Holidays with The In-laws

CyberDave

My in-laws never really bothered me too much until we have had children. My kids are their only grandkids and they are very good to them, but in recent years my MiL in particular has now pushed for a week's holiday with the kids. She is a nice woman, but I'm really not interested in spending any protracted length of time with her, especially not my hard-earned time off.

My wife goes along with the plans and has gone on holidays with her, her sister and our kids the past couple of years. I don't go, but there seems to be a sort of expectation (from MiL mainly) that I should tag along. I don't like to miss out on time with the kids and my wife, but the holiday is the idea of MiL and SiL. It's just not my idea of relaxation. I don't know many male friends of mine who would be interested in a week on holidays with their in-laws either.

Am I the worst father/husband in the world or am I right to not be guilted into going along?

Jafin

Personally I would say just go. Don't do it for the MiL, the SiL, yourself or even your wife. Do it for your kids. Think of the bigger picture. You're missing out on a lot of memories with your kids, and it would be a shame for them to look back on pictures of the holidays in 20 years and not have you be in a single one of them. Could this potentially cause problems with your partner a few years down the road, if she thinks you hate spending time with your in laws? People like to talk when you're not around. The MiL/SiL could very well be questioning your wife on why you won't join them when they're on the holiday. Those last two situations are of course hypothetical, but they are possible.

At the end of the day it's only one week out of the year. You still have the other time off you get in the year that you can spend your own way. I don't think it's too much to ask to use one of those weeks to go on a holiday, even if it's with people you'd rather not spend time with. We all have to do things we don't want in life. You're far from the worst father/husband in the world, but I would consider it slightly selfish on your part as you are only taking your own discomfort into consideration rather than considering how happy it would make your kids and your wife. At least that's how it comes across to me from your post.

Just my opinion on the matter.

thefallingman

do it for your wife it's only a week, she's probably getting it in the ear off her mam and sister i know as i had similar years ago. Bring a book and let them go out and you babysit the kids so you can avoid them as much as possible

...Ghost...

Dude, you're missing the opportunity here. Not only do you get to spend time with your kids during the day....but you get to spend time in the evening with your wife while the inlaws watch over the kids. Win/Win.

Seriously though. Many people don't get on with their inlaws. Consider yourself lucky. I have a good relationship with mine and have occasionally shared holidays with them. Works out quite well.

ThreeGreens

Am I correct in understanding that you seperately go on holidays with your wife and kids?

Youv'e got limited holiday time from work, so if you were to go with your MIL, SIL, Wife & Kids this would mean missing out on your "family holiday" with just you, your wife and kids? So for you it's a holidays with the inlaws OR a holiday with just your immediate family, but not both.

If I have that right, I then I think you are 100% in the correct. You work to provide for your family and you're entitled to your down time to go on holidays with your family. Your MIL or SIL have no right to barge into your family holiday time nor any right to decide where you go.

I suspect your wife, MIL and SIL aren't bound by work schedules and annual leave, so for them it's not such a big deal. They can still have their own family holiday in addition to the one with your wife and kids.

Personally if they are pushing you, I'd not be avoiding the issue. Instead simply state that you've limited time off work, so can only do one holiday and you really want to spend it with just your wife and kids....nobody else, not inlaws, not best friends not celebrities....not anyone. And don't feel guilty about it. You're entitled to and earned the right to your holiday.

Some of the other posters do have a point that you might indeed be able to leave your kids with the inlaws while you go out, but you might not want to, and for many (myself included) that wouldn't be enough to outweight the situation.

Big Bag of Chips

Personally, I would hate to be expected to go on holidays with my in-laws (or anyone really) regularly. I know my husband wouldn't be too enthusiastic about going on holidays wurh his in-laws either.

Your issue here is your wife. Your 1 family holiday every year should not be focused around her mother and sister. If she wants to go an another holiday with them separate to you, then that's one thing. If she expects you to always go on holiday with her mother and sister in tow, then that's unreasonable.

I think you should probably go for 1 holiday with them, but make it clear to your wife that it will not be 24/7 in the company of her mother and sister. That you will expect as a family you will go off by yourself occasionally. Day trips out etc. Honestly, children won't really mind. My father due to work commitments (and not being that interested!!) never came on holiday with us. We never holidayed abroad. I never thought it was unusual, and it's not like it affected us in any way. So I wouldn't feel guilted into it "for the kids".

I think you could probably commit to one holiday. But make it clear to your wife it will not be every holiday. And you will expect time to yourselves as a family.

CyberDave

Thanks for your responses. I understand the different points of view. To clarify, this holiday is not my family's (without in-laws) only holiday of the year. We do usually have a holiday on our own as well. Although, in the lead up to this holiday there are often comments from MiL to the kids, within earshot of my wife and I, asking would they like her to come along. This really gets me, it is manipulative and unnecessary. As I said in OP, they are generally nice people but they came along at the end of one of our holidays in the past and I did not like it. FiL chose where we ate and my wife, her sister and MiL spend half their time fussing about his preferences. He is quietly critical of me and MiL is just to extroverted and I cannot relax.

If it's not currently causing any tension between you and your wife, then I'd say you're probably better off swerving the extended family holiday. If you can't relax on a holiday, then what's the point?

SAMTALK

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119085844#Comment_119085844

If you have a family holiday with just yourselves then I would be inclined to let your wife and kids off with her family

The whole good goes out of a holiday if there is tension and it doesnt sound like much fun, so to save any agro just let them off and enjoy the peace and quiet for the week

StevenToast

Very tricky OP...if my wife expected me to head off with the in laws for a week.....it just wouldnt happen!

She knows me well enough not to even try.....

Baybay

Depending on where the holiday is, maybe you could do a bit of overlapping? An overnight mid week or the first or last weekend of the trip might work.

We have holidayed with both sides, though not every year. Some were overlapping breaks, either we joined them for a few days at the beginning or end of their holiday or vice versa. We don’t leave near each other so it was nice for everyone to spend a few days together & as someone said, babysitting thrown in on one of the nights! It’s also nice to look back on the photographs of everyone now, for us & the grandchildren as one set of grandparents has passed away.

Having said that, I’d be very reluctant to spend every day of my family holiday, every year with anybody other than my OH & children.

CyberDave

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119085921#Comment_119085921

I don't think so, obviously. As a kid growing up I never went on holidays with my own parents. I would maybe spend a night or two at my cousin's house during school holidays. It's a completely alien thing to me to be holidaying with parents, in-laws or not. Everyone has a different point of view on it and not sure if many people like someone suggesting that they might be an asshole.

ElizaBennett

You should in no way feel obliged to go on holidays with your in-laws. Don't spend one second feeling guilty over that. I wouldn't entertain this idea for a moment and nor would most working people whose annual leave is precious. Tbh i doubt the kids or the other adults involved really care about you being there either. It's probably nice for your wife to spend that time with her family. Your MiL is just being a bit nosey / inappropriate by questioning your decision not to go. Is she deluded? Who would want to do that? The kids can cope without seeing you for a week and you can have a heavenly week of me-time home alone. Some people call that selfish.. I say Bring it On!

homer911

Agree some ground rules before you commit - eg who is paying for what and what time you will have as a couple etc

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119086095#Comment_119086095

neither did I

So the issue is a deepseated regret that you never went on holidays with your own parents?

sure why not bring them as well, it would be cathartic, perhaps see how your wife reacts to that

I can't see an issue with going with them if they are ok people (as described nice woman), if they are a pain in hoop well maybe not

I would say that the average grounded person would look at it as a nice thing that the grandparents want to spend time with the kids and facilitate, I mean I actually invite my MIL on the odd holiday

naughtysmurf

It’s a tough one, if you say ok and go there is a good chance that you’ll be holidaying with your in-laws for the foreseeable, how do you feel about that?

So the issue is a deepseated regret that you never went on holidays with your own parents?

Relax with the armchair psychology degree there, Sigmund, no need to jump to any sort of ridiculous conclusions. He doesn't wanna go with the in-laws, like probably half the feckin country. I've no problems with my own, but I'd need to be sedated to go on holliers with any of the previous crowd. Swings and roundabouts, depends on the people involved. You're perfectly entitled to not go.

Hooked

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119086110#Comment_119086110

Pretty much exactly what I would have written!

facehugger99

God, I'd love if my wife brought the kids away for a week with my in-laws. Sounds like bliss.

No way would I feel guilted into going - I see my in laws enough as it is I certainly wouldn't be spending my annual leave going on holidays with them.

Furze99

If it's becoming an annual thing, then go every second year or so. Won't last forever anyway, nothing does.

seamus

Yeah, you're always going to get a mixed bag on this one. Certainly, being guilted into this is not cool. And if it's only your MIL doing the guilting then I'd pay no heed. If your wife is at you about it, you need to ask her why it matters to her and work from there.

We do go away with the in-laws every now and again. It's not a regular expectation though. I'm the same as you - I have the only grandkids, and in my case everyone comes along, grandparents, SIL and BIL.

To be fair every couple of years we do something similar on my side, so it's not like my wife never has to go away with her in-laws.

It's really all about the dynamic. About why you feel like you wouldn't be able to relax. I get around it by calling the shots. We set the agenda, we decide what things we're doing (or not doing), and we book the meals. The in-laws row in with our plans, and that works for me. I then don't feel like I'm on someone else's holiday as a tagalong. Well, I feel like I'm on my kids' holiday as a tagalong, but I can handle that :D

Also very, super important, that whatever accommodation you book has separation between you and them.

Go, life is so short, your in laws won't be around forever,

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058246500/holidays-with-the-in-laws

What does your wife think?

Does she mind you not going with them? If so, happy days.

If she would prefer you with her, maybe compromise by going every other year.

Neyite

You married your partner. While family occasions are to be expected, spending extended amounts of time with inlaws will inevitably put a strain on that relationship and your own marriage.

My partner does pretty much funerals and weddings for our side of the family. After one holiday where we stayed adjacent to my family we both swore never again. I love my in-laws but what they love on holiday and what I love are two very different things. And like you I'd only get enough time for one proper holiday a year so I want to spend it doing what we like as a family, not doing stuff that my in-laws prefer. I will never ever, waste my time and money going on a holiday where another adult dictates my schedule like I'm a child.

Would your wife go on holidays with your family? You don't mention your family but if she would recoil in horror at the idea of spending extended time with your mum, dad and whoever else, to the extent she's using up all her own holiday time maybe that's a way of explaining to her to get her to see it from your point of view.

But it's not their only holiday. He does goes on a seperate holiday with just his wife and kids too.

irelandrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111623#Comment_119111623

That the mother in law tries to also go on by guilting them through the children. I've gone on a weekend away with my in laws. That's about my limit.

I would not use a week of my holidays every year to go on holidays with my in laws. My holidays are for relaxing and that holiday simply wouldn't be. If i was you i wouldnt be guilted into it. Go every five years maybe to keep your wife happy

Neyite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111623#Comment_119111623

We do usually have a holiday on our own as well. Although, in the lead up to this holiday there are often comments from MiL to the kids, within earshot of my wife and I, asking would they like her to come along. This really gets me, it is manipulative and unnecessary. As I said in OP, they are generally nice people but they came along at the end of one of our holidays in the past and I did not like it. FiL chose where we ate and my wife, her sister and MiL spend half their time fussing about his preferences. He is quietly critical of me and MiL is just to extroverted and I cannot relax.

MIL's angling to go on that one too, unfortunately!

At the moment he's choosing not to go on the inlaw's holiday and given what he's said about them, neither would I. The problem is the wife - she's entertainig the manipulative hints and not shutting them down as they arise. All that needs to be said is "Gosh, no Mum. That's our family time with the kids. I'm happy to do another holiday with you guys and the kids when Dave has to work, but he's got limited time off and wants to keep that for our family holiday." And just repeat every time.

Well, like you say, the family holiday is were you put the foot down.

Maybe the OPs wife likes a break away with her Mother and sister, while hubby does his own thing, I'd go and encourage him to do something with his own friends that week.

Or you know, paint the house 😉

(j/k)

Liberty_Bear

I dont know, I think this might be an opportunity for yourself to have some down time. If you are flat out , sometimes its nice to have a few days off or you could tell the MIL and SIL that you will go for three days, give you sometime with the family.

kowloonkev

I can understand some of the issues that the OP has but I think it's a bad look for his wife and kids to be going off on a holiday while he stays at home to have his own holiday. If he was working then it's fine, but it is a bit odd and selfish otherwise, especially towards his wife and kids.

I remember once going away with my mother, brother and other relations on my mother's side while my dad wasn't there, and it felt incomplete and the memory of that holiday is not good. The family unit is very important for kids. My dad was working long shifts while we were away. If he had stayed at home alone that would have been hurtful. And OP, from your description of her I definitely think your MIL is going to mention that you're having your own little holiday to your kids. They won't understand it, and they will remember it.