To want to fly home with our DD?

[HomeWard93]

Backstory:
DD is 8 months old had started solids but is still breastfed.
I have very, very little to do with DHs side of the family. I don’t get on with them, I don’t like them and vice versa so I don’t believe in spending parts of my short time on this earth with them unless it’s a big occasion/will cause fuss if I don’t. Before anyone starts saying “LTB” over my DH- it affects about 5% of our relationship, the other 95% is all good so I’m not leaving my partner over wanting to spend time with his family

SIL announced at Christmas time she was getting married. It was DDs first Christmas so PIL and SIL came over from Australia, stayed in a hotel and I only had to deal with them for a couple of hours on Xmas day.

SIL asked me to be a bridesmaid which took me massively by surprise. I thought it was her way of trying to build bridges so I accepted. Then she said babies weren’t welcome at the wedding- I then pointed out it wouldn’t be feesable as I physically couldn’t leave my child for 2 weeks (which would of been the minimum we would of gone to the other side of the world for- those who have been will understand you need the first 4/5 days to get over the jet lag) as she relied on me for nutrition and I wasn’t comfortable leaving her for a prolonged period of time. Not to mention my parents are in their 80s and couldn’t cope with a near toddler for 2 weeks.

SIL at first caused a fuss, couple of days later ran and agreed DD as her niece would be welcome. Great- or so I thought.

Me and DH arrived here yesterday, the wedding is next weekend. We went round to PIL for dinner and to meet SILs fiancée, and she introduced me to a neighbour who “would look after DD while we were at the wedding”. I was gobsmacked.

Ask what she meant and she said DD would stay with this complete stranger I had only just met for the day while I was at the wedding. I believe my precise words in reply were “you can fuck right off”.

SIL is refusing to have DD at the wedding so I have three choices- a) try and get my DD used to a bottle while we are in a strange country, surrounded by people she doesn’t know and is struggling with jet lag b) I refuse to go to the wedding and let DH go (which of course I’m fine with) but enjoy the rest of our holiday with DH or c) I book me and DD flights home on our credit card and leave DH here to holiday alone, again which I’m fine with.

Apparently I’m unreasonable if I do anything other than option A. Couldn’t give a shit what the out laws think and DH is upset too and agrees I’ve been blind sided but understand he wants to spend time with his family.

AIBU to want to go home?

Why are you so confrontational towards your H family OP?
Sometimes it’s better to make bridges than smash through them.
I agree they could have handled things better but so could you.
The losers here are your child and your H who aren’t able to have a relationship with their extended family because you sulked and threw a tantrum.
Why are you so happy your H hasn’t seen his family since pre covid ! Not nice!

She sounds insane but you sound very unpleasant telling people to fuck right off.

It's her niece not some random baby. We have family, and one lot with a baby, on the other side of the World and we would love to see them. Our baby's aunty got married last year and would have been thrilled to have her there. I know families are different but the way this SIL is treating her own niece and SIL is very cold and manipulative.

They've treated you badly

You've treated DH badly

Agreed, but having made that flight many times (both with and without a baby) I can confirm that you really don’t know which way is up for at least a couple of days. The OP could be excused for being somewhat unpleasant under the circumstances.

I'd be livid OP if I was your DH. You can't 'ban' your DH's parents from seeing their son's baby on the back of you not liking the wedding arrangements for childcare that his sister made. Your DH and baby and are the ones that are going to suffer.
You can of course, not like the arrangements- thats your choice. And is its bad that your sister in law said your baby is welcome and then changed her mind. Not on. But the adult thing to do would have been to politely decline her plans spend the wedding day with your baby and then have the rest of your holidays with DH. Not swear at your DH's family, threaten them with no contact and block them. Complete over reaction - or else there is a huge backstory?

#notallwomen. But Sometimes there is nothing as cruel as women can be. Women use emotional mamipulation and cruelty to hurt people.

I was just thinking of my own large extended family.

All the dramatic moments and cruelty and fallouts were caused by the women In the family.

Women often use emotional manipulation and cruelty as a tool.

And they will say "to love me, you have to cut that person completely out of your life"

In my own large extended family I have seen

A woman stop her husband from seeing his own mother.
A woman stopping grandparents from seeing their grandchildren.
A woman who lied about one female cousin to another female cousin, and made those two cousins stop speaking to each other.

My uncles wife was horrendous. She made so many people fall out.and she ruined so many family relationships. She tried to stop my uncles brother from seeing his own daughter. Etc etc

It's not nice. It's controlling and abusive.

If a man said to a woman "while you are with me, you must cut your whole family off. You cant see them".
Wouldn't we say it's abusive?

The Op here is being coercive and abusive by stopping family from seeing each other

I have voted YABU but only because i don't think you should spend anymore money on flights. Enjoy the holiday and don't go to the wedding.

Definitely B. The money you'd spend on the flights, you could use to have some great experiences with your DD while out there. I can't imagine how awkward and isolates you'd feel atm though, being on the other side of the world and being blindsided like that.

The op is complaining about going all the way to Australia, but look how she wrote about the in laws coming to the UK at Christmas.

She wrote: ' It was DDs first Christmas so PIL and SIL came over from Australia, stayed in a hotel and I only had to deal with them for a couple of hours on Xmas day."

They came all the way from Australia to see the baby, and op wrote "I only had to deal with them for a couple of hours on Xmas day".

That's cold!
I think if family made the effort to come and see me , I'd be happy to see them.

Amazing the lengths some will go to, to gloss over the actual facts and blame the OP for her reaction to being gaslighted into spending a lot of money and travelling thousands of miles - to still not go to the wedding !!

Love this kill them with kindness approach, always very effective at getting the point across, and if they have any decency, will make them reflect on their actions at some point, might take months but it'll be one of those things they will eventually stew on.

Did you miss the part where the sil and pils spent lots of money and travelled thousands of miles to visit the op last Christmas.

She is not the only one to do it.

She was tricked into coming, presumably so they could play happy families after the wedding.

They can FOTTFSOF

Tricked into coming.

Jesus it's not that hard to fly to Australia. My friend flys home four times a year from Australia

Are you on the same thread as the rest of us. Nowhere has the OP said she doesn’t want her DH to have a relationship with his family - quite the opposite. And again nowhere has she said that she’s happy he hasn’t seen his family since Covid - you just made that up.

What she has said is that her PiL don’t like her and blame her for taking away their son, and that she doesn’t get on with them. If this behaviour from SiL is anything to go by, and her PiL are condoning it, I don’t blame her. At least understand what’s actually going on before piling on.

With someone she doesn't know from a hole in the wall??

You'd do that would you?

I wouldn't

She HAS said though that she doesn't want then pils to see their grandchild again .

What do you think of that?

Agree. Thousands of miles away from home, with in laws she doesn’t like, and who don’t like her. I would be asking myself why they were so eager to get her out there that they lied to her about taking the baby to the wedding. I wouldn’t be letting the child out of my sight.

If the OP had realised that her DD wasn't to go to the wedding, do you all think she would have flown halfway around the world at a pretty huge cost, or would she have just said to he DH that he should go on his own?

And if this stunt doesn't count as a 'Glass by the Sink' moment as far as his family is concerned, I don't know what would!

I think it’s a knee jerk reaction because she’s angry, and once she’s calmed down she’ll maybe rethink it. However, that’s coming from my own point of view, and I haven’t been on the receiving end of shitty behaviour from my in laws which has cost me a lot of money and a long journey I didn’t need to do, to be with people I don’t like and who quite clearly don’t like me.

The SIL was hella unreasonable to do what she did. No doubt about it. I’d be fuming. However, cutting contact is spiteful and it’s punishing the child and the husband. It’s fine if @HomeWard93 doesn’t want to see her ILs again but she’s isolating her husband from his family who he doesn’t see that often anyway. Unless there is information about how they’re terrible, abusive or unpleasant people, there is zero reason to cut off contact with the baby. The little one has come to no harm.

Just to talk about myself once and then i'll leave it.

I've witnessed similar family drama like what the OP is doing, in my own family.

And it causes years of pain and unhappiness. Amd it destroys people's lives for years.

My dad had a brother. This was my uncle. My uncle married a woman. She instantly hated my father's entire family. She hated my grandparents. She hated my mother.

She insisted that my uncle not see his family anymore. She had three children. We never saw them. As she wouldn't let us. She caused family rifts between absolutelt everyone. I never saw my uncle because of her.

And it had a much larger reaching affect, than just her immediate family.

People were afraid to talk to each other, for fear of being seen to take sides and fear of causing more family fallouts. As she was vicous and had a way of turning everyone against everyone. She instilled that fear Into the whole family. So people would be afraid to talk to one cousin for example because that aunt and uncle didn't like them, and if they knew you were talking to this cousin, they would then turn everyone against you for dojng it. It was awful.

Much later when we were adults, some of us tried to reconnect when we met at funerals. And we couldn't. The deep damage had been done. You know there were conversations like "why wouldn't you talk to me. Why did you cut me off" and the answer was "well I was told you did this. And I was afraid of causing problems in the family if I talked to you"

It was awful. And family relationships were ruined for life. By a woman's actions. I just hate that shit

This
You have every right to be upset and annoyed - but the way your handle yourself is so extreme you are going to drive and wedge between you and your hubby because you are very aggressive in your interactions with people.

You are also basically making him choose between you and his family without offering him shades of grey. You need to tackle this debacle as a team because at the moment it very much seems you are making decisions rather than coming to decisions together. Blocking people because his sister (who I am guessing does not have children) made a stupid decision is also a stupid decision.

I think you are in for a relationship wobble that will threaten your future together.

What we do when we go to overseas weddings is we hire a qualified baby sitter twice - once as a trial with us around (and we explain we have deliberately hired them with us around) and a second time for the wedding. We do this with the idea if the trial doesn't go well we would be prepared to either find someone else or tag team on the wedding day.

Your breastfed child that is also being weaned on food would not have starved to death if you had of left her with a qualified baby sitter in a hotel room near the wedding for an 1.5hrs to attend the ceremony. Or if you and your hubby had agreed to swap places at certain times during the days.

You have very black and white thinking which causes you much more drama than most people need or want in their lives.

I’ve lost count of the number of threads on MN where controlling behaviour like that of OP’s in laws has been called out, and the OP advised to cut contact with ‘toxic’ people. I’ve also lost count of the number of times it’s said on here that breastfeeding is a personal choice and shouldn’t be interfered with - yet one poster told OP nobody forced her to breastfeed !! From what the OP has said, I don’t think you could get much more toxic or controlling, but somehow it’s still her fault and she should try to get along with them. It’s batshit.