AIBU to go no contact after in-laws booked holiday during dad’s illness?

[OneAquaHare]

Hi, I’d like some advice please as I have repeatedly been told for the past year that I am wrong and am being completely unreasonable about this and that nobody will think like me about this.

One important piece of background info about me: my mum died in an accident when I was 22. I was already in a relationship with my now husband when this happened, and I lived at his parents’ house in the aftermath, so all 3 of them witnessed the trauma I endured.

To the present issue. Last summer, my dad had a failed open heart surgery. He was in intensive care, in and out of a coma, for 3 months. He had to be resuscitated more than once. He had multiple procedures, developed sepsis and was put on dialysis because of organ failure. All of this happened at the opposite end of the country from me, so for the majority of it I was just waiting for updates to arrive on my phone from my sister or stepmum. He died in September 2025.

During August 2025, my parents-in-law approached my husband and told him they wanted to take us and and our children on a safari holiday in 2026. My husband told them he would have to talk to me about it, but because of my dad’s condition they would have to wait because I was in no fit state to have that conversation at that time. A couple of days later my in-laws booked the holiday for us anyway, without me or my husband consenting to it or even discussing anything further with them like possible dates/time off work/etc.

I said me and the kids wouldn’t be going because I believe it was a massive violation of boundaries and extremely manipulative and controlling to book a holiday for someone else’s minor children without even discussing it with them and obtaining their consent, and then try to guilt trip them into agreeing to it when you know they are in a situation that is already actively hurting them and traumatising them. My husband disagreed because it’s a holiday we could never afford ourselves and he wanted to keep his parents happy and go on it.

So the final days of my dad’s life were taken up by butting heads with my husband about a situation that I believe his parents were completely wrong to ever put us in, and that he should be putting a stop to and protecting me from so I could have space to grieve my dad, whilst he focused solely on how generous his parents were being and how it was an amazing opportunity for our kids. And it continued after my dad died. His parents refused to cancel the booking for 2 months after my dad died. My husband continued to try to persuade me to change my mind - I was even told I needed to give his parents a final answer about it (when I had already repeatedly said no for weeks) whilst I was still away from home for my dad’s funeral.

I have never felt so abandoned, let down and alone. I have repeatedly told my husband this but I get told that he was put in a difficult position and I have repeatedly been blamed for putting him in the middle. He hasn’t had any kind of confrontation or showdown with his parents about their behaviour - all 3 of them have repeatedly blamed me in various ways and made me saying no about something being wrong with me. He still denies, defends and minimises what he and his parents did. His parents haven’t apologised to me, and he has repeatedly told me not to expect an apology from them, that he won’t ask for one for me (I haven’t told him I expect that from him), and last night I was told that he doesn’t think his therapist even thinks I deserve an apology from his parents.

I have been no contact with his parents since last year, because the entire situation is so traumatising I have felt like I’m on the edge of a nervous breakdown at times. However I haven’t given him an ultimatum about his parents, or stopped him or the children from seeing them. For my own mental wellbeing I just can’t be around them when neither they nor my husband will acknowledge the harm their behaviour has caused, and my husband will continue to completely fail to protect me from his parents’ behaviour. However last night, he gave me the ultimatum that me being no contact with his parents was unacceptable to him and that it will cost me our marriage if it continues. And I was again told that I was wrong if I thought other people would think like me about the situation, and that my therapist only agrees with me because it’s their job to make me feel better.

So, am I really wrong about this and being completely unreasonable?

No, they did not. Where did you get that from?

Sometimes when we are angry or sad or both we look to find something or someone to blame. Or lash out at them.

Your in-laws booked a holiday for you. They realised you were not in a place to discuss it then but assuming they are paying took the risk. Perhaps they thought that if they didn’t the spaces would not be there. They would be all booked up. I doubt they booked it to upset you. Or want relationships permanently damaged.

I would say I have no idea why your DH was discussing it with your father before he died. This seems wholly unnecessary.

Going no contact is also meaning your children losing their grandparents. Which is a serious thing to do to your children. You cut them off from that side of his family. From cousins, aunts all.

As a suggestion consider having some bereavement counselling. It may help.

I think your reaction sounds quite extreme - a free safari an entire year after the funeral sounds like something amazing to look forward to rather than a reason to cut contact. Presumably they thought they were doing something nice.

It also doesn't sound worth ending an otherwise happy marriage over. I imagine a large number of people wouldn't be happy with their spouse cutting off their family. So I suppose it depends on whether you want to continue to see yourself in the right and lose your husband, or find a way through this. There must potential solutions.

I think you are wrong. Losing my mother was traumatic, but I still kept my wits enough to try to insulate my child from my grief. All you needed to do was let your husband take over decisions like this for the family while you focused on your father. My husband stepped up and took over when I needed to retreat.

Booking a future holiday is a reasonable thing for him to have handled. Your family was trying to do the right thing and keep life moving around you. Your husband and in-laws handled the situation because you weren’t capable.

I think you should consider the possibility that being angry with them is giving you a way to hide from your grief.

That is if OP is lucky enough for her husband and inlaws to forgive her. I am not so sure I would be bothered to.

I think your husband is at most fault tbh. He should have acted as gatekeeper between them and you and set boundaries with his parents, not put pressure on you at a difficult time. But he clearly has an unhealthy dynamic with them.

Booking a holiday before having a yes is not cool but not worth going no contact over, but obviously it goes beyond that. I do think your grief is magnifying your reaction somewhat but they sound selfish and tricky.

Would you consider couples therapy?

You mentioned the day after the funeral PILs were nagging for an answer but they were messaging DH. Why was he passing this on to you? I think your DH is more at fault here yet it’s the PIL who are getting cut off. Your DH should have been stepping up to field this and replying saying leave it with me, I’ll talk to OP when the time is right. You should never have even known he was being hounded by PILs until you were ready. I think you need couples counselling here.

I don’t think they did anything wrong. They booked a holiday for 2026 with a parent’s permission. Yes at the time of the booking in August 2025, your dad was dying in a hospital miles away and you were getting updates on your phone. Yes, you were in no fit state to think about a holiday yourself, but fortunately your husband made the call for his parents to go ahead and book it,

The children aren’t just your children, they’re your husbands too, fine if you don’t feel ready to go on holiday, but you can’t dictate how your husband and kids grieve or demand they pass up a holiday because of how you feel. Demanding it be cancelled and going no contact, why? It seems so bizarre like you are weaponising your grief to hurt everyone around you. I see you ended up winning in the end by forbidding husband and children to go on the holiday. Whatever for? Grieving people are allowed to have a holiday and have a nice time.

I’d try and see the bigger picture OP. My parents died within less than a year of one another when I was early 20’s. While that will always be a traumatic time for me, I’d be unreasonable to let that cloud the rest of my life/relationship with others. I did let it dominate me for years, I was probably 30ish before I really came to terms with it, and I still internally eye roll when people are “devastated” about 99yr old grandpa shuffling off - but its my problem not theirs that my parents didn't get old enough to be old.
My kids grew up with no grandparents which was pretty rubbish, I would try hard not to let that be the case for your children by being NC with their paternal grandparents too.

This is so spot on. All of it.

I can't believe you'd prevent you're kids going on safari over this!

Bigger picture.

My Mum died after being diagnosed with cancer. She died on the Saturday and on the Sunday my siblings and I met up at the funeral directors to talk funeral arrangements. On the Monday one sibling took to their bed and was off work for 4 weeks. Married but no children.

Myself and my other sibling both had children to get up and get ready for school/nursery and my sibling's bereavement time off work was 3 days for a parent dying. Life had to go on, despite the absolute devastation of losing a parent and a Mother especially.

Yes of course it would be nice if the world stopped for this but I was still making Easter bonnets and filling out permission slips for school trips. The sibling who took to their bed was really pissed at us for continuing on as if nothing had happened. We didn't have a choice. Life does go on.

Yes your in-laws were insensitive, incredibly so and I am sorry about your Dad but you have taken this grudge and turned it into this massive thing that is affecting your marriage. You sound like a ball of rage over this, you need to walk with it not let it consume you. I too have had massive issues with my in laws but all of us have had to navigate our relationship, them, me, Dh and our children.

Whilst my MIL was dying we had an incredible holiday booked for a year before she was diagnosed and she told us she would never forgive us if we didn't go. Everyone was in agreement that if she died whilst we were away no one would tell us. She died 2 months after the holiday. She understood that life goes on for others, even when she was terminally ill and did not have long to live.

It was your husband who told you about their message on the day of the funeral, he didn't protect you so a lot of your anger should be directed toward him. You both need therapy together to work through this. I am all about people doing everything they can to keep a relationship healthy. Is this really the way you want your marriage to end? On this argument?

'‘whatever i’m not in the frame of mind to think about it, but book it and we can talk about it when im not in the middle of this situation’.'

But she didn't want to say that and she did not have to, and was unable to, accomodate them and their plans at that moment in time.

She never made a vow to smooth over her ILs feeling when in the middle of dealing with her own family's health crisis, and it is outrageous of her husband to threaten to end their marriage over her refusal to smooth over a drama of his parents' making.

So you are angry with them because they booked and paid for a very expensive holiday for your whole family to take place a year after your Dad died. How horrible of you to try and stop your kids from having this opportunity.

Yes but your husband accepted it.
My husband disagreed because it’s a holiday we could never afford ourselves and he wanted to keep his parents happy and go on it.
So the final days of my dad’s life were taken up by butting heads with my husband about a situation that I believe his parents were completely wrong to ever put us in, and that he should be putting a stop to and protecting me from so I could have space to grieve my dad, whilst he focused solely on how generous his parents were being and how it was an amazing opportunity for our kids. And it continued after my dad died. His parents refused to cancel the booking for 2 months after my dad died. My husband continued to try to persuade me to change my mind - I was even told I needed to give his parents a final answer about it (when I had already repeatedly said no for weeks) whilst I was still away from home for my dad’s funeral.

You didn’t need to turn this into a huge family rift by demanding they cancel the holiday. You didn’t need to but heads with your husband. You created this argument.

It’s a holiday that your husband wanted to go on with the kids.

Sure you can say you may not go as you’re not sure about if you’d be ready, but to make it this giant issue and guilt your husband and children over it and then refuse to let them go on the holiday and go no contact with his family is really wrong.

You had given them a final answer, several times over. They just decided not to listen and actively and systemically try and coerce you into changing your mind at the most vulnerable time of your life.

With kindness and love, I say that your DH and PILs are trying to manipulate you over this and presumably many other issues over the years. Gaslighting you when you're entitled to feel the way you do into believing you're unreasonably. Your DH doesn't get to tell you your therapist is wrong. Or that you're wrong for feeling the way you do after all the trauma you've suffered.

Ask yourself, will this be better in a week's time, a month's time, a year's time? Your DH has given you an ultimatum, he's shown you whose side he's on. It's devastating to imagine his PILs are the driving force behind your divorce but it's because he doesn't support you when you need him the most. You can't trust him to be there for you in future.

@Halepeeny
You had given them a final answer, several times over.

Yes, but what right does OP have to forbid her husband from taking his own kids on holiday with the grandparents a year later? None at all.

I’m sorry for your loss but you sound very high maintenance and you seem to have lost all sense of perspective. They shouldn’t have gone ahead and booked the holiday, but it does sound as if you were trying to avoid engaging with anyone on it, and possibly just didn’t want to go. You could have just left it to your DH to arrange while you focused on your DD. The holiday was for the following year, but your title makes it sound like they wanted you to go away with them while your DD was ill. If you can’t park this and go on the holiday I expect you’ll end up divorced.

Given your husband's threat of divorce, I'm guessing he has been telling in laws he wants to go, hence in laws insisitng.

Has he said that he told them you will all go? Have you seen the messages between them?

They shouldn’t have booked it without your consent - but going non contact with the people who took you in when your mum died and you were going through a traumatic time for a misguided gift does seem a bit much.

It sounds like your placing a lot of negative feelings on your in laws when actually they stem from trauma and grief.

I don’t know your relationship with your dad, but from what you’ve written you live at the other end of the country to him, didn’t move in with him when your mum died and didn’t travel to him when he was very ill. While I am not diminishing your loss, a holiday booked during this time for a year later isn’t the most out of the world thing to have done.

Your DH should’ve put his foot down, and he’s the one who should be apologising to you - not them. He could’ve said no on your behalf, you’d already said no, so another no while you were away for the funeral wasn’t a big decision. But I’m guessing he wanted to go on the holiday and was hoping you’d change your mind. From his perspective, he might feel like you’ve taken an opportunity away from him and his kids to go on the holiday.

The problem with the therapy is each of your therapists only have one perspective on the story and it’s not for them to say who is right or wrong, their job is to help you process the feelings and move on. It sounds more like you need to have joint therapy to work through this.

You are unreasonable to feel hurt that you didn’t get more support when your dad died, but going no contact with your in laws does feel like an overreaction and like you’re misplacing your feelings onto them. Maybe that’s something to discuss with your therapist to see if it might be true, and work through how you can forgive them, even if they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong.

FWIW, OP, I think your in-laws have behaved outrageously. They booked a holiday for you and your children without your consent and, in fact, in the face of your refusal.

That is not generous or caring, it is fucking stupid. Show your husband this answer.

They likely didn’t even know as OP had gone no contact with them by then..,

It's clear that these people are highly manipulate.

Incredibly insensitive for you to write about what the OP stands to lose. Having been in a similar situations and therefore able to empathise; my marriage eventually ended. I haven't lost anything, I have, in fact, gained. My freedom away from people who bit by bit, turned me into a shadow of myself. A lovely new partner. A very good relationship with my exH. Happy kids.

OP told the IL's that giving her agreement to a holiday while her father was dying was not a good time. People call that a 'boundary', nowadays. The questions from the IL's about this ought to have ended right there and then. But people like this know exactly what they are doing. Thinking only of themselves and their image.

Your husband is a nasty bully. Giving you ultimatums to make you bend to his and his parents wishes.
You have suffered trauma (again) and husband and his parents should be much more gentle and supportive of you while you manage the grief of loosing your second parent.
You need couples counselling or a divorce.

Are you sure your DH's therapist is actually saying this to him, OP? Or has he learned to manipulate from his parents?