How to raise villa sleeping arrangements with in-laws during family trip

[cawqa]

Going to in-laws for three weeks abroad for a family celebration.

We paid the flights and staying with them is free. They wanted to go away within the country to the beach while we are there.

This is very expensive so I am very grateful they are paying. But I also feel weird that they are paying that I cant speak up about this issue.

However they haven't booked enough rooms. There are two villas, one with a sofa bed in the living room and one for two people. There are 3 couples going, BIL, SIL, MIL, FIL ,DP and I.

PIL are paying for everyone.

I am just not someone who could ever agree to sleep on a sofa bed wiht others in a separate room and not be really bothered by it. It's 7 days and I feel miserable.

I am also very quiet and the others are loud and grab the best rooms. PIL are paying so I guess they should get the best room? But then were fighting with BIL and SIL who may also want the other room.

Im not close enough with any of them to talk to them about it and DP is quiet and awkward. I will be jet lagged and none of them will thinking of us.

To start with I am a later sleeper- 8am/9am and they are all up before me and loud. PIL are up at 5am and BIL at 7am. And they will want to use the living room. They are not the most considerate bunch such as wont get out of the living room if I want to sleep. They wont have a problem with waking me up in the morning.

I already struggle to sleep and get very grumpy if it's interrupted. I just don't know how to bring this up without being really selfish.

I feel like I don't want to go anymore and feel rubbish about it. I also don't want to be ungrateful. DP thinks I should just suck it up because i'm not paying but this is also my annual leave. What are your thoughts?

DP family is from a different culture where they don't talk about feelings

I never would have got with the limp bit of wilting lettuce in the first place!!

mind you…. The op doesn’t exactly seem a world away from him does she

I knew the villa was booked at least 2 months ago. But only just found out it was 2 bedrooms. The cofirmation was posted in the chat but I didn't look at it. Just thought it sounded fun and thanked them

2 months ago you got the link to the villa but didn’t bother to open the link until a day or so ago?? Oh op, given the history of you being walked all over re rooms on holidays, I’d have thought you might just have bothered to open that link before now!!

In which case, you have no choice but to suck it up if you're allocated the sofa bed.

They were always going to do that anyway. And probably will do so every year. But carry on accepting the freebie.

Their kids will probably end up sleeping in tents outside whilst BIL’s kids have a room each to their own. But the DP will crack on simpering “chill out @cawqa we shouldn’t have a problem with this so I’m not going to say anything”!

I said this yesterday

I don’t understand why you didn’t click on the link at the time. That’s the first thing I would have done once someone has booked a place

why did you say thanks and not look at it

Nobody wants the sofa bed.
No one can say 'the bedroom is ours' unless you pay the villa.

I would pay accommodation myself or don't go.

But they're treating you like the family pet?

Oh the dog will be fine. It can sleep in a corner of the kitchen or on the living room sofa. It'll be ok. It's just a dog. Of course we're not booking a bedroom and bathroom for the dog! The dog will be happy just to be with us all.

You're the dog OP.

They've charmed you and you've fallen for it but being funny etc doesn't make them kind, caring, respectful and decent people. They're inconsiderate, they don't care if you sleep, they don't care if you enjoy the holiday, they don't care if it takes most of your annual leave, they don't care if you have no privacy, they don't care if it costs more than you can afford, they're happy to change the plans without telling you in advance (but I bet they still expected you to pay for the flights they chose to book for you to the new destination). Decent people who actually liked and cared about you wouldn't treat you like this.

Because nobody wants the sofabed and we all know.
And no one can claim the bedroom because they did speak up before the holiday was booked or paid the accommodation.

Before agreeing I’d have asked what the plan was

nope. Not @cawqa . Despite a chequered history of crap rooms she doesn’t even open the accommodation link sent 2 months ago!!

Op… you’ll be in that sofa bed guaranteed

This 100%

So I have been away with the in laws 4 times and it was only the first time that there was a problem with the mezzanine bed.

One other time they had booked BIL, DP and I all in the same room, but I was able to shift BIL to their room due to a bereavement.

The other times have been we got our own hotel room.

They put you in a bedroom with your BIL? How on earth did they think in a million years that would be acceptable?
Dont go unless this bedroom stuff is sorted. These people don’t do boundaries!

I'm shocked OP. And I didn't think that was possible with this situation after reading the rest of the thread!

In what world would an adult man be sharing a bedroom with an unrelated woman who he also isn't dating? You got him shifted to their room due to bereavement??? What about due to it being totally unreasonable and inappropriate?!

He's their son, of course if he's going to be sharing with someone it should be his parents, not his brother and his brother's girlfriend. No normal person would be ok with that!

OP, if you haven't heard of it, the Stately Homes long running thread is the one you'll be wanting in 10yrs time when you're trying to make sense of why your future DC are treated like second class citizens compared to your BIL/SILs DC. And why even then, after having relegated your DC to second best and interfered in your parenting of them, your PIL are taking it further still and treating one of your DC like stardust and the other like mud.

They put you in a bedroom with your BIL? How on earth did they think in a million years that would be acceptable?

OMG, this gets worse - cancel the flights

So to sum up, from your past experience, they have made inappropriate and unsuitable sleeping arrangements every single time you've been away with them, unless you've booked your own hotel rooms.

There's no way they're going to 'sort it out' this time are they?

Basically someone had to die in order to allow op some privacy in sleeping arrangements. Grim and shocking

OMG 😳 🤣🤣 PMSL but, yeh, when you put it like that... Geez 😱 that sure is something else!
I'm not even the OP and I'll never meet these people but all the same I'm getting strong urge to back slowly away for a distance from this family, before running for the hills.

Well put!!!!

OP these are not people who respect you.

I think you need to decide if you feel strongly enough about not sleeping on the sofa bed that you would cancel the flights and stay elsewhere. You cannot threaten this unless you would follow through.
It looks like there is a high chance the sorting out will end up with you having the sofa bed.If you go ahead I would have a stratagy to cope and decide on what boundaries you would keep.
Using other bedroom for changing or the bathroom.
Going to bed when you want to. Getting ready for bed and saying you need to lye down (eye mask, ear plugs, comedy PJs)
Not getting up earlier than you want to.
I would possibly bring a compact air bed or a tent especially if I had back issues.
Stating that you will not be willing to do this in the future.

That. You blew it right there.

If I'd been the one spending the time to research and book, I'd be really annoyed to have one of the party come back two months later to complain about the arrangement.

Had you made the effort to click on the bloody link at the time, he could have done something about it, but of course the place is now fully booked. And now you're going to be petulant about where you sleep and potentially spoil the stay for everyone.

I've lost all sympathy now. You were too lazy to click (despite the history) and you you thanked him. So he thought everything was fine. You've made your own bed (no pun intended) and you're just going to have to suck it up. You're not paying, and you left it too late to make a fuss.

OP, I agree that you messed up by not checking things out when you were first sent them, lesson learnt. You need to go with the flow and preempt the next trip by saying that going forward, you need a bedroom. If you can't afford to chip in and they can't/won't, then don't go. Are his family Asian? or there's Eastern European cultures were people do just fit themselves in to the accommodation and don't talk about feelings, so I understand the difficulty. However they've got to start seeing you as adults, but that will take your DH starting to become assertive. Stating your need for a bedroom isn't talking about feelings, so you can help him with that. Some posters very often don't get how we are schooled to keep quiet via our cultural and family backgrounds.

I would possibly bring a compact air bed or a tent especially if I had back issues.

Good luck fitting that in a suitcase with a weight limit!

If I'd been the one spending the time to research and book, I'd be really annoyed to have one of the party come back two months later to complain about the arrangement.

If I’d been the one spending the time to research and book, I would have booked the right amount of bedrooms

If you’ve been away with them and on two out of four occasions, there were issues with the rooms (and the other two times things were only ok because you’d got hotel rooms!) I would have not agreed to any future plans with them involving villas!