DH and MIL having dinner without me and the kids on holiday

[FussyFusspott]

MIL is on her own and DH is her only child. She has always been overbearing and very demanding of him, financially and emotionally. She isn't a horrible person at all and she is a loving grandparent but is definitely enmeshed with DH and this caused issues when our first DC was born 7 years ago. After having children DH started to prioritise me and the children more, in only a natural way he still cares for his mum a lot, and this caused resentment from her.

Things we did she didn't like - moved 20 miles away (couldn't afford to live where we were previously), he stopped paying a lot of her living expenses but had given her a lot of money we couldn't really afford in the past. I admit I resent how she was/ is with DH - expects to be wined and dined at least once a week and has told him that she prefers time just the two of them. However she is always pleasant when she sees me.

She has wanted to come on holiday with us since the DC we're born (7 and 4) and DH has said he feels he has to do it "before she dies". She's 67 and in good health but tells him often she thinks she may die soon. She openly asks us to take her on holiday but says she can't afford to contribute a single penny to it. DH wants to take her and I feel I can't say no as it's important to him and I've told him it won't be a regular thing just once. I am not happy about it as I feel a bit like the third wheel with them at times as she simpers over him a lot and feel like she just tolerates me.

Sorry finally getting to my point - DH tried to sell it to me as childcare whilst we were on holiday, I don't really want or need it but I guess a dinner together would be nice, but he also said that whilst on this week's holiday one night he would need to have a dinner with just his mum as well whilst I would be with the kids as he would have to take her for dinner the two of them at some point. I feel so uneasy about this for some reason. They go out for dinner the two of them at least twice a month and I don't mind in the slightest but to actively leave me out on holiday (a holiday he and I are paying for) just feels galling.

AIBU?

There is a high chance the op will be left out while on holiday. From what I have read her mil will hang on to her DS and the op will be left entertaining the children on holiday. The op and her husband has to find the money to pay for her entire trip. I don't know about you but that would really piss me off. I wouldn't dream of doing that to my children.

No indeed. The OPs husband is causing a lot of trouble between the two women, undoubtedly. I mean, who tells their partner that their mother prefers them not to be around? The MiL is apparently 'perfectly nice' to the OP so why he chose to share that goodness knows. However my point was how differently one to one time is seen generally with a son than a daughter. A lot of these responses suggest a close mother/son relationship is 'weird', unhealthy and that there is something wrong with a mother who wants to spend time with her son on her own.

Yes, but responses aren't just saying that though, are they? The language used such as 'fawning' and 'the ick' goes further than commenting on the financial issue and the OP looking after the DC on her own for a night. It clearly implies there is something odd and unsavoury about a mother wanting to be close to her son in adulthood that would never be said about a daughter. The language is suggestive of a rival rather than completely different relationship and frames the mother as competing almost as an 'other woman'. Its always the same when a woman has an adult son and its not OK.

That's for another thread in hindsight there is nothing wrong with adults wanting to spend time with their mum's or dads. The ops husband is not handling the situation well and is causing his wife to feel resentful. A lot of parents wouldn't use manipulation to spend time with their children. The ops mil is taking the piss.

It's a family holiday! The op was left on her own at a wedding it wouldn't surprise me if she was left on her own looking after their children while he takes mother out sight seeing. She doesn't mind him taking her out twice a month to dinner but it's a family holiday to spend time together. Has anyone asked the op how many times a month she is taken out for a meal as a married couple?

I've already commented to OP many pages ago about the holiday and the way it would be reasonable and fair on the holiday (by sharing the load and free time and alone time) I have repeated myself a few times to people irritated that I think a mum/son can have a close relationship so with no rudeness intended to you, as you don't know that, I'm going to leave it here.

There is no suggestion at all in the OP that she will be left alone while he 'takes his mother' sight seeing. All we know is that she takes advantage financially (which is a reasonable point) that she eats alone with her son twice a month and prefers it to be alone (as do I when I go out for a meal with DD, as I want to spend time focusing on her and her life for a couple of hours without the DCG being front and centre of attention, which happens with DC) and they plan to have one meal alone on holiday. Yet, look at the language used...he 'takes' her sight seeing rather than they simply 'go' she expects to be 'wined and dined', its date language. And then comparing it to how often OP is 'taken' for a meal, as though the two women are rivals. If OPs H was close to his dad it wouldn't be described as him wining and dining him and taking him sight seeing would it? It would just be 'he goes out with his dad'.

The op has already said when her family went on holiday with them they did things together not apart. They spent quality time together on holiday as a family.

The problem is he is an only child he doesn't really understand the concept of sharing and neither does his mother. I have 4 children myself we do everything together as a family even if relatives is with us we all do it together. I would expect teenagers to want to go out alone and explore with their siblings or eat out. The ops mil comes across as very entitled at the ops expense. I think the whole thing stinks.

The op was left alone at a wedding while he spent time with his mum she obviously has form. The ops husbands father is not in his life this is about his mother. Okay, let's flip it the ops husband while on holiday spends most of the time with his dad in the pub watching sports while she entertained the kids. It doesn't matter which scenario you put on it no one should be left on their own on holiday. That's what the op doesn't want to happen and she is in her right mind to feel that way.

For the record, my dh is close to his mum, regularly takes the kids over or goes for coffee with her. We are in the young child years so he doesn’t do dinner dates but I can see that happening when the dc are older. But right now I work hard at work and at home and get very little time out and holidays are only so much downtime in the best case scenario with sorting the kids all day long, so I won’t be spending them also solo parenting in the evening so dh can take his mum out.

She wants to be “wined and dined” by him. Weekly. That’s weird.

Of course it is when you use that language. I like to go out and have a meal with my mum/dad/son/daughter once a week doesn't sound anywhere near as weird, does it? Which is precisely my point.

The op has no issues with him spending time with his mum in general. The idea of it continuing on holiday is what is upsetting for the op. She probably feels like the 3rd wheel in the group.

Fundamentally, it sounds like OP had this issue since the beginning of the relationship. The circumstance is, she married her husband who's a single child to a single mother. The MIL had devoted her whole life to raising her son without finding another partner. They have a bond that is different to parents with multiple kids or with both parents, especially if MIL struggled financially raising the DH alone and maybe that left her without much savings nearing retirement. If that was the mother-son relationship from the beginning it is very difficult to change and the DH is who he is today because of the way he was raised.

There's a lot of posters here calling a close "mother and son" relationship "ick". I think having a close relationship with any gendered children a beautiful thing. To see children being financially able in their adulthood to take their parents out for a meal and check in on the parents to see if they need help with the odd jobs or errands. I had a colleague who was in his 60s unfortunately passed away from a heart attack at home and no one knew until his manager visited his house as part of employer wellbeing check. Assuming the MIL feels a bit more vulnerable being by herself when her only son moved further away with his family.

OP needs to have an honest conversation with her DH rather than getting upset with the MIL who in OP's words have been pleasant when they are together and loving grandparent. How much of this is MIL vs her husband. Or take the MIL out for a coffee and have the conversation to understand what MIL needs and help resolve underlying issues.

Oh yes you nailed it! My dear mama was always dying from when I was about 5 or 6 to manipulate and get her way. She died 60 years later!

This is in most families if mumsnet posters are a sample of the population.
The nasties seem to have latched on to this post for some reason.

You're ignoring all the context in the situation under discussion.

I'm sure a DH so regularly left out of dinner arrangements, that his children were also excluded from, and the dinner was paid for with family income, it might not go down that well. Especially as his MIL had been regularly financed out of family money, and was now demanding an all-expenses paid holiday, including a dinner a deux with his wife, again to the exclusion of the rest of the family!!

When you cut through all the guff here the bottom line is:

Neither the MIL or the OP really like each other, otherwise all three would be going out to dinner together - because they got on together. It wouldn't be an issue.

If you have an MIL and a DIL that don't get on, this is the result and it produces competitive DIL-ing trying to 'test' that the DH prioritises her over the MIL instead of just accepting I don't really like her, she doesn't really like me but we both love DH so we can both have a nice relationship with him separately with us being civil to each other when we are flung together by weddings, birthdays, Sunday lunch and so on.

The MILs attempt to retain a relationship with her son becomes a subject of attack and criticism. Why should she be forced to either not see him at all alone OR have to have dinner with the son and the DIL who dislikes her and she doesn't like her? That's just unreasonable.

There's no Oedipal enmeshment. It's the OP who is coming at it with all this language of wined and dined (which is dating language). The MIL is having dinner with her son a couple of times a month. It's really not this big issue.

That's bullshit.

NONE "of these responses suggest a close mother/son relationship is 'weird', unhealthy and that there is something wrong with a mother who wants to spend time with her son on her own".

MOST "of these responses suggest a close THAT THIS mother/son relationship is 'weird', unhealthy and that there is something wrong with a THIS mother who wants to spend HUGE CHUNKS OF time with her son on her own TO THE EXCLUSION OF THE REST OF HIS FAMILY, AND AT HIS/HIS FAMILY'S EXPENSE".

There, fixed it for you. I know about close mother/son and mother/daughter relationships as I've got each.

But that's inaccurate! She literally IS being "wined and dined" because the bloody woman never pays her way!! You are missing the point!

Anyone watched monster in law the ops mil reminds me of her. Worried about being lonely and knowing your only child has to have a life as well. The op has to set boundaries with her husband on this holiday. He can't demand that he takes his mother out alone while she sits in the hotel room waiting for their return. I've never heard of it.

The op supports her husband taking her out for meals at other times but she's not allowed to say no for a family holiday. I love how some posters twist up the ops words and make her look like she's in the wrong. When her husband demands that he has to take out his mother alone on a family holiday to keep his mother happy for a meal you wonder what happened to his balls?

It is if FAMILY MONEY is always paying for it!!!

Why does they have to go out for dinner anyway to spend time together? I presume the OP and the DGC also spend time with the MIL at other times?

It stinks of Oedipal enmeshment. Take the whole picture into account not only her leaching dinner off him every week or whatever! In the round, it is a huge issue!

They're hanging from his mother's ears!

No I'm not ignoring the context. I'm making a tangential point. That posters are going beyond the context and the facts to frame this as something unsavoury and inappropriate.
It would have been perfectly possible to criticise the MiL for expecting to be paid for without using language that implies she has an unhealthy view of her adult child.
It's all over the thread in the language used, wining and dining, fawning, weird, the 'ick', and now your 'dinner a deux'. Words chosen to paint a picture of a woman treating her son like a romantic partner.
However objectionable people may find their MiLs, it's extremely unlikely they have romantic designs on their own sons, yet its the go to put down. It's incredibly offensive.

OP's DH is taking his mother out for dinner at least once a week. He used to pay most of her living expenses. He no longer does that but has given her a lot of money that they can't really afford.

He definitely puts his mother before his wife and children. If it seems a big issue to OP, then it is a big issue. If she feels that he is too enmeshed with his mother, you are not in a position to confirm that this isn't true. You are just speculating like the rest of us.