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.

Slightly off topic but I do the talking thing...will now stop though...

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

I doubt you will get much empathy from viewers who also have kids, work full time and do household chores. You have a Nanny, you are therefore likely doing a whole lot LESS than most working mothers!

All holiday DH & I sorted out the children

Not an unreasonable expectation, they're your kids?

Agree with other posters - FIL sounded very out of order, but you do come across as rather derisive in your description of them and their lifestyle. It sounds like you were hoping this holiday would be an opportunity for you and DH to enjoy some child-free downtime and that your PILs would be on hand to babysit whilst you both went out or slept. You say yourself you don't see them very often and I assume they don't know your children that well, so hoping they would babysit all three without issue was optimistic to say the least. Were the expectations of the holiday discussed before you went, ie. did you tell PILs that you would like to enjoy some time without the DCs and were hoping they would like to mind them a couple of times and get to know them a little better? In hindsight, perhaps you should have taken Nanny with you?

You are probably right about the PILs being washed out from already having had extended family around all week before you got there, especially if your MIL was cooking and 'running around doing everything' that week too. Just having you around likely wouldn't have been too much for them, but it sounds like they (or at least MIL) were doing more than just lounging around themselves.

Threatening to call the police just because his son was swearing sounds rather extreme from the FIL - was there more to this? Also, throwing a phone into a bush is just childish, why would any adult do that?

Take DH's lead on this, I hope you can all sort this out between you - I can't imagine how horrible it would be to have such a huge fallout with close family.

She supports her husband to behave like that I wouldn't. She has to take responsibility she's, not a child.

Why are people assuming that they left the mother in law to do all the cooking by herself? Maybe they did help. Not every last thing is going to be spelled out.

I probably wouldn't have left the kids in the pool under the supervision of obese alcoholics but other than that I really don't think the OP deserves all this fury

I guess because she's telling the story, it is likely to be related in the way that puts her in the best possible light, which means that if she was actively helping with the cooking and laundry, she would probably have mentioned it.

What she didn't say though was that the MIL is obese, so I'm not sure where that came from.

@Carpediemmakeitcount you can not be serious.

It sounds as if there is fault on both sides here.

You barely see these relatives, but decided to go on holiday with them bringing your three incredibly young and demanding children. All children at that age are demanding and 3 is a LOT. You anticipated that they would “give you a break”, babysitting your kids to allow you and DH time together and your poor Mil had to do the washing and cooking all week…. Then over a few minor comments your DH decides to let loose a barrage of insults, resentment and verbal abuse towards your FiL and throws his mother’s phone in a hedge. Which does not come across as “gentle giant”, more lacking in control and disturbed.

The children did not witness any of this behaviour either on the part of their grandfather or father… what they did witness is their prideful parents dragging them out of bed in the middle of the night and traumatising them.

The more sensible thing to have done would have been to apologise for any offence - even if you didn’t want to -, and to say you would leave in the morning when accommodation secured so as not to disturb the children. Or to have attempted to talk things through with clear heads.

Sorry, but the main drama appears to have been created by your DH outburst and the flying off the handle flit in the night by you both.

Your FiL doesn’t sound pleasant and no doubt his remarks were offensive. But it’s understandable how he may have been irritable.

Everyone bit off more than they could chew with this holiday with vastly different expectations - your PiL probably thought you’d handle your own children and chip in with the household tasks. You thought they’d do everything including on tap babysitting…

Go NC if you want, but this is just creating more drama. If it were me I’d mend the bridges, go back to 3-4 times a year and say no more about it.

Maybe you could both try and be less reactive to others bad behaviour.

100% it's a choice

@Carpediemmakeitcount "She supports her husband to behave like that I wouldn't. She has to take responsibility she's, not a child."

Possibly. It sounds to me as if she's in an abusive relationship, frankly. But even if she isn't-why is she the one getting the blame for "kicking them out?"

Literally this. You absolutely didn’t have to pack and leave at 1am, dragging all the children along.
Just go to the bedroom and shut the door.

Anyone who said that my 2 year old has "no balls" would never be spoken to again.

The OP says they hadn't had a holiday in 5 years so this is the first holiday they have had with children so it was probably a bit of an eye opener that a holiday is very different with 3 under 5.

This - we quickly realised it wouldn't be a relaxing time though it was fun.

I I have manged to cook etc in new places around three young kids - sometimes with DH help if he's there often without - but I'm used to dealing with them.

I don't think it's green eyed - (well maybe some of it is) - to mention nanny as much as pointing out OP is used to Nanny backing her up or being in charge of the the kids - she was in a stressful location without that with unrealistic expectations of being able to relax. I've over the years had other mother complain a lot about things that are my normal - like putting all the kids to bed by themselves because they usually have help and it harder task than normal when they don't.

4, 2 and 8 months these are hard ages add in IL with difficult relationship with DH and there own unrealistic expectations and it was going to be hard.

Omg that was horrendous.

No wonder your little boy did not warm to your FIL.

If you choose to go back to Spain in the future, I would not blame you if you do not stay with them, they are a disgrace.

Reread her post again her fil told them to get out and her mil said nothing. Maybe she is human like the rest of us and forgot to put fil in the title.

And you wouldn’t ask them to babysit for you. Yet they did.

Mainly because of this from the OP:

All holiday DH & I sorted out the children. MIL cooked and did the washing. FIL did very little as usual.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were the OP. How should she “make him”?

Maybe OP made a mistake, but lots of women get blamed for their husbands’ and adult children’s’ appalling behaviour on MN.

At least op's husband had the balls to stand up to him. When my family goes on holiday my partner does all the cooking while I sort out the children. Someone has to cook it's a necessity to stay alive. They didn't have the energy for their grandchildren that's what it's about and the reason why they got kicked out. They could have said something without being personal. I wouldn't separate mil and fil they are married and love each other. Also, I don't think they are close to their grandchildren or know them as well as their other grandchildren.

Don’t even bother to contact them again. Get on with your lives and enjoy your family. If they contact you remain at a distance. They have shown their true colours. Never leave your kids with your fil in particular. He sounds threatening. You don’t have to see them again or be in contact and neither do your kids. Let your dh deal with them from now on.

Why is everyone tearing apart the OP? Particularly for the narrating out loud? This is something that lots of parents of small children do because it helps with language development. Yes, the narrating in the hope someone will help is a bit immature but are you all perfect? Do you never feel frustrated and express that frustration in less than perfect ways? So much judgement!

Apologises for only being able to update now. I’m currently on lunch.

Thank you for all the feedback.

I agree that we all could have handled ourselves better in this situation. I will clarify a few points that have been raised.

PIL kicked us out. It wasn’t just MIL. My title was meant to say PIL - that was an error. However, I was surprised she didn’t try to reason with FIL as he would have stopped and listened to her. She’s not abused by him and my DH wasn’t abused by him either. FIL is a domineering character and does “talk down” to my DH and his brother but always backs down when MIL tells him too. I have seen this first hand.

MIL & FIL have previously done this to BIL when he lived with them with his then wife, my ex SIL. They threw them all out when my nephew was 2. The difference is they all lived with them and so they went & lived with her mother. That’s why I feel MIL isn’t entirely blameless as she could have said no as we were in a foreign country with nowhere else to go. If we were back in England then we could have just driven home.

PIL have fallen out with various family members over the years. Both of them with members of his family and her own. MIL is quite capable of being just as bad as FIL. Again I have experienced this first hand as they fell out with FIL’s brother and his wife on our wedding night. Luckily, it was when the wedding had finished and we were having a quiet drink in the bar. Again all alcohol fuelled.

We did take them out for a meal, cook and wash too whilst we were there on holiday. We gave them the chance to be alone by taking our children out so they could have space and time alone as we were aware it was their holiday too. We haven’t been able to afford to go on holiday prior to now. You’re right the Villa was paid for by them and we paid for flights and spending money. We were very grateful for this kind offer.

I think we were hoping to have some alone time on holiday too. The night we went out we (DH & I) got the children all washed and in bed & we then went out. The following day the older two went into the pool with them for an hour whilst I looked after the baby and lay down for an hour. I now realise asking them to look after the two boys for an hour in the pool was too much and I should have got in with them.

In relation to talking to myself - I say what I am doing out loud so my oldest son knows what to expect. For instance I said “I can’t get in the pool yet as I have to feed the baby, change his nappy, change the second son’s nappy, put sun cream on everyone & myself then get in the pool”. DH would be cleaning up our breakfast and that’s when I would talk out loud so my son knows what to expect and anyone who is around to lend a hand in putting sun lotion on would be able to do so. I wasn’t trying to be passive aggressive but if it was then I appreciate that would be annoying to listen too.

DH doesn’t want a relationship with his parents. From the feedback so far it’s clear continual space between us all makes the most sense.

As for me working full time, I need to as we cannot afford for me not too or even to work part time. I consolidate my hours into a 4 day week and the nanny covers my working hours only. It works out cheaper than paying for the younger two to be in nursery or have a childminder. Also all 3 were off over the summer holidays so we also have to factor in that additional time and expense. I’ve looked after all my children whilst I’ve been on maternity leave and it is only when I returned to work in June we hired our nanny. Parenting is hard and we were hoping for a night out and a lunch out on holiday. We don’t get any chance to spend time together as we can’t afford a babysitter on top of the childcare we already pay for.
In hindsight, this was a big ask even though prior to coming they agreed it would be okay to do it as they look after BIL boys all the time and did for him on holiday. We thought just two occasions whilst they all slept or only had to look after the older one whilst the other two were sleeping in the afternoon would be okay.

As for future holidays, when we can afford them, it makes sense to take our children away ourselves which we will do.

Thank you again to all who have replied and I hope that helps to answer some of your questions. Apologises if I’ve missed any.

In life, that's what happens not only here. There wouldn't need to be any blame if the mother or father or both took responsibility for their shit parenting. If you made a mistake own it don't hide that's the piss take.

You may think you are not violent but that kind of behaviour is upsetting for people around you.

FIL is a domineering character and does “talk down” to my DH and his brother but always backs down when MIL tells him too. I have seen this first hand.

Sounds like my FIL - but MIL picks her battles not always ones I would TBH. My IL are charming at times but have also spectacularly fallen out with family and friends - nice till you fall in my DC early years were full of getting them to respect us as parents.

If your DH wants no contact /limited contact - just follow his lead.

As for future holidays, when we can afford them, it makes sense to take our children away ourselves which we will do.

Yes and pick child friendly places with lots to do as frankly it's just easier.

Surely the leave part was said in the heat of the moment and you didn't really have to wake your kids up and cart them all around the place on the middle of the night? Your fil sounds like a knob, but I don't understand why your mil gets the blame. Looking after 3 children under 4 is a big undertaking so I understand their reservations about baby sitting, especially when on holiday. I don't think your husband behaved much better by telling his Dad everything that he had ever done wrong in his life and then chucking his mother's phone in a bush. It does also sound passive aggressive of you walking around talking out loud to yourself to make a point of how much you were doing in the hope that others helped you out. His mil had done all the cooking and they had, presumably, paid for the villa and invited you all along. I don't think that this was handled well be either side. Having 3 children under 4 is incredibly tough, but ultimately you presumably chose that route.