All advice welcome, long, sorry.
This year we are renting a holiday flat as usual from dh's mother's cousins. They run a small business and live on-site so we get to see family without anyone feeling pressure to socialise 24/7. They are a pretty nice couple, so are their adult children living nearby, it has been great the past two years to catch up with them a bit and the holidays have been really successful on all fronts.
This year MIL has suddenly announced her intention to ask to visit the cousins for a holiday at the same time as we are there. It doesn't seem to have occurred to her to even get dh's opinion on this.
MIL is a deeply horrible person IMO and has got much more distant/spiteful with age. She witters on about loving her grandchildren but you can tell it is all front. She is catty about SIL and her few remaining friends to us and I expect about us to SIL and said friends.
The thought of her muscling in on just about the only extended period of time we get as a family together is actually making me feel ill this morning. I have so much anger at the way she has treated dh and SIL especially in recent years that I am not sure I will be able to keep civil either on the holiday if it happens or in the run-up to it.
Although she won't be in our flat if she does come there is already a clear expectation that she will expect to be included in outings etc, as she is not driving to the destination.
Can't enlist the cousins' help as they were brought up together, so cousins have lingering fondness for MIL (especially as they don't spend much time with her), but at the same time one cousin can a bit of a sly stirrer and would love to hear and spread it around that I was unhappy about MIL visiting.
Dh is despondent too, but I cannot sound off frankly to him either as it will only add to the difficult time he is having at the mo. I have been forthright about her tactics in the past and I know it has upset him :(
What can I do? I am feeling quite murderous about it right now. How can I not let this wreck our holiday? :(
I cope with her most of the time by keeping her at arm's length.