MIL wants itinerary of our holidays

[Gul8]

I'd like to know if I'm being unreasonable to request to not share itinerary with MIL every time we go on holiday?

Me and my DH are in our late 30s/early 40s with 2 primary school age DC.
Last time we went on a long-haul holiday MIL called the hotel we were staying at in a stress to make sure we arrived OK (hotel staff told us at breakfast). We were jetlagged and arrived in the middle of the night and DH was probably exhausted from a long flight with little kids and was going to text her a few hours later at breakfast.

I feel its quite intrusive that my DH shares a full itinerary of where we are at our holidays.

My family don't expect me to even tell them we've arrived OK on a foreign holiday let alone give them an itinerary of our hotel stays. My family are caring but I think they realize we are adults with our own families and at some point in adulthood you stop informing your parents of your holiday whereabouts?

I realize this is due to MIL concerns for our welfare and her anxieties probably but AIBU to want to try to put an end to this and tell her she needs to find a different way to manage her anxiety around her son and grandchildrens/my children's whereabouts?

I've already told her it makes me uncomfortable when she asked for details of a holiday in front me a while after that long-haul holiday, she responded that DH has always done it (I didn't know!) and she just wants to make sure her son and grandchildren are safe.

There is a degree of narcissism in wanting contact when someone goes on holiday and demanding details. It's wanting to be included in the holiday and wanting to be contacted the moment someone lands and not feel forgotten about. I'm not convinced people who want notified about the arrival of a flight or long drive really think all planes are highly likely to crash. There is a "but what about me and my important feelings" element to it and a lack of getting on with their own life.

I would possibly suggest to her that you'll send her a text message from the airport/departure lounge when you're about to leave and that you'll send her another message from the airport/arrival destination when you get there.
That's it.
You'll repeat the exercise on the return leg of the journey and anything in the middle is a bonus but not to be expected.

Your DH though is mad to be giving her an itinerary of your holiday as you can't switch off if there is someone keeping tabs on you.

I'm 47, and have lived in 5 different countries, including 2 on the other side of the world. My mother had not one idea of what I was up to, as a letter took 5-7 days from Sydney in those days! She would still like to know where I am, as in "We're going to Italy for 2 weeks in June, flying Easyjet, and staying in Rome, Venice & Florence." I always text to say we've arrived safely, and send a few pics whilst we're away. The family WhatsApp group usually gets the updates.

However, when I drove alone to the other end of the country (Fife - Reading), a couple of months ago, she called a couple of times, and was concerned I didn't arrive until about 22:30 due to a motorway closure. I'm a very safe driver, in a newish, reliable car. Think she just worried about what could happen.

We give flight and accommodation details, then text when we arrive and when we get back.

If you read all the OP's posts, the MIL has other anxieties so this appears to be just one example. Just because resources are stretched doesn't mean that she can't get any help at all. It took four months from screening to starting my NHS talking therapies. If someone has a lifetime of anxiety, that really isn't a long wait.

"One quick check, they have checked in - instant relief, life goes on" @SteamingHotTea the thing with anxiety is that in that case, you are teaching the brain that in order to feel relief, someone else has to do something for you. Something that usually is a loving courtesy then becomes a burden on them. And you will often find that that is not enough, you need more and more external reassurance which places more obligations on others to placate you. This is not reasonable and a sustainable way of dealing with anxiety.

A lot of my anxiety stems from intolerance of uncertainty, and my reaction to uncertainty is to try and control and plan to the ultimate degree. Eg, when DH travels for business he usually sent a short text at the start and end of the day, sometimes during the day. It's not something I've asked him to do, but something he does anyway because he loves me and likes hearing from me too. Occasionally he doesn't text, and previously that has sent me into a complete paralysing anxious mess. Even though the rational part of my brain is saying - oh he's probably gone out for a meal with colleagues or had a busy day working late or fallen asleep as jetlag catches up with him. Now I can recognise where the anxiety is coming from and try and step out of it by saying - this has happened before, if something bad had happened I would have heard from his colleagues by now, there will be a completely innocuous reason for this. I have to ride it out and teach my brain that it just has to suck up the uncertainty. It's bloody hard but I've got it down now to a niggling uncomfortable feeling, and if I work at it I can distract myself by keeping busy. What I've never done is ring his hotel to get them to check on him.

Exactly this. All this constant checking, "are you safe?" stuff just reinforces people's unnecessary anxiety. A miniscule number of people fail to arrive on holiday safely (presumably they're not going to a warzone). So the default mode should be "always assume everyone is fine". In the unlikely event of things not being OK, you'll find out soon enough. Much better not to feed the paranoia.

It seems to be very popular these days for people to use their anxiety as a means of controlling people.

Whatever happened to "no news is good news?"

But clearly the DH usually does send a message, and sends his mum the full itinerary of trips, so I don't think this is about the bar being low? He failed to send one message, one time. Regardless of gender he's human, it happens. The MIL calling the hotel is a huge over-reaction.

I agree the bar is low for men in general but I don't think that's what's happening here- clearly the DH usually panders to his mum's anxieties which is part of the reason she is like she is!

Wanting to know arrived safe is perfectly common. Knowing vague information such as name of hotel is also useful. We've seen it in the news this past summer. People go missing, accidents happen. Someone, anyone, knowing what hotel you're at helps in an emergency situation. Whether it be your emergency or trying to reach you in an emergency.

A family member has an emergency and you're not answering phone? They can call hotel if really urgent.

You go out as a family onto an excursion in a rented car and breaks down no signal? If no one knows where you are or what plans were how can the rescue teams know where to look? If you're not contacting anyone how long will you be stranded before anyone comes looking?

Someone having that sort of info in case of emergency isn't a problem itself. It's the anxiety and inappropriate use.

We always share the itinerary of our RV trips with our sons and keep them updated as to what's going on, especially since we're gone 6-12 weeks at a time and we often decide to switch things up. We sent pictures to them, too. Our oldest son travels a LOT for work and pleasure and he keeps me updated on his flights via an app and usually lets me know where he's staying. We also share 'find my' because why not? It's fun to see what each other is doing. What's the big deal?

No, I'd never call his hotel looking for him. No I never text and say "I see you're at XX place". No, I'd never call him to check up on him. It's just a 'silent' thing and no big deal, for any of us.

Every family is different. If I texted my parents to say I’d arrived safely, they’d probably say ‘what are you telling us that?’. Therefore, I find texting like that unnecessary and irritating.

Other families speak every day and text updates when something unusual like a holiday is happening. And I’d imagine they’d find my lack of updates very irritating.

Neither is wrong, just different. I’d just leave your husband to deal with her and try to not get annoyed. Maybe ask him not to tell you about it.

We are also in our forties send details of our hotel and flight times and number to my in laws and I used to send to my parents as well before they died.

It stems from a time when we didn’t have mobiles and so may not be easy to contact when abroad. I don’t consider it intrusive although I wouldn’t expect them to use them except in an emergency.

Both sides of our family have experienced times when we have needed to urgently reach someone on holiday about sick/dying relatives so it is important to us. Even now roaming may not work fully or you may have it switched off to save money/battery or whatever.

Plus, if, god forbid, we were ever involved in a plane crash, tsunami, earthquake etc they would know where we were meant to be and could quite quickly rule out our being effected or not by knowing our more precise location/flight, which is not so easy if all you know is the country in which someone is in.

I think you are overthinking this. Being pleased to know someone has arrived safely is not narcissism.

Hmm. I can only hope people on here never come up against a real narcissist. Believe me, wanting to know what your family has arrived safely after a journey is not narcissism. If you have to pathologise it is possibly a sign of mild anxiety. But for most of us-it's just love.

But there's a big difference between wanting to know they're safe, and actually ringing a hotel because your fully grown, adult son forgot to text you when he landed in the middle of the night

Let's be realistic - we live in an era of 24/7 news - she knows the plane hasn't crashed or that a coach load of British tourists hasn't been killed or taken hostage, she just can't handle the fact that she wasn't the first thing on her son's mind when he landed.

There is a difference between the OP’s MIL overreacting by calling a hotel and A N Other wanting to know their family has arrived safely though. One may be narcissism, we don’t know. The other isn’t.

I never said anything about narcicissm

I just don't believe an adult who is old enough to have grandchildren needs to go around ringing foreign hotels to confirm their adult, married child is "safe".

I would always prefer to be told someone has arrived safely, but if they didn't tell me (or forgot to), I wouldn't make it all about me by getting into a panic and demanding their attention to "reassure" myself.

I would hate this too OP. I don't have a MIL, but my FIL (from a different culture) can be fairly overbearing at times. When I first met DH I really struggled with it and used to get frustrated because my own parents are not like that at all - we're very close, but not in each others pockets and they have treated me as an adult from the moment I left home. It took me a while to realise that he wasn't trying to interfere or control us, just has a lot of anxiety around his kids (for good reasons that I can't go into here) and was raised in a culture where it's pretty normal to be overly involved in your adult children's lives and still treat them like dependants. We butted heads a few times until we got used to each other. He has toned it down a lot now and I've learned not to get annoyed with him and we seem to have build a mutual respect.

@Gul8 , I can see how intrusive this might feel but as you’ve said your MIL is quite an anxious person. It sounds like she’s used to your husband keeping her in the loop. Is it really worth making a big deal of this? I think I’d roll my eyes and have a laugh about it but only you know if you can do that.

Sorry, I assumed you were, as you were replying to a post about narcissism and said the MIL couldn’t handle not being the first thing her son thought of when he landed. Anyway, I agree with you, calling the hotel is OTT and would have annoyed me as an adult child of someone with anxiety. But (another person) being keen to know someone has landed or arrived safely doesn’t seem that terrible to me. It’s quite nice.

Normal to let family know you've arrived safely, especially nowadays with instant messaging. Even more-so if you know she’s a worrier.

OP - I would find that annoying and intrusive as well as to me the underlying assumption is that on your holiday you should be prioritising keeping her in the loop and doing things to make her feel good, not trying to find a few moments to relax. It’s not really about her concern for your DH and kids - she could have that concern and manage it by sending him a nice WhatsApp going “hope you’re enjoying your holiday” and waiting for a reply - it’s about her feeling entitled to intrude into your lives based on her schedule and needs, not yours.

Sadly, we did have a family emergency once and had to contact the hotel because we couldn't reach our relative via their mobile. Knowing which hotel they were in saved so much stress. I know this is rare, but they went on holiday never thinking they'd need to be contacted urgently and need to fly home. Since then, I always let family know our travel dates and the name of the hotel.

Now your DH knows his DM will call, he just needs to text her when you land. It takes 20 seconds. Wouldn't you rather that than have her sitting and worrying all night and potentially ringing the hotel?

In the absence of news to the contrary

This is the philosophy in my family and DH's luckily, if something did happen someone would inform them.
My PIL go on holiday the most and we usually know the country but never the actual resort let alone the hotel. surely nowadays with mobile.phones if there is an emergency them you can call their phone.
Although the PP earlier who goes travelling around Asia with multiple stops/flights it makes sense to share where you are going but a week in MAjorca less so

Exactly what we do. Hopefully there will never be any problems, but if anything did go wrong at home or away it’s useful to know where people are. Just look at what happened in Spain recently!