afternoon session.

Pretty pointless this holiday for both of you - I’d sit this one out. Rotten for the invitation to exclude you and the baby. But it’s more hassle than it’s worth taking just a 3 year old anyway. He should decline and spend the Xmas period with you.

I voted yabu as if it was my partner offered a subsidised holiday with his family then I would want him to go. It’s going to mean a whole lot more to him hanging out with them than it would to me, in fact I probably wouldn’t really want to be there. So he could go and I would go and spend some time with my own family or hang out with friends. Everyone wins!
However I also think your MIL is very, very unreasonable! Honestly what kind of person doesn’t invite her DIL! So either I really wouldn’t want to spend time with her anyway but I would not want my DH to sacrifice his relationship with her, or could wires be crossed, and she thinks you don’t want to be there as you have a baby? I’m which case your DH really needs to put her right and get you a subsidised holiday too.

Also - only you will know if it’s the MIL who is being nasty and your DH is a bit of a wet blanket re his mum or if your husband playing this to get a holiday away from the baby. Good luck either way! But being charitable, if his mum is a PIA and the nastiness is on her, I can still see why he would want to go and not miss out on this family gathering.

I know I voted yabu but this is about you not wanting him to go. Yanbu to be upset about the situation. I hope you find a positive resolution x

edited to remove typos

How much money are we talking about for you and the baby to join? One ski rental and one ski pass?

If all you have to pay for is ski gear and passes I don’t understand why you also going makes it unaffordable? Presumably your 18 month old won’t be skiing, and one adult will need to stay with her, so you can switch off who is skiing and share a ski pass. So the only additional cost is ski rental for you - about £100-£150. I know it’s not nothing surely you can budget for it by December? Or does he actually think it’ll be easier if you and the baby stay at home, and the cost is an excuse?

This. And presumably there's a backstory where your DH never says no to his mother, no matter how rude she is to you?

Unless there is a history of MIL going skiing, she is excluding you on purpose.
Husband is enabling this.
Call it out.

Is this one of those where op won’t return..

A week’s ski pass somewhere like Porte du soleil would be about €1000 for the week over NY. Rentals around €300. Baby wouldn’t need one but can’t go on most lifts anyway. If they’re beginners it would be less for the pass as don’t need full resort pass, but then they’d need lessons. Basically it’s never a cheap holiday.

Why would op even want to go on a trip to spend time with her MIL if she is not wanted by neither MIL nor DH in the first place?

But my guess is that there is a big backstory.

Outrageous behaviour

So it's not particularly fun to be on a ski holiday with very small kids unless you can get them in creche or snow club.
So if she'd said hey OP, we want to go skiing but there's no convenient childcare facilities etc so do you and DH want to go or maybe just one of you? Fair enough.
This just sounds wierd !

BTW you probably wouldn't need a full skii pass for both of you if you have small kids as ski lessons are only a couple of hours and so you'll need to look after DC the rest of the day, unless they speak the language of where you are going it will ne tough. We used to do ski esprit for skiing because of all their wrap around childcare for this reason!

Absolutely no chance! Cheeky sh*t

You might decide that the logistics are tricky with a baby so you'd rather not go. But it'd be nice to be asked!