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?

I am just surprised that a year on the situation has not improved, and the relationship between all the parties has deteriorated to such extent. Everyone's grief and living through it is different, and having been in similar situation I was just pleased that I could delegate planning things, including next year's holiday to other people while dealing with the illness and loss of a parent.
Even if in-laws have been incensitive to some extent, it does not seem to come from a place of trying to hurt anyone. Yes, they want to share those moments with their grandchildren, I do not see anything wrong with that. Would you not want to see an excitement on the faces of your grandkids on seeing something for the first time? You can't blame them for that. Presumably, husband also wanted to go on holiday too .
No contact with them seems like a huge overreaction. I am not a grandparent myself, but reading mumsnet it seems that gparents have to be quitely waiting in the background available for babysitting, and that is it. And if you are a mother of a son, you can't expect the same involvement as a mother of a daughter.
I think you are being unreasonable to be nc with them and risking your marriage on this basis (unless you would prefer to separate anyway and this is an excuse).

Sorry op yabu. Your grief is affecting how you are reacting. Can't believe you suggest nc over this.

OP: I have been following your thread with interest.You obviously have resentment towards your husband in areas other than the holiday under discussion.

I disagree with those focusing on the holiday as a wonderful opportunity that shouldn’t have been missed. That’s not the point.

I also disagree with those who think that your PIL are obviously evil narcissists who deserve to be cut off forever, and that their wealth somehow increases their malignity.

I think they were insensitive and overbearing but meant well. They probably thought the prospect of a safari holiday would be something for you and your DH and DC to look forward to after a long, very difficult time. They overstepped and misjudged your mood and your needs at the time, but your DH is the one who passed the pressure on to you when he could have just told them to definitely cancel and never again to make plans like that without consulting you and him first.

You are obviously still grieving for your parents, and whatever therapy you are getting does not seem to be helping. It seems to me that you are just converting your grief into anger with your PIL - it gives you something to focus on and the prospect of something that, unlike the illnesses and death of your own parents, you are able to take charge of. You seem to me in danger of becoming totally, unhealthily, obsessed by this issue, even though it’s now in the past. You’re attributing all sorts of ridiculous things to your PIL in your efforts to paint them as totally evil, eg they harassed you at your father's funeral (no, they pressed their son, the following day, for a final answer) and they made accusations about your mental health (no, they tried to make sense of your refusal of the holiday by thinking of a possible reason, and came up with the possibility that you had a fear of flying).

Your original post asked whether we thought you were being unreasonable. You’ve got your answer: over 60% think yes, you are. But that’s not what you wanted to hear, so you just keep arguing, and justifying the completely OTT decision you seem to have already made to stop contact with them.

You are letting this issue take over your life, and affect your children's lives (perhaps permanently, if it leads to your marriage breaking up). Please just stop and think very carefully about what you are doing with your life.

Yes. The problem is some of these people are such wretched money grubbers, so desperate for freebies, so excited about the idea of bragging rights on a cool FREE holiday funded by wealthy people that they actually do not understand that nobody with the tiniest bit of genuine love and affection for their father wants to be harassed about any jolly family holiday while their father is slowly dying.

All they can see is pound signs. Father literally at death's door? Just been given a terminal diagnosis? Lying in a pool of your own blood? Just nod anyway to the free holiday and say thanks. You wouldn't want to miss a FREE HOLIDAY!

Some of these people simply don't understand that a freebie holiday doesn't matter at all, and they don't care about insensitivity because FREE STUFF!!! That's all they can hear or see.

This thread has actually sickened me. I will walk away from this thread, because I am getting quite upset at some of these grubby, insensitive oafs.

This is the most reasonable and insightful post on this thread . I really hope OP reads this and considers what is important for her and what has already passed and not worth being obsessed about.

When I first read your OP, I thought you meant they had booked the holiday for just after your father's death, and so was thinking YWNBU, but I see now that it was for a year later. Consequently, I think you were - and still are - being massively unreasonable and unkind and downright horrible to your husband.
If your marriage breaks up because of this, you should at least be honest with yourself that it will be because of your actions, not your in-laws'.

I don’t think the PiL being millionaires makes them malignant, but it adds context to the fact they were pestering her over not wanting to lose their deposit. The real point is that they shouldn’t have put a deposit down in the first place for a holiday they’d been told not to book yet - what was the rush? I don’t think suggesting it would have been a problem for OP this far into the future (and could have been seen as insensitive but well meaning if it had ended there), it’s the fact they didn’t drop it. And the husband has closed ranks and left OP feeling totally unsupported at a really difficult time.

That isn’t the kind of thing you just forget about and move on from imo. It’s persistent boundary over-stepping and telling her how to feel. How dare they all.

No I didn’t, but I also saw the many posts saying she was pressured for “a final decision”, not a change of mind. So say final decision is no?

I also agree with this.

Especially the last paragraph.

The problem is the quality of the responses on the YABU side is so low, ranging from total lack of comprehension of the timeline and what occurred, to pure abject greed over seeing a holiday as more important than grief, that's difficult for OP to take that steer seriously.

I do agree that this is the type of problem a marriage has to find a way through rather than dissolving over, but if they've known each other since the age of 16 the husband thinks that too.

I am curious about what's happening with the husband over the whole concept of no contact. It is after all what his mum does to him and all his siblings when they stand up to her. It's not coincidental he is reacting so badly to OP doing it.

To me OP limiting contact with the in laws, whilst still as she says she is doing facilitating and not standing in the way of her children and husband seeing them, is quite a neutral response and not the severe thing people here seem to be treating it as. And certainly far more than she would be doing if hubby did follow through on his ultimatum which he won't.

OP, maybe you can explore other ways of maintaining a boundary with PILs (now you know for sure how awful they are) but not actually limiting communication with them, since that seems to be what's problematic for DH? Kill them with kindness? Limit how much you see them but still send them photos? Maybe an AI agent can be tasked with communicating with them for you? ;) is there a way to maintain your boundaries over their ability to disrupt your life but still on paper be "in contact" with them?

Tricky I know, but some kind of clever navigation might be called for. Hubby is on his own journey and in 5 years might be seeing this very much more as you are.

Your goal might be to honour how hurt you are, how monstrous they have been, whilst still getting your needs met in the situation, perhaps.

I agree with some of Mwwoman’s post save that at the point of refusal of the holiday they should have had the wit to accept their son and the OP’s response from the off.

It is not kind or generous to insist upon an unwelcome gift which has already been turned down. Minimising their attitude is what has led to the OP’s intransigence IMV.

This could have been cleared up swiftly at the time. Their persistence damaged relationships and the continued “you should have been grateful for the thing you didn’t want” has put both their son and the Op in a difficult position with the Op entrenching her position and the son choosing to brush over his parents poor behaviour.

To get back to a better place would require both Op and her husband to shift in their existing positions and there is little sign of that from either. It is not solely down to the Op.

Love the idea of setting up an AI agent to do the bare minimum communicating

First post

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

Monstrous? Even taking the in ones behaviour at its worst, it was insensitive and overbearing, but monstrous?

IMV, the husband insisting that OP 'MUST have contact or else' !! is utterly unreasonable if we accept (and I do) that she is facilitating contact other than meeting them herself. Frankly, he is bullying her.

WHY are her choices his to demand? WHO is he to even be threatening to completely destroy a marriage because he doesn't want to upset his bloody minded parents?

I'd love to see what a divorce court judge would make of that as the reason he is treating his wife like a slave with no feelings, no entitlement to her own responses and no rights over her own life.

I'd also point out that while 60% think the OP is unreasonable, a hefty 40% very much understand her viewpoint in this. That's not a tiny minority in anyone's book.

OP - I wish you peace and I'm sorry for your troubles.

Presumably the husband had not told his parents that "no" was his final answer too, and thus was giving them space to hope that he would succeed in changing OP's mind. I can’t believe he couldn't have shut the whole idea down instantly if he had really wanted to.

I suppose it depends on how you feel about your marriage and its future. Do you see a future with him - he is unlikely to change. Could you face minimal contact with the IL’s or would that not be enough for him?

I think the poll is pretty useless here.

40% don't think she is unreasonable, but what does that mean? Unreasonable for being upset about it at the time? Unreasonable for still being upset a year later? Unreasonable to the extent that it's worth permanently cutting off the in laws? Unreasonable to the extent it's worth breaking a family up over

Equally there will be some in the 60% who think that her being upset about this now or a year on is a reasonable but that the husband is unreasonable to try and force contact.

This.

I think the issue is not so much about the holiday but the fact your in-laws sound like they always want to do things on their terms and ignore everyone else’s feelings. When you first posted I did think you sounded a bit unreasonable but you’ve posted since how this is a repeated pattern whereby your mil will fall out with your DH if he doesn’t do what she wants so I think the issue is bigger than the holiday itself. And they’ve put pressure on you at a time when you understandably didn’t want to be thinking about a holiday.

The problem you’ve got now is what are you going to do about it. People don’t tend to change, I don’t think your parents in law are going to have a light bulb moment and apologise. In their eyes they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong as they have acted how they always have. This family dynamic has been going on for a long time. Only you can decide if it’s worth ending your marriage over. I can see for your DH he’s caught in the middle, he should have been firmer with your parents in law when they pushed the issue of booking the holiday but he’s been used to this family dynamic his whole life and he won’t have had the same emotional upset about the situation.
I personally think it would be a shame for you and your children if your marriage ended because of this. But only you know if you can put this behind you, accept they were insensitive and accept that they aren’t going to change. I don’t think you are going to get the apology you want as they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong.

Yes I agree you should walk away. Instead of using the language you used.

While I can see the argument, I'm still not sure why the onus is on the OP to kiss and make up? She is not being unpleasant to her in-laws, or preventing her husband and children from seeing them. She has simply removed herself from their orbit. It is her husband who is trying to force a relationship she doesn't want, with the threat of divorce if she doesn't comply. Surely that makes him the one who is breaking up the family? I also think we should give the OP enough credit to know whether the holiday offer was coming from a kind place, or a self centred and selfish one.