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 think that a quick text, saying you'd arrived at your destination and were settled in would be sufficient, also a text when you arrive back home.

Maybe a family photo sent, just to let her know you're thinking of her ( esp as she's anxious) but no more.

I think MIL is demanding too much and shouldn't be accommodated in that respect while you're off on your holidays.

Have your sister and her DH agreed to stop having holidays? That's ridiculous!

BTW my MIL used to do this to DH when he went abroad for work - 'oh, I worry so much about you, anything could happen, I heard it's dangerous there...' (like, Toronto 🙄). He said 'Gee thanks, I still have to go and now you're making it worrying for me and upsetting for Compash...'. (it didn't, but just to make a point).

If she'd genuinely cared, that would have stopped her - the fact she didn't stop showed that it was an indulgence or affectation to gratify herself, not based in real concern for him.

So he stopped telling her he was going.

You know where they are though, whether it Greece or Spain, or wherever? Presumably the region they're staying in too. Eg, Kos, or Barcelona. Why would you need to know their everyday holiday itinerary?

Lol NO. Completely ridiculous on her part.

Texting to say your plane has landed safely and you're at your hotel is just ridiculous. Honestly, they can switch on the news, if a plane crashes it will be the top headline, won't it?

There is a massive difference between asking a young adult backpacking alone around Asia to leave an itinerary and check in regularly, and asking a 40yo on a flight-and-hotel holiday to do the same. For the latter, it isn't necessary for their safety, and if anything awful happens, someone will get in touch soon enough.

The habit of sending "we've arrived safely" texts just fuels anxiety if you forget. No news is good news.

I wouldn't expect my parents to ask for a full itinerary but I do let them know when we have arrived and just send pics of our day and what we get up to. To be fair I think it just depends on everyone's family dynamics but to want a breakdown of your full holiday before hand is a tad strange.

Only normal if you are travelling alone to a dangerous location or very young. I don't think i've done an arrived safely message to a parent since I was 16. And I'm an only child so supposedly coddled.

Even when we flew to Tajikistan after some terrorist stuff had happened I don't think we messaged until we had something interesting to say.

I would say plans weren't finalised when she asked for details.. If dh wants to placate her with a text so be it but how embarrassing to call a hotel!

If my DH wanted to do this for his DM then I’d just let him do it and not get involved.

I didn’t say it did?

in fact if the MIL has a history of this kind of thing, I’d leave the emergency details with another family member and tell MIL that that person has them if needed. But in this day and age of mobile phones, it’s rarely needed because now you can contact people directly wherever they are.

funny reading other people’s stories, when I was a kid the first thing we’d have to do on holiday (even in the U.K.) would be to find a phone box so DM could call her DM to let her know we were ok. It was obviously A Thing.

Same here. That’s a reasonable compromise. But if DH wants to message her every day quickly I can’t see it’s a huge issue? The problem would be if she wanted the itinerary in advance and you thought she’d turn up!!

They may sneak off for a few days here and there, but they get hell if it comes out... If they do go abroad, MIL stages a 'medical emergency' - she knows just the tricks to get herself admitted to hospital for checks - and they get stressed about it before they've even left.

They also try to take her on little trips with them as an 'atonement', thinking she'll go easier on them and 'allow' them to go, but of course, she doesn't, it's never enough... It's the FOG... Her DH has always wanted Mummy to love him more, and convinced DS to move closer to MIL as she aged, so of course she's just a resource for him to pander to her... 🤦‍♀️

We all share hotel details and flight numbers 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don’t see an issue. But then we all have each other on FMF too.

I do think it’s rude not to send a we’ve arrived text

I can't imagine giving either my mum.or my MIL the details of where we're staying or texting Mum to let her know we've arrived safely.

My mum has just come back from a 6 week trip to Australia, she did text me from the coach station at Heathrow to let me know she'd arrived but I think that was because she was slightly bored waiting for the coach. To be honest she'd never told me the exact date she was coming home so I wasn't waiting for her to contact me.

I'm in my 50s and my mum is in her 80s, and we've managed to holiday for decades without keeping each other updated.

🤣 I'm already a MIL and my halo is super shiny.

My lovely DS & DIL let me know when they've arrived safely when travelling. And, shock horror, I get the occasional scenic photo. How very un-Mumsnetty 🙄.

I wouldn't like this, can't see why her knowing where you are on holidays helps with safety.
I'd give a general info like we going to Barcelona or Germany but not down to area or hotel.
Any time we see MIL she seems to know everything her other son is up to that day/weekend does comment that we are not at all as good with communication so does not suprise me that there are families who are like this.
I'd text my parents every day or so generally send a message when on holidays, not as frequent but more so because I have a nice photo to send rather than they worried about me.

calling the hotel to enquire whether a guest has arrived is completely stepping over boundaries and is not normal behaviour.

Id suggest your MIL has some therapy

also did the hotel inform your MIL you had arrived? that is a security issue and anyone working a hotel reception will be aware of not giving out guest information for reasons of safety

Of course other it's her business she's married to him and it's her family's holiday.
It's madness MIL rang the hotel I'm not surprised she was embarrassed. I'd have laughed and told DH his mum is crazy.

I ask for a text from ds1 (28) to let me know he's arrived safely.

I don't want to know the full itinerary of an ordinary holiday, but I would ask for a rough one if he was intending to move through several countries, or do something like mountain climbing.

It was ingrained in me as a child, because two of my brothers were mountain climbers (and giving an itinerary actually saved the life of one of them) and another one was in a serious accident while away.

It's really not a massive deal to send a quick text.

Fucking hell, I'm a capable organised woman but when I'm on holiday messaging people at home is the last thing on my mind. I'd absolutely see a scenario in which I go to sleep and think I'll message in the morning.

fucking hell right backatcha. The DH grew up with this MIL. He KNOWS she is anxious. So instead of taking 20 seconds to message he ignores her. Then his wife gets all antsy at the MIL? fuck that shit
he KNOWS his mother will worry, he can send a short message, surely? The bar is so fucking low for men/sons.

I always text my Mum when I land on holiday. Everyday she would message and ask what we were up to that day. I would say ‘off to the waterpark today, having a great time. Emily doing well with the swimming’. Next day ‘Hey Mum, hope all ok, hope Dad’s doctors appointment goes well, today we are going to the old town for some lunch then got a boat trip booked. I like to keep in touch on holiday, just peace of mind.

I don’t do it with my in-laws as they pay no interest. But I know I’d take ‘interested and involved’ than ‘distant and indifferent’.

It’s nice that she’s bothered.

Just let her track DH on her phone, and you don't need to bother updating her on your whereabouts!

What I can't understand is why people would be deliberately unkind. I don't know anyone in the real world who would refuse to take 30 seconds to reassure an anxious person. It's so depressing.

At 94 (and some of the other she's mentioned on this thread) it's likely that she is worried about her own health and what could happen while you're away.

I'd cut some slack with particularly elderly parents, who probably don't use smartphones, who grew up with providing contact details, and who are dealing the with their frailties and thoughts of the inevitable.

Its completely up to your H whether he shares it or not, surely? Unless she keeps turning up round corners yelling surprise!! It has no impact on you, so try to deliberately prevent it just because you think its daft when he's ok with it, seems unnecessarily controlling of you. I used to tell my mum every detail of what we'd be up to on holiday. She liked to look up the places. Perfectly harmless, and id have been annoyed if my husband had tried to tell me I couldn't do it.