I hate our holiday and want to go home

[Backwoods57]

I need to rant.

Day 10 of a 13 day visit to the UK. We moved to the USA in 2014 and have to come back every year because MIL can't afford to visit us, and is scared of flying. We are in Aldershot/Farnham area. There is nothing to do apart from walk up and down dead high streets. Traffic is terrible, I smell the pollution and cigarette smoke everywhere.

If we don't come we get a massive guilt trip about MIL not seeing grandkids etc.

This trip cost $4000, we have done very little apart from visit family and sit in my SiL's cramped dirty messy house.

2 weeks of my 3 week vacation allowance has been thrown away. I have start working remotely for A. Something to do, and B so I can claim some vacation days back.

I miss my home, our dogs, I miss countryside and wildlife, I want my space back.....and tap water that doesn't taste like bleach.

If I let relatives stay in my house year after year, and spent my time driving them around to places so they could save money and they then moaned about how awful my house was and how annoying it was that I had to collect my kids from school and how dull the place I lived was I'd tell them to fck right off and get a hotel next time.

Geez.

@toomuchfaff I don't think that's an unpopular view at all.

I think most poster offering suggestion are just trying to help OP not waste last bit of this holiday.

I'd be planning madly for any future trips with huge interbinary and as much independence as possible and coming much less frequently (to never if I could swing that ) going forward.

I don’t think OP wants suggestions. She’s just looking to moan.

Sounds awful OP. I live in the UK but I always look forward to going to the states … space, fresh air, beautiful scenery, wide open roads … god I need to get back to the US

It’s not fair on you or SIL - no one is satisfied. I think you will need to write this trip off and plan more for next time. You need a bigger budget to hire a car and somewhere to stay at minimum. If that means you only visit every few years, so be it.

Any trip where there aren’t public transport links nearby and you don’t bother to rent a car then have to be reliant on someone else for 2 weeks who has their own schedule with the kids etc is always going to be shit. If you can’t afford to do it with the car then you can’t afford an essential component of the trip and you shouldn’t go. If that means going every other year and/or agreeing a 3rd destination you all meet up in then so be it. They don’t make the effort to come to you so I’d have limited sympathy for any moaning that they’ll see you less, it’s literally there decision not to visit and that’s on them.

It’s actually a big ask to put up and transport a family for that length of time. I sympathise with your disappointment but equally it also comes across as ungrateful.

Ungrateful for weeks of sitting in a smelly little house having the occasional walk up the road? Sounds like an absolute nightmare

Apologies if someone else has suggested this, but I feel that next year, your workload will be so much that you either cannot come at all, or can only manage one week.

I have been in a similar position Op. the US & North America in general, is vast and varied. Absolutely you should be allowed some time to explore it, especially while your children are young .

I don’t know the extent of your MIL’s fear - slightly nervous or full on phobia. If it’s the former, perhaps she can fly back with DH after he has a week here, while you stay home with or without your children. Not trying is ver6 selfish of her.

This.

You sound in a very negative mindset and resentful of MIL. This will rub off on the kids.
You're allowed to feel pissed off but you can't say there's nothing to do! What about catching up for a glass of wine with your side of the family or some old friends?
You've got the beach, New Forest, heaps of possibilities for days out.

There is an extensive public transport system. Use it.

Just get the train! Plenty of trains through Aldershot. Or hire a car.

He needs to man up. Plenty of women travel with two under 5s without whinge bucketing about it

Oh no I understand how frustrating it must be to be 4k out of pocket and use 2/3 of your holiday allowance to spend time in a dump. Maybe next year don't visit at all and let's see if she will meet you half way perhaps for once she jumps on a plane to visit you instead and you pay for ticket? If she doesn't then don't budge and fall for the guilt trips. Sacrifices like this only become bearable if both sides commit and this seems only one sided!

Why don’t you pay mum in law’s air fair

Both the OP and her partner need to woman/man up. They’ve been ferried around for the last 10 days like children.

We normally do a camping trip, in Maine or Canada, we take the kids and the ATV's and do a 200mile wilderness ride camping on route.

we also have a remote log cabin we go to where we all hunt, shoot, fish, canoe hike etc.

You must have missed “So far we have visited Whipsnade, Woking, Windsor Fleet and Guildford. We can't go anywhere without SiL because she does the driving. We have to be back every day because we have to collect her kids from school.”

It’s a beautiful day today OP, I’m not far from you. Go and do something!

I would not visit again and spend that 4k travelling around USA. The UK is a stunning country but to spend it stuck in a grotty house being ferried about is my worse nightmare so I get why you hate your holiday, I wouldn't even call that a holiday to be fair. Either your MIL gets over her fear of flying or combine next years trip with a week on the continent. Don't waste precious annual leave or your life.

Sounds like you’ve planned your trip badly. That’s no one else’s fault but yours.

'Jump on the Eurostar'

That costs well over a thousand pounds for a family 😂

Your MIL won't fly. Your DH doesn't want to manage the DC on his own. Neither of these are your problems to solve. If DH wants to visit, he can manage it. No reason you and, tbh mostly your SIL have to shoulder the aggro.