Holiday with ILs without me knowing

[peregrinelane]

DH has agreed for us to go on a week long holiday abroad with ILs (large family of 14+ people) without asking me. We have a young baby. It’s all agreed and accommodation and dates picked 🤯

This. ☝️
I would point blank to refuse to go.
I would find it suffocating.
Do you always go away with all the extended family? 🤔

Me and DH went abroad once for a family wedding with my bro, SIL, my mum & stepdad.
It was awful. 😭
Best thing to ever happen in hindsight, as DH put his foot down and said NEVER AGAIN. We have NEVER been away with the extended family again, and it suits us fine. 😆
@peregrinelane

Stand up for yourself. Don't go. It's tough if your IL aren't happy. You've been too accommodating. You're entitled to choose not go this time.

Are you scared of saying no to your husband? I can't understand why you are going to go when you don't want to. It's a whole week not a 2 hour meal.

If the grandparents /in-laws are taking everyone away on holiday it’s very kind of them ? My parents do this from time to time and I always appreciate it.
if you really don’t want to go then stay at home with your baby and send husband with your other children (I’ve done this before when baby was very small and again when baby was unwell)

I feel for you - this is my idea of hell! And I have a very big, lovely family - who like doing different things from each other fortunately.

This isn’t the case. Everyone pays for themselves. I only have the one baby.

Well now you have a child perhaps it’s time you modelled some boundaries and self esteem. If you act like a doormat don’t be surprised when peiole walk all over you.

Say no and let your DH manage the fallout - who gives a shit if it’s awkward for him? He doesn’t consider your feelings one iota.

Well, no, it's not all agreed to, as you haven't agreed to it. Hope he enjoys his solo holiday, because obviously you won't be going.

Unless you want to, of course.

Absolutely this.

Is this a tactic so you end up doing all your upcoming family holidays with.the extended family? Unless that's what you want, id be nipping it in the bud tout suite.

I would drop a Le Crueset casserole pot on my foot before I’d go on that holiday. I have visions of a week in an all inclusive two star hotel in Benidorm where the men sit around in Union Jack shorts from 10am drinking pints and the women run around after the screaming kids with suncream and nappy bags.

I would say it’s not kind to book you in a trip without consultation. I find people insufferable that try and say they’re kind because they’ve dictated what someone else is going to do and are paying as though the financial hit makes it ok to steam roll over people. In your case, it’s worse as you’re having h to use your family money to fund these trips that you don’t always want to go on.
you have a DH problem that you need to address.

Of course you feel bulldozed, because you have been.

Every single conversation about whether or not to go on this holiday now tacitly accepts what he has done in shifting the conversation to be around this particular holiday plan that he made without caring about whether you like it or not. Or worse, knowing you don't. It's a massive power play.

My view is take it back to basics. The discussion you have now is primarily about his choice to plan it and agree it without your input. In order to move forward I would want to get some genuine understanding from him that it is not OK for him to decide these things unilaterally especially when it goes against your preferences. Holidays are precious and you get a vote in your own life. If you get a fundamental shift from him in understanding how disrespectful he has been, and a genuine commitment to make future decisions with you not for you, then and only then do you "allow" the agenda to move onto what you are going to do about this particular holiday. And be careful you don't just roll over and accept it because actions speak louder than words and ultimately if he "wins" by getting you to fall in then his behaviour is rewarded.

If you do decide to do this, there are holiday especially for mothers and children. Here is a link to a yoga holiday that a friend (a single mum) went on.

https://holymama.info

I would like to try and do separate things but it’s in the middle of nowhere and if you so much as go to the toilet everyone wonders where you are and why you aren’t all together

@peregrinelane Oh this is so familiar to me, it's exactly the same dynamic with DH's family when we all get together, it's as if we're a herd of sheep, everyone has to stay together all the time! I've started rebelling in recent years though, making plans to do X and if anyone wants to come along, they can, but I'm going anyway.

It's more difficult with a young baby though (my children are young adults). I agree with @Goofish that you need to speak seriously to your DH about not agreeing to such plans without prior discussion, especially as you now have a child.

Your in-laws would be outraged if you stood up for yourself? Your husband is from a family of bulldozers and is one himself. You need to start standing up for yourself or you will never have a voice in your own life. And that’s what your child will see.

If its camping with a small baby. it would be hard no from me. If i had to endure inlaws.. I'd at least want basic comfort and my own room to retire to.

I echo what the pp said. He and his family are bulldozers... so its not an offence to stand up to them either.

I wouldn't go. I'd be furious this has been organised without input and consent and you're already going on holiday with them.

He can't force you to go, he can't force you to let baby go and who gives a toss what anyone thinks?

He didn't consider your feelings so don't consider his! I'd be telling him to jog on!

A marriage is supposed to be a partnership, not coercion into holidays with people you don't want to spend time with. I'll bet he did it on purpose as he knew you wouldn't agree. I'd absolutely die on this hill.

If your In laws paid for the holidays your DH might be excused for saying yes on your behalf, since they don't you have nothing to be grateful for @peregrinelane. I know people like your In laws, they think their family is great and anyone should feel lucky to marry into it, but since you're not blood you're expected to tow the line and remember to do as you're told or be viewed with deep disapproval. You say you have no family Op, you don't say why but you seem to feel very much the under dog here, you don't like the things they do or the places they go but you won't stand up and defend yourself.

Your DH wants to go away with them because, as you say, they're all the same and enjoy the same things and he doesn't really care that you're not enjoying yourself. Why ever you don't have your own family @peregrinelane you are not less worthy or a second class citizen and you are allowed to say No, no you won't go, no you don't want to holiday with people who think you should have no life of your own

Yep! Let him go!

Book something just you and baby - visiting a friend perhaps or some activities locally?

Say “sorry the date doesn’t work for me. Which you’d know if you asked me.”

There is no way my baby or I would go on this trip. No way.

OP - I highly recommend therapy to help you establish more helpful boundaries and to work on centering yourself in your own life.

Your DH is disrespectful and is taking advantage of you. It is ok to say no, thank you. It is ok to go, but to keep to a different schedule. It is ok to assert yourself.

God, it sounded bad enough it was a resort holiday with loads of other people, which is my idea of hell. Being pressured to stick together and all do everything together would be absolutely intolerable.

I would also be beyond livid at the lack of consultation. He has no right to make commitments on your behalf without discussing it with you, OP.

If I was in your shoes, I'd stay home with the baby. And I'd be giving DH an almighty bollocking for making commitments without consulting me first.

I would be outraged if my DH sprung this “holiday” on me and although I’d probably go on it for keeping good family relations, he would be strongly messaged that it should never happen again.

We go on big family holidays with my in-laws every couple of years but the important things are:

1. we all know about it and agree where we’re going
2. in-laws want us to do this so they pay for the accommodation
3. we’re not all joint at the hip and can do our own thing

I can’t believe that this is a 2nd holiday with them in the same year. Can your DH not say no to them?

Good grief, OP, they sound like an utter pain.

Do they not understand that not everyone is like them, and some people just like a bit of time to chill on their own?