christmas hell!

[poppywillows]

hi everyone, i need some advice as i dont know if the way im acting is completely out of order or not.
every christmas since meeting my husband, we've gone to his parents house, 2 hrs away. we dont visit them as much as my hb would like and theyre a very close family. he loves to go there and relax. I cant relax there at all though, i feel i cant be myself as theyre very different to me and theres just a really tense atmosphere. there are lots of other reasons i dont like to stay there but i wont make this in to a mamouth thread!
So this christmas it was agreed we'd have it here at home but go to his parents on boxing day. he said he wanted to stay for a week and i asked for a compromise - to go boxing day and come back the next day. He said 'im not having that' and went in to a rant about why im stopping him seeing his family and how he wont allow me to do this anymore. he said he'll drive me back earlier but keep our daughter there for longer. i saw this as a threat and got very upset that he'd do that. now i feel im going whether i like it or not as the only other option is that he'll take our daughter :(
this morning im wondering whether i should apologise. feeling very mixed up!
i hope some of you can give me some advice. thank you

Thanks so much. You Mumsnet members have been a great help for me today offering different points of view and advice :)

Not at all. We pay it forward because we have taken advice ourselves :) you sound like a nice person trying to do her best. That's all you can do.

I must say I wouldn't be that happy staying with my ILs for a week, not because I dislike them, but because I need my own space. In fact, staying with anyone for a week is completely over the top.

Perhaps a way forward would be to agree to visit them more often during the year, for shorter periods. Can you stay at a local hotel or B&B? Probably not over Xmas, but at other times of the year?

I wouldn't get into criticising his family to him though, it will only paint you as the baddie.

I don't like the perceived threat of taking your dd away though. One to call his bluff on I think.

I totally understand why you might not want to stay overnight at your inlaws.

So why don't you encourage your husband to go just him and your daughter for an overnight stay every so often? Sorry if I missed something. I can see why you might want to be all together at Christmas though.

I used to sometimes take my kids to stay the night at my Mum's when they were small, leaving DH at home. Worked fine for us all.