AIBU to ask my mum to cancel her holiday hotel booking?

[MammaBear4000]

Booked a weeks holiday with my 7yo son (I have more AL than husband). We've got a week away at the start of the summer holidays I was looking forward to.

Sent a message to the family group chat saying 'first solo holiday with [my son] 🥳' thinking nothing of it. Mum asked where I was going so sent her a link to the hotel.

She's now booked the same holiday (solo room). Sent me a message saying was it ok (i'm working and can't respond straight away...but I would have said it's my first mum and son solo holiday and was looking forward to it). Before I had the chance to reply she booked it.

She fucking booked it within 4 mins of sending the original message.

Now here's were the AIBU part comes in. I want to ask her to cancel (she will lose money on this). Last year she joined a week away with me and my son and completely ruined the holiday. I don't want that to happen again and I can't bear the idea of no buffer and her being with us for a week in the same hotel. We have separate rooms but she won't leave us alone I know that.

What made it so awful?

Why on earth did you announce it and then send her the link, knowing what your holiday was like last year?!

I would tell her straight, but honestly, stop telling people stuff if you don’t want them to join you! Be vague, tell them later etc etc

your mum has got some brass neck hasn’t she! But yeah I would go with the above suggestion tbh.

I assume she’s a domineering pain in the arse generally and somebody you feel you can’t stand up to? I appreciate it’s hard but you really need to tell her especially after you’d make a point of saying it was your first solo holiday with your child!

I suspect by sending her the link she was thinking you might want her to actually come along too. She asked ‘is it okay’ and got no reply. So booked it.

I don’t think you can complain really. If you are going to send your mum a link knowing she came on holiday with you last year, and then don’t hang around for her reply, or don’t make it clear enough you are looking forward to your holiday alone with just you and your child. First solo holiday obviously wasn’t clear enough.

You sent confusing messages.

I don’t think so. I’d think they were just showing me where they were going!

If she thought it were an invitation, why did she ask if she could join originally?

Just tell her she ruined your holiday last year so you will do your own thing and leave her to do hers.

If you take nothing else from this experience, don't send her the link again.

How can anyone blame op for this her mum is being weird and massively unreasonable. I've told plenty of people where I'm going on holiday in the past. Friends, family, colleagues, neighbours and not one of them has just randomly booked to come along.

why on earth did you tell her where you were going?! This is on you OP

This. It's on you.

If you had been on a disastrous holiday with one of them last year, I bet you wouldn’t have told them when you’d booked to go this year and sent the exactly hotel link just in case, though…!

Tell her to cancel. If she doesn't I'd cancel and never tell her where you're going again.

In what way was she awful?

Well your mum likes an overstep doesn’t she?

If this were me, I would go back to my mum and say something along the lines of

‘Gosh mum, was not expecting you to book this! This was to be my & ds’ first solo trip and I was hugely looking forward to that. I think it would be best for us all if you rearranged your own trip. Maybe we can plan a ( insert suitable day trip) together when we are back ? Love Op & son’

So did she also have a bad time on the last trip? How bizarre for her to want to repeat that. I would definitely ask her to cancel and tell her you specifically said it was your first solo holiday together!

Exactly.

Booking the same hotel is weird, and no one is denying that. But if OP had such a terrible experience last year, then why send the exact travel dates and hotel to the person who made the previous holiday so awful?

Her Mum will lose money

This

I'd have to be blunt and tell her to cancel. It was wrong of her to book it so quickly.

There is a big difference between planning and booking a holiday with someone and them randomly booking a holiday you have already booked with someone else

Someone on Mumsnet shared something that really did, at the time, change my life. They said (and it was also a parent problem), if someone is going to end up unhappy whatever you do, why should that person ALWAYS be you? It made me realise that I always put my mother's feelings first because I couldn't bear the outcome of her feelings and behaviour. That lede to realising how inappropriate her behaviour was, and how I would never treat my own child that way. And then THAT made me realise that I was bending myself into a pretzel to avoid upsetting someone who'd spent my whole life putting their own feelings first. Which gave me the anger and strength to start putting me first. Truly, life changing. The power of Mumsnet.

Do you not tell your family when you book a holiday? It's called chatting, and being interested in each other's lives? You sound horrendously fun.

Suggested reply: Mum, I see that you went ahead and booked the same hotel I'm going to with Sam. As I wrote, I'm looking forward to a solo holiday with him. If you decide to go I hope you have a good time, but I just wanted to be clear in advance that Sam and I will be keeping it to ourselves this year like I said in my text. I thought it would be helpful to get clear about that now so you can make your plans based on that. I didn't want you to feel disappointed once you got there if you had assumed we'd be open to another joint trip this year.

For the op yes I agree it is what a faff.

With the history given I’m quite surprised you sent her the link to the exact hotel you are staying at, and I’m assuming told her exactly when you will be there as well. Definitely answer her more vaguely in future if you don’t want her gatecrashing! I would explain that you wanted some quality time just with your DS, is she likely to still just come anyway?!