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.

Don’t get involved. Delegate this task to your dh. He can send his mum WhatsApp messages if he so wishes.

Argh I have splinters. This is hilarious as you could be me; exactly the same set up and feelings of intrusion, initially.

MIL has died now but I realised she was just very family-centric and very nervous about people being safe & well, so I'd just let her know, as I knew it came from a place of kindness.

My family and I are far more 'we'd have heard if there'd been a plane crash' about foreign travel. I really don't like the feeling I have to check in on holiday though - it's supposed to be a break. My DH is programmed to text the moment we've landed/ arrived/ stopped for a break.

I think the itinerary is a great idea. Bad things happen to travelers and if mil has the itinerary, people know where to look for you. Why is that a problem for you?

I don't expect my 35yr old son or my 33yr old son (and my daughter-in-law, with my 2 grandchildren), to give me an itinerary of their holidays. I don't even expect them to tell me they got there safely, because I know if anything happens they will tell me ASAP!

It has never been the norm in my family to speak to family members (who we love, of course!) every day. Nor in my husband's. We aren't in touch with our 21 and 23 year olds every day either - I would start to think maybe we could call them if a week or so has gone by.

This is the way both me and DH were brought up - we love our families but don't live in each others pockets.

Bothers you, not so much your husband so compromise would be to let your DH deal with DMIL's travel anxieties.

Her side would be that DH and possible siblings always did it, you come along and want to put an end to it even though she's not asking you to call or message.

There's a halfway point.
You trying to stop DH doing it is controlling too.

I would send her a very detailed itinerary
8pm, doing shots, god knows where the kids are
9pm, bought some drugs of a man on a street corner

10am, God we're hungover, still no idea where the kids are
11am. kids have turned up! sent them to the shops for sweets whilst we have sex!

Tell her to follow your flight on flightradar and to stop harassing you 😂

vMissScarletInTheBallroom · 04/11/2024 10:44

I can see both sides. Just because our kids are grown up it doesn't mean we don't worry about them.
Your DH should tell her she doesn't need a full itinerary and to please not call the hotel, but in return he will always text to say you've arrived safely.

This, my family ALWAYS let me know theyve arrived safely, otherwise id worry.

I love watching planes on flight radar!
When I commented to my DH how crowded the air space is he pointed out that the planes aren’t to scale……..😆

I'm mid 40s and we give my parents, full itinerary, flight seat numbers and everything, I message them every day and we all travel loads so is just our way of keeping in touch, they don't expect it though as if they don't hear from us they'd just assume we're busy and same from them so there's no pressure just a thing we do but if it bothered my husband so much I'd maybe have a word to tell my parents to try not to worry if they don't hear from us straight away or at least give us 24hours for a message, if the parent is on their own and a worrier then maybe it's just what they do, be more sad if they didnt care so much as it doesn't sound like them being controlling sounds more just like their personality but if it bothers you maybe your hubby could be in charge of the messaging.

One of the things I love about my dp is that he loves and cares about and is kind to his mother and his sisters. The mumsnet obsession with detaching men from their family of origin is deeply, deeply weird- particularly as we also expect them to be emotionally open and intelligent and to model good relationships to our children.

Incidentally- if anyone doesn't read the whole thread, the MIL does not want a "full itinerary". She wants a text.

Exactly.

And for those saying it needs to be his job, apparently it has been for many years and OP didn't even know about it. He's been texting his mum on safe arrival for years, with so little impact that OP didn't even know. She only found out because he forgot this time, and MIL reacted excessively.

This is sheer exaggeration & not what was expected.The itinerary is sharing details of flights & accommodation plus a quick text to say all is well & we have arrived.I will call at some point on our return.

All perfectly acceptable & indeed normal in case of emergencies on either side. I'd give the world to still have my parents around to send a quick message to when we arrive at the airport or a call which they were delightd with but didn't expect.Sadly I don't have that privilege now but I'm happy & grateful for the memories.

I always give my parents details of where we'll be staying, in case of emergency. They've never used them.

What your DH chooses to tell his mum about the holiday is probably best left between him and her. I mean, unless it’s disruptive to the holiday in the sense that he’s FaceTiming her during meals or activities, you’re late for excursions because he just has to message his mum first or it’s otherwise intruding on the holiday, I’d leave him to it. It’s not something I do with my family but surely a message to say you’ve arrived and maybe some updates/photos during the holiday to let her know you are safe and what you’re up to is OK? Full itinerary probably unnecessary.

Say; thank you for caring about us. We will pass on any information we feel is relevant in the future. Then if she carry’s on say; we aren’t discussing this further.

Boundary formed.

My adult children are the same, they always send photos of what they’re up to on their holidays, they also send ( in a family group ) their flight details so we can track it, they always let us know when they get to the airport/board plane/ land the other end/ arrive at hotel 🤣 I don’t mind I enjoy the fact they’re enjoying themselves. They are the Sam when we go away, asking for flight details, ( grand children like to track flights too! )
we keep them updated whilst travelling, not so much contact when we’re there as they know we’re out doing things and then in the evenings they’ll ask us what we’ve done during the day.
We don’t go as far as contact the hotels though 🤣 that’s a step too far.

@Pherian "Boundary formed."

Because nothing needs a boundary more than a 30 second text.....

I don’t think you can understand how it feels to be controlled by someone else’s anxiety until you’ve experienced it. It’s suffocating.

Absolutely this.

It’s not just a text though - over reaction by the mil must have been infuriating. If she hadn’t done that, it wouldn’t be such an issue.

If you love your family you let them know you've arrived safely. It takes about 3 seconds!

Not really - wouldn’t cross my mind to tell people and they wouldn’t expect it either (thankfully).

My mother was a whole other story, they’d often be an emergency if she knew I was doing anything ..

My MIL is the same, she means well but the overstressing actually just stresses US out! When we had our first child she was a nightmare, she'd be calling multiple times a day, if baby had so much as a sniffle she went into overdrive it was as if she didn't trust us to look after our own child. After a while when it really got too much (she wanted to know every detail about everything we did, every detail about our daughter) I started to step back. I did this slowly and gently, whereas before I would answer her texts or calls instantly I started leaving responses for an hour then that went to a couple of hours then to maybe 5 hours etc it took ages but she finally realised I wasn't just there to answer her instantly (which would always encourage lots more texts after) and now years later its so much better. It was a subtle not blunt way of doing it!