Stormed out of family gathering am I the holiday wrecker

[stormedoutaibu]

DH and I are early 30s, DD is 2, on a family mini break away (staying in separate accommodation to in-laws who are DH parents sister along with naughty dog and aunties)
sister very anxious about dog and DD mixing (bit aggressive and unruly large frenchie about staffie sized so DH and I have to police very carefully) and has cried a few times about it today.
FIL rolled his eyes at me earlier for insisting my DH goes to grab DD beach shoes (I didn’t go as I’m 30’weeks pregnant in a heatwave)
MIL and FIL keep bickering

went to enjoy takeaway a their Airbnb. And my DD was sent away to dance in the lounge several rooms from where the adults were sat ‘to give the dog some peace’ and to ‘go and do it in the lounge cos of the dog’
i thought about it for 5 minutes or so and then left with my daughter as this offended me but I didn’t tell DH where I had gone but told MIL I was at a park within line of sight of the air bnb
they and my husband is acting like I’ve ruined everyone’s holiday and been the 4th reason that FIL has ever cried
all honesty I’ve had enough of the whole thing them bickering and the dog being priority over my toddler

Was this a regular thing throughout the holiday OP? As if it was then I think YANBU. But if most of the holiday the dog has had to go elsewhere so your toddler can be there, or has been bothered by your toddler, I don’t see anything wrong in asking her to go dance in another room and leave it in peace for a bit. To be honest I’m with those who think dancing to Peppa Pig would be annoying too, even if you think it’s super cute. I also don’t think you should have stormed off without letting DH know.

OP dont apologise anymore take a firmer stance if he starts on you again

I've said I'm sorry for making OUR daughter a priority I won't be apologising again

They sound annoying especially your FIL crying just so dramatic. If I was going away with them again I’d get separate accommodation and meet up with them. I couldn’t be bothered with this setup.

I think if you had not mentioned pepper pig this thread might have gone differently

Honestly, there is nothing ‘cute’ about a small child dancing to Peppa Pig on repeat whilst the adults are trying to eat their take away.

no amount of apology has made my husband come around to me at all sadly he is really annoyed and upset with me as he is blaming me for the shock of seeing his father cry which he has only ever seen when grandparents died etc etc

It's OK for your FIL to cry every once in a while; a good cry probably made him feel better!! Your husband can handle the fact that his dad isn't invincible.

It sounds like the whole thing could have been avoided either by your waiting 'til the whole group was there and explaining why you were taking your daughter out for a little bit, or for your MIL to pass that message along as you probably expected/asked her to do. So there was a short period of time when no one was sure why you left, but now it's all resolved and no harm done.

Your husband is probably stressed and needs to release his frustrations, but be careful that he doesn't make a habit of releasing them on you. If he's still bellyaching and sulking after you've explained how things unfolded AND apologised for the miscommunication, it's up to you how long you let that go on for. But be mindful he doesn't cross the line into emotional abuse, e.g. punishing you for doing anything he disagrees with and making the "consequences" so unpleasant that you're afraid to do anything in case it sets him off.

Group holidays with extended family can be fraught enough without adding a lively toddler and a badly trained dog into the mix.

Draw a line under it, and never go on holiday with them again.

So in summary your DH family are all a bunch of fucking idiots.

I think you went off in a huff after delivering that passive aggressive remark but aren’t prepared to admit that bit.

Yep. It seems highly unlikely that you pleasantly telling MIL that you're just going to take DD to the park for a few minutes, would have had everyone, including the aunties who weren't super involved, stressed and upset.

I think it's more likely that you had a strop and went off in a huff, so everyone was worried. Then DH came back to find everyone concerned/upset because you'd flounced off

Tbh not exactly sure what is happening here- child fell over, Fil cried then you left and he cried again and then everyone cried or argued? What is going on with this family?

If they want to relax , they shouldn’t go on holiday with a two year old.

You know the only thing worse than a holiday with extended family and your small child? A holiday with extended family and your small child where they make it clear they only wanted grandchild there for the photo opportunity and then want grandchild to be seen and not heard the rest of the time.

It’s hard enough going on holiday with your toddler, even harder when you’re expected to cage said toddler and pretend they’re not a toddler just so the other family can relax. It is selfish and inconsiderate behaviour on their part to want a holiday with grandchild but make life harder for the parents who live with the grandchild full time.

OP, your H and in-laws need to get a fucking grip! I’m 100% Team Mum&Toddler. Your H needs concrete to reinforce his backbone

Good luck 💐

Crying over anything like that is ridiculous and gives an indication of the family being emotionally unstable. My SIL never married or had kids, she is obnoxious and very over emotional. Her own Mother admitted this and DH sisters behaviour has been the one issue in our marriage.

DH was weak willed and that is what almost caused us to break up. She did some awful things. I have realised he is genuinely scared of her though as he was of his Father. Since she was banned temporarily from our house by me she has behaved. We see her rarely anyway.

Forget the in laws it’s your DH you need to work on, he is your team.

You’ve initially described this as ‘telling MIL where you were going’.

If you’d done it in the way of:

1. actually telling her where you were going (not just that you were leaving).
2. asked her to pass on the message to your husband.
3. conveyed that with some context that didn’t sound like a flounce

Then you’d have been reasonable.

Expecting a group of adults having dinner to actively want a toddler dancing in the middle of them is unreasonable.

Disappearing with a small child without telling anyone where you’re going is unreasonable. Taking a small child away from a group without telling their other parent is unreasonable. There will have alsmost certainly been a brief gap when he knew she wasn’t there but didn’t know had gone with you. Pause and consider that fear.

Yes. The run up wasn’t idea. But that doesn’t mean you handled it well.

I agree with a previous PP, the counting of the FIL crying episodes is so dramatic and strange. Does he keep note of all the times he has cried? Did he not cry as a child? Very odd!! Don’t let him manipulate you with that!

OP, your story doesn’t make sense. “which would have been other side of the courtyard so a good 3-4 metres away from said dog”. This is very different to your original “DD was sent away to dance in the lounge several rooms from where the adults were sat”.

You've declined holidays with them before, presumably for good reason. You gave it a chance. It didn't work out.

I badly want my husbands forgiveness/understanding and way he has reacted as if I’m the bad person here and I genuinely don’t think it’s me that’s the problem

You can't want his forgiveness and simultaneously don't think it's you that's the problem. It's not any one person at fault, it's the dynamic and lots of different factors.

Personally I wouldn't be socialising with a toddler and a dog that the owners didn't want a toddler to go near. It wouldn't be happening. It doesn't matter that she's 30 with no children, I love dogs. I have a trusted dogsitter because my dog is not a baby and there are certain situations where it's best for all that they're not present.

Take a breather, get home, sleep in your own bed, chalk it up to experience, and try to bury the hatchet. Hopefully they will all sober up and do the same. Think about what the goal is, which is presumably not being "right" but fostering calmer family relations going forward (although they sound like a highly strung nightmare tbh, so you need to decide what that is going to look like for you) and how you're going to get there. Long view. Shake it off.

I understood this to mean that there was space for her to dance in the courtyard but instead they sent her to the lounge

Perhaps they all needed a break really and didn’t want to listen to Peppa Pig music but it was easier to blame it on the dog.

We always blame the dogs when we want to slope off back to our own accommodation, when really we need a break from our nieces as much as they do!

Or they are just not wanting to exclude OP, rather than actively wanting the child there? I'd feel I had to invite everyone in the family and not leave one family out. I'd just shrug and think we'd invite them and not mind if they decided not to come. At least they'd been asked then.

It's not fun going on holiday with a toddler with family who might have different expectations of the holiday. It wouldn't bother me though as it's not my toddler and I can do my own thing.

Incidentally, the title of this thread is Stormed out of family gathering.... Yet now it's being painted as calmly telling MIL she was going to the park.

If she stormed out then if course the rest of the family were stressed and upset. That's not unreasonable at all, but it's DH's frustration with her.

They sound like a ridiculous bunch of drama queens who hugely overreacted (partly due to being drunk). Your husband needs to grow up and make some attempt to manage his family when you are all together.

Because as per OPs own words she took offence to the suggestion that her toddler should go with her granddad to a different room and dance, she made a passive aggressive remark to her MIL and then she stormed off.

She didn’t just go, oh I can see you have some energy to burn off, let me take you to the park for a bit so the adults can finish their meal in peace. That would have been a reasonable response.

Even if you had walked out without telling anyone….I still don’t understand the tears and hysterics over this?

Completely this. I can’t believe the number of posts twisting this into OPs fault.

potentially she’s the only sober one in the room, hot, pregnant and uncomfortable with the overall responsibility of keeping her child on track with her routine (food/milk/sleep which often goes to pot on holiday) cool, safe and sufficiently agreeable that the in laws want to spend time with her, but not too toddlery because the dog is reactive and peppa pig is annoying.I don’t see how OP can win here, or get any kind of break herself. I think going to the park was sensible and telling one person in the group was sufficient.

I think going home is sensible, I think they have made a non event into a drama and I suspect alcohol is probably at the root of the over-reaction.

I hope you can sort things out with DH as the first step because it’s not nice being made into the villain and not having any support from him. I would decline going away with them again.