MIL kicked us and preschool children out of holiday villa abroad

[Mamma41]

This is my first post and apologises in advance of the length of it.

At the beginning of August DH and our 3 boys aged 4, 2 and 8 months were invited by our MIL & FIL to spend a week with them in a holiday villa in Spain they had rented. The Villa was hired for two weeks. The previous week they had my BIL and his two sons aged 3.5 and 7 stay with them. They see their other grandchildren 4-5 times a week as they live local to them.

For context DH & I look after our children with no help from any family. We live close to my mother but she's 74 and is not able to help us look after our young boys.

My father died last year and his death devastated me. My eldest son was very close to him. He doesn't have the same relationship with FIL as he doesn't see him as much but I had hoped they would become close on holiday.

Anyway, whilst on holiday my PIL continually criticised my parenting of the boys and their personalities. I should add I work Full Time, 40 hours per week in a very demanding profession. We have a nanny to look after our boys whilst I'm at work. I do all the cleaning, house hold chores whilst working and looking after the boys. DH does the weekly shop and cooking. My eldest has just started school last week. DH and I haven't been on holiday for 5 years (our honeymoon) prior to going away this year. We were both really looking forward to the break and both needed time to have together too.

So on holiday FIL tells me my 2 year old son has "no balls". He constantly cries and I immediately go to him when he does. I treat him like a baby. My 4 year old is oversensitive and doesn't talk loudly enough when my FIL tries to interact with him. I still talk to him like he's a baby. I talk to myself all the time! No one needs to hear what I'm doing and about to do! For context I tell my 4 year old what I'm doing and why I can't play with him at that exact time as I'm helping the younger two, sorting out things or tidying up! I also talk out loud in the hope someone may offer to help me as it's clear I'm doing loads!

DH and I were able to go out one night and when I asked PIL if we could go out to lunch one day together too they said no as its too hard looking after our children, despite them always sleeping in their afternoon because of their young ages. Four year old would be the only one awake and would play on his iPad.

Anyway, they played with the boys in the pool for one hour whilst I lay down and my husband was asleep in bed. They said it was too much and I shouldn't have left them with them. My MIL is 67 and FIL is 65. FIL has mobility issues but is a very overweight large man and likes to eat and drink whilst MIL runs around doing everything. He's a very opinionated, outspoken man. MIL is also very opinionated. However, prior to this holiday we haven't spend too much time together as we only see them 3-4 times a year.

Previously, I have always got on well with them both hence why I was shocked by the hostility towards me and our children on this holiday. It got to Thursday eve. We arrived Sat morning. We stayed in to play a game and they had run out of alcohol. They are both heavy drinkers whereas DH & I drink in moderation. This eve we had 1 glass of wine each then went to get them more alcohol from the local shop. When I returned we played a game whilst the children were all in bed. All holiday DH & I sorted out the children. MIL cooked and did the washing. FIL did very little as usual.

Anyway, as the evening progressed FIL kept making belittling comments towards me over the game. It got to a point where DH had enough and told him not to be so controlling, demeaning etc he had done it all week about my parenting, saying things about the boys, he should just stop and play the game. DH & I already agreed when we were out we would play one game and go to bed as we
Weren't enjoying his parents company on holiday.

FIL takes offence to the way DH has spoken to him. DH proceeds to give his Dad some home truths about the way he is and made him feel growing up. DH has bottled up these feelings for years. Out of nowhere FIL offers him a punch up! This literally all came out of no-where! DH said no and that's ridiculous! DH has started swearing in all this as he's so wound up and frustrated by his parents. MIL didn't intervene and wanted me to step in! I said she should listen to what her son is saying.

DH has always had confidence issues which I never understood as he's a big, gentle giant who I think is very good looking and was surprised he wasn't arrogant like most men when we met. Anyway, from spending a week with his Dad I now fully understand his confidence issues. FIL then threatened to call the police as DH was swearing at him and told us to get out of the Villa. FIL was constantly goading him, laughing in his face, trying to do anything possible to provoke my husband to fight him.

So we literally had to go inside, pack up all of our things, the baby milk, food, wake our young children, put them into the hire car and leave. MIL at no point intervened to say this is silly, everyone should go to bed and discuss it like adults in the morning. It was 1am she handed me all our wet washing and then we left.

I felt sick, the children were crying, we were in a foreign country with no where to go. We went to two hotels who wouldn't accept us as it was 1am and who would accept a family of 5 at that hour!

We drove to the airport, waited 4 hours, with hungry, upset children to be told we couldn't get a flight home until the following morning despite seats being available on their morning flight as a computer glitch meant we couldn't get booked on. We ended up driving to a budget hotel and staying their for the remainder of the holiday until our flight home the following day. My eldest son was constantly crying saying he just wanted to go home.

The only texts we received from them was about MIL missing mobile phone which DH threw into a hedge when his father said he was going to call the police!

So it's so many weeks later. DH never wants to see them again. I feel sorry things have ended like this but I don't understand any grandparents that could throw their own grandchildren out in the middle of the night. I think they expected us to leave them at the Villa but why would we when they are our children and we would never go anywhere without them. Plus all week they said they couldn't look after them when we asked them to babysit for us & had said awful things about them.

I've spoken to friends, family & my nanny who all said there's nothing wrong with my parenting. My boys are all happy, well looked after, we have no conflict at our home so this is very extreme for them to have witnessed.

So are we being unreasonable to cut all ties? To be fair I think they'd had enough from looking after their other grandchildren the week before and really couldn't be bothered with us and ours. It's clear they should have never invited us if it was too much for them to even have us around.

You all sound annoying! You're passive aggressive and treat all your children like babies, no wonder they're 'oversensitive'.

Fil is a twat and Mil is obviously overworked and fed up.

Your husband sounds rather wet and doesn't seem to have been much practical help.

Holiday on your own from now on.

I agree with @Katrinawaves post entirely, the PIL absolutely behaved horribly by kicking you out with nowhere to go but I don't think either side is blameless here

To answer your question, you're not unreasonable to cut all ties. Your FIL is a wanker.

We have just been on holiday with my parents self catering and we shared the cooking and clearing up and at no point would I have asked them to mind the kids while we went out for meals. It is their holiday too so I can imagine the resentment. Having said that making you leave in the middle of the night with very young children is ridiculous and not normal behaviour.

I would go no contact. Never contact them again.
The only related thing you should bus do us reassure and love your children if they have been affected by the drama.

Your FIL is clearly a nasty bully. I don't know why you've singled out your MIL in the thread title when it is all your FIL. It sounds like your MIL does not want to rock the boat and go against him.

Your DH behaved badly and it's not really that surprising you had to leave given his (long overdue) out pouring of complaints! Throwing the phone in the hedge was petulant.

I also talk out loud in the hope someone may offer to help me as it's clear I'm doing loads!

This is passive aggressive nonsense.

As a previous poster says, there's fault on both sides. The situation was certainly caused by FIL's nastiness but no one comes out of it covered in glory. The holiday was a disaster waiting to happen.

Write it off, go no contact with them and move on. Your DH might want to consider therapy/counselling for what was clearly a difficult childhood (unless finally saying it all to his father has done the trick!)

I think what you need to take from it is that holidays with young children are not actually a holiday in that sense, it is full on. You obviously struggled more as you are not used to looking after them on a day to day basis where as most of us know how hard parenting is. I am perplexed as to why you were doing this talking aloud of what you were doing and not just giving your husband a kick up the ass to get involved.

People depending the FIL are way off here. They're crap grandparents and he's a lazy arse. Picking holes in the Op is not the one.

I suspect that there's fault on both sides here and it's not as clear cut as what's written here Your expectations on your inlaws caring for 3 small children, your dh shouting and throwing his mother phone in a bush isn't good behaviour here.

I think previous posters have given good advice here-but I’ve come on to say I’m amazed at the number of posts telling her to take a nanny on the next family holiday. Is this a thing now? Parents wanting childcare done while on a ‘family’ holiday? Mine are grown now but when my children were young, we went on holiday to spend time with and have fun with them. We used childcare for work time but looked after our own children when not in work. Is it a modern thing now to have a nanny for holidays?

Let that happen to you and see how you react to your mother or father wanting a punch up with you. Yes, let's play the blame game🙄

I think those posters have narcissistic personalities to see the fil as the victim.

It’s presumably because OP and her DH seem to think caring for their own kids on holiday is doing other people a favour. That didn’t even include making meals and cleaning.

They were so desperate for a break from parenting they tried to offload their young kids onto people they consider to have been bad parents who’d already done and said things to the kids they thought were mean and bullying.

To find being with your own children so hard it does make sense to take paid help on future breaks, for the sake of the kids if nothing else.

I misread the bit about the MIL asking everyone to calm down. As for the rest she is allowed to have a drink, it's her holiday as well. Where does the OP say the MIL pushed them out, the fight was with the FIL and the husband and the MIL asked the OP to intervene.

It doesn't say she favours her other son, it says she sees them 4 or 5 times a week as they live locally.

The FIL sounds very unpleasant but the MIL has cooked, cleaned, done babysitting and had her phone thrown away. Yes poor lady.

I think your FIL sounds awful and a lot like my own father. I expect if he had had his other grandchildren to stay the previous week, they hero worshiped him and your children didn’t. That would have been eating away at him.
However, you were expecting a lot of your MIL. It is up to you and your husband to look after your own children and do 4/7 of all the cooking and laundry. The fact that you have help at home probably means you are not used to it and probably overwhelmed.
We are slightly older than your parents but probably much fitter. We have been away with our children and grandchildren a few times. We always offer to babysit but our children don’t assume that we will.
I don’t think all the drinking helped. My father drank a lot and started rows. After one we never saw him again. I didn’t regret it.
I find people who talk to themselves all the time really painful. Saying you are asking for help is terrible. Who were you asking for help?

Jealousy comes to mind when reading your post a woman hires a nanny because she is a working woman who is in a demanding job. The op is working that's why she hasn't returned to the thread. What you have posted is a load of bollocks and you need to reread the ops post again its only one.

They are allowed to drink but it sounds like they can't handle their drink. Trying to have a punch up with your son is embarrassing. Her mil is the one in the middle and she will side with her husband like what many married people do.

No I think you have misunderstood. No one is defending the FIL that I can see but why is the title blaming the MIL who seems to have been working her socks off on what is supposed to be her holiday and then gets the blame for two grown men getting into a pissing contest.

The ops husband was defending his wife and it brought up a lot more. He did the right thing throwing the phone in the bush and driving away. They have children the last thing they want is police sniffing around their children and they would have most likely taken her fil away for the night until he sobered up.

But the OP did say the MIL had cooked and done the laundry and that her husband had thrown his mother's phone in a bush.

I've brought up 4 kids by the way and always managed to cook so not sure why the OP or her husband or the FIL couldn't cook. Was this actually supposed to be a holiday for the MIL because if this is her on holiday I dread to think what normal life must be like.

I agree, I also think @BalletBob probably sums it up too.
I wonder what the in-laws version would be?

So you think the MIL was the person to blame for all this, not the FIL for being unpleasant, not the husband for swearing, not the husband who was presumably not pulling his weight with his kids as his wife had to do a running monologue to get help? It was all the MIL?

Honestly, some of these mad responses are why MN has such a bad reputation. Your parents abuse you, try to physically fight with you, chuck you out in the middle of the night with babies and nowhere to go,,,and MN decides its your fault and youre abusive!!

Lunacy.

Completely agree.

I rarely even visit here anymore because of the utterly vile comments about children I’ve started to see become more and more common, and comments like those on this thread defending abusive parents/grandparents. It’s sickening.

Again where is there anything about the MIL not being able to handle her drink?

The OP can't have that much of an issue with their drinking if she was happy for them to babysit 3 children, one a baby of 8 months.

Has your Dh spoken to his sibling since returning? Just wondering what they thought. Obviously they weren’t there but do they have an opinion on their parent’s behaviour?