My husband want to spend 2 months with his family in summer time

[acca2017]

My husbands family lives abroad. We go and visit them every CHristmas and summer time. But its been 17 years and I am fed up that my husbands wants to spend his all summer time with his familys house. It is ok for me to travel to see them but I asked my husband to stay in hotel or rent a house because I do not feel comfortable and also it doesnt feel like holiday for me. My husbands family has large 6 bedroom house but i still do not feel comfortable for some reason. I also do not like to spend that much time with my family. I love them all but I do not like to that close. We do have 3 children and thats also makes it harder. Kids do not listen when they see other people around them, they be naughty. Am I wrong?

I have a somewhat different perspective on this. I was the child that spent every holiday with my parents at my maternal grandparents abroad. I enjoyed it as a child but as I got older it lost it's appeal. When I was in my 20s my parents moved to DM's home country, with the expectation that I did as they had done and visited every holiday. This I refused to do. It is not fair on my DH who has no connection with the country and not for my children either. We do visit but do not stay for longer than a week (I have 4 DC, house is too small for us but DM takes offence if you do not stay with her.) Mostly I visit alone. DM used to try emotional blackmail about her not seeing her GC but she could have come to the UK if she had wanted to (We have the room and are not offended if people stay elsewhere.) and it was much easier for DP to come to us as they had no ties to school holidays etc. DC are now adults and able to choose themselves when to visit DM and where to stay. They visit but on their own terms.

From yet another perspective I also have one DS who lives abroad who I will be seeing next week for the first time since the Pandemic. I am really looking forward to it but the visit is entirely instigated by him and he is coming alone. Again his choice, no problem with his partner just that they have to work. Having experienced 2 generations of pressured visits I am not going to repeat the senario. It is something I see time and time again with parents who live overseas and I believe it to be wrong. I chose to have DC, I love them with my very being but they are under no obligation to me and I have no right to expect any. Your DH parents should realise this and should not be upset if you do not visit. Your DH can go alone. You can always take the DC somewhere by yourself and join him later or he can take the kids alone while you go away somewhere yourself. ? It will be good for your DC to see you having some agenc in this. Soon they will be able to vote with their feet and it is likely that they will choose to holiday elsewhere.

I think you are a Saint for doing this for 17 years!! You have paid your dues. It is very wrong for both of you to keep the kids off school for 2 weeks. That needs to stop and I'm surprised that school is allowing this. This is your only yearly holiday? It's selfish of him to want to spend your entire yearly budget and leave on visiting the one country. I think even 2 weeks is more than enough. You don't need to feel guilty about the situation, he has chosen to make a life in another country. It's also extremely unfair to make your kids only have one experience every single year.

DH used to want to spend 3 weeks every summer at his parents house. It was a big chunk of our holiday as not teachers. I put up with it for a while as thought it was a cheaper holiday and good for DC to see family as no accommodation costs. Although we had to leave them at least a €1000 to ‘help out’ after paying for all food, new furniture, any outstanding bills so it wasn’t actually cheaper at all! Like the OP I was doing a lot of cleaning, cooking as MIL would down tools and it was not a holiday.

We never went anywhere else for years. About 5 years ago I put my foot down and told him to visit on his own outside of the summer so we could have a proper holiday and only go together in the summer every 3/4 years.

3 weeks was bad enough. 2 months would have been absolute hell and I would have point blank refused. DC are old enough to decide if they want to come or not.