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.

I'm going to say something you don't want to hear.

He should have texted her 'arrived safely, lovely hotel, really tired, going to sleep now, trip to see the xxx tomorrow'.

I would always do that for mum. She does that for us.

Everyone happy, nobody worried.

That will be you one day, when your kids are backpacking in Thailand and you're frantic because they haven't thought to check in.

leave it all on your DH and ignore what you see as her intrusion.

How "Exhausted" do you have to be (I am a regular long-haul traveller for work) to not be able to move your fingers to WhatsApp (or whatever) your own worrying mother that you have landed, it's the middle of the night and you'll write again after breakfast?

My parents don't even know if I am going on holiday, let alone the country, hotel or itinerary. As for ringing the hotel to check you have arrived. Lost for words. I would hate that level of interference. You are adults.

Same, I find it really weird. What is she going to do if your plane gets hijacked or crashes anyway? Turn into Captain America?

Maybe she's actually after your money and wants to know ASAP.

It's not that hard, my partner regularly falls asleep sitting up in front of his keyboard in the middle of work, let alone remembering to message someone as an optional thing.

It’s batshit behaviour to be ringing the hotel. I’d be so embarrassed.

A text to say you’ve arrived safely is perfectly acceptable. Nothing more. If DH has always done this then it would be in his best interests to make the effort to do so even if it’s the middle of the night and he’s exhausted. I wouldn’t be giving her the name of the hotel and telling her why! She needs to find a way of managing her anxiety without letting it impact others.

I always give our flight details and insurance details, in case we are in an accident and it is DC that need to contact insurance, etc

Oh god that's OTT. I think it is fine to know you have arrived safely and gotten home safely, but anything more I don't like. My dm took the liberty of ringing me while i was on holiday abroad to tell me she had caught a viral infection. You're on holiday to get away, I miss the days where mobile reception was poor and you could just say the signal is bad!

We have a family whatsapp group for family updates on life. We all just drop in a message with flight details and hotel name, "just in case", then occasional updates - arrived safe, a few photos, heading home, etc. We all do it, no one minds people knowing where they are. I like to know people care about me, and as I care about others too it's reassuring to know where in the world they are and that they are ok. This is completely normal for a lot of families.

So, when your kids are heading off on holiday in 10/15 years time you won't care if they arrive safely or what their plans are 🤔?

I'll assume they are having a lovely time unless they contact me to tell me the contrary 🤷🏼‍♀️

It reminds me of when my dm rang the maternity ward asking about me, when dh had already updated her recently. She then proceeded to ramble on about her own long labour, all of the intricate details to the over worked Midwife. MW came in and said when I was in the middle of labour,"Can you ring your Mum?" It was so embarrassing. Some people like to make everything about them.

I know exactly what you mean. When we visit my ILs and are driving, she always wants to know exactly when we are leaving. Then, if we don't arrive in her scheduled time slot, she calls. Several times. Repeatedly. Non stop. The same when we drive or fly somewhere else. She always wants to know exactly which flight or train we're taking, because then she can check live online whether they're on time. She will also keep informing us if they're not (like we don't have access to the same or even better information). She wants to know the hotels we're staying in "in case something happens". Because she's supposedly always so worried. But it's about control, I just wish my DH would finally realise that. It drives me crazy, I feel like I'm being stalked.

It's difficult if your MIL is so anxious that she calls the hotel. That worry is not going to disappear however you try to manage it.

My MIL is always worried about us driving 2 hours home on the motorway. SILs always call her or text to let MIL know they are safe home (they're in ther 50s!), it's a habit from their younger years that they have not given up.

MIL seems to have become more anxious as she gets older and now she asks us to do the same. Mostly that is fine, but sometimes dh forgets, or we go to the shops on our way home, or stop for a walk. Then MIL's anxiety gets even worse because if we haven't called she imagines the worst.

That is because you are being stalked. Family often feel they have the right to overstep, and disrespect boundaries because they're "family", even it you're not that close to begin with!

My son and stepkids are adults and they'll tell us they're going on holiday but none of us worries about holidays and travelling so they may post stuff on social media on their holidays and they may not. Often we catch up when we're back. We don't phone each other on holidays because we're busy doing stuff. Some people seem to think fussing over your adult children is a sign of how much you care, it isn't it's just fussing.

To be honest, I find it a bit odd that you find it intrusive (presuming she is not going to try to call the hotel to say hi every evening). Isn't it sensible to tell someone where you're going? I always give my mum and sister my travel details. Imagine if you're all in hospital from a car crash and no one from your family can find out because no one knows where you are....

Are people missing the part where MIL called the hotel and asked staff if they'd arrived?? Of course letting people know you've landed safely isn't a big deal, but clearly MIL's expectations vastly transcend this.

OP YANBU and I'd be telling her that calling hotel staff is hugely patronising and overstepping. You're adults, your DH can tell her that you've landed/arrived/whatever when he tells her, if he's grown up enough to have got married and had children and booked a holiday then he's probably grown up enough to get there in one piece.

pretty pathetic that they went on a long flight and he couldn't even prepare a message so he could hit send while they were waiting to disembark, or picking up luggage, or waiting for a taxi, or on the way to the hotel.

Presumably he didn't just leave all the parenting and getting them checked in and kids to bed all on her own....

Are people missing the part where MIL called the hotel and asked staff if they'd arrived?? Of course letting people know you've landed safely isn't a big deal, but clearly MIL's expectations vastly transcend this.

because he didn't tell her they'd arrived. Knowing how she is, he CBA to text his own mother that he landed ok. It's on the DH here. The MIL is clearly a worrier. So if you don't want her calling your hotel - "we've landed, going to sleep now" isn't beyond even the most exhausted son.

I tell my mum when we're going to be away and where we're going, but that's it. I don't text her to tell her we've arrived safely. If a plane carrying a load of British tourists had crashed, it's not like it wouldn't be in the news. It wouldn't occur to her to worry that something might have happened to us while we were travelling and it certainly wouldn't occur to me to text her to 'let her know we've arrived safely' when we go anywhere.

If the family dynamic is that they always text to confirm arrival etc, then I can understand her being scared when she didn't hear from your DH because that would be unusual behaviour from him. It seems unnecessary to me, but if that's their dynamic, then so be it.

As for the itinarary, I am not sure I could be bothered with providing that level of detail but it doesn't feel hugely intrusive to me either. It's not like she's stalking you or turning up as a surprise once the details have been provided. And if it's your Dh providing them, so what?

Of course, would be totally different if she was having meltdowns because you swapped plan or you didn't update her on where you were havin glunch or it was taking hours of DH's time to take her through everything or whatever.

There are some genuinely mental MILs out there.

Don't do anything you don't want to do and remind your husband he's married to you, not his mummy

If I go on holiday in this country, no I don't.

But if I go long haul I do let close family and the dog sitter knows our basic details - flight numbers and accommodation details. And when I travel separately to DH he has a copy of my insurance policy.

You never know what's round the corner.

Always give my parents flight info, hotel name/address and if we are moving around then itinerary of what we are doing when. They like looking up the places and hotels and are interested in our lives (in a healthy way).
I used to text (now what's app) to say boarding/ landed/ hotel ok and from time to time.
It works the other way too, when they travelled I used to check where they were each day and what they were going to be doing.
On the other hand, DH just about told his family we were going away and when we were due back.
I wouldn't demand you shared info, but I would be sad I was being excluded from your lives.

Nothing wrong with her knowing where you're staying. It's normal to DH so it isn't going to change.