Help me with a tactful reply

[runwad]

Ok I'll try to give you the cliff notes version....but 1st some background. Last year last minute I won an auction for a trip to Orlando. It was a 3 bedroom at Cypress Pointe. There is 5 in my family, the condo I think would've fit 10? Anyway we win and literally leave the next day. Well our families got a little miffed that we didn't invite any of them along seeing as how we had the room and it only cost us 263 for the week. MIL accused husband of keeping it a "secret". My little sister said her and her family would've went (never mind they weren't invited, and her kids where in school the week, she woud've taken them out) Anyway fast forward to this year...we are going again in April, got a condo in June but I didn't let any family know because honestly we like to travel alone with just our kids. Well now MIL had a conversation w/DH asking if we were going away for spring break and would we like some company? DH didn't tell her we were going but said probably some point in the future we'd go back. She said she wants to do a family vacation, WE DON"T!! DH said he wouldn't mind his parents coming but he doesn't want to go on a family vacation with his sister and her family too. My sister knows about the vacation but I told her there is no room for her family, there isn't she has 3 kids too condo is only for 8 we'd be 10. So she says something about us taking her oldest DD, honestly I wouldnt mind that it would make us a family of 6 and someone wouldn't have to ride rides by themselves at Disney...but there is no room for her in our car. So I tell DS she and DN can fly and meet us. Well she's not said anymore about it and neither have I cause now that I think about it I'd not like anyone else to go. BUT if IL are thinking of coming I'd rather have sister than them. So what do I do, what do I say? It's hard to tell Family you don't want them along. And I'm resentful of the fact that they are putting me in this postion and making me look like the bad guy not wanting tag-a-longs when they're family. Also I should tell you I feel guilty because MIL is getting altzheimers and who knows how much time we'd have left, but still even if she didnt have altzheimers I went on one vacation w/them and said never again, but now with this illness I feel bad.

 

[Perditamarie]

Wow..that's a tough spot to be in, but don't give into guilt. You can say that your vacations are special times for your family to take a break from busy schedules and obligations to just enjoy each other -- because they are and you worked all year for this. You can offer to discuss a family gathering or vacation for a mutually agreed time/place/list of invitees instead of trying to accomodate everyone that wants to jump on to your vacation.

I would guess that if these folks feel so entitled to your vacation, that they may not respect any other boundaries for your special family time. DO NOT FEEL GUILTY.

 

[toesmom]

I wouldn't want to take my whole family on holiday; our family vacation is meant for our immediate family of 4. I know lots of families like to go together, however, we think vacation time is special and doesn't include everyone.

Don't feel guilty. Just ask your dh to explain nicely to his parents that he wants his vacation to be special family time that you just can't get when parents are working and routines are the same every day.

Our families travel to Mexico and we gladly go by ourselves to DW. They never make us feel bad about it, but I know they wish we went with them. We however go alone and always like it this way better.

You'll just have to ask your dh to clarify how important your family time is for your family and perhaps you could do some small weekend getaway over the summer with everyone instead.

 

[runwad]

Well honestly Spring Break is our family's only chance at getting away together, we have 3 kids heavily involved in sports and my DH coaches most of them. He will not miss out on a practice or a game during the season to go on a vacation, and when you play soccer, baseball, softball, and basketball that is pretty much year round. The one family vacation w/his family was before the kids were in school or sports but it just didn't work out all of us in the same house for 7 days. Plus his parents would want to ride down with us in our van and it's just not comfortable with 7 in there for 15 to 17 hours. My family has talked about vacationing together too and I have no more desire to go with them than my in-laws. And it's mostly me not DH ,he would go with anyone, I'm the selfish one I guess. If I want to walk around in my pj's w/o a robe on my vacation then I want to be able to do that. Plus you know everyone wants to jump on our bandwagon because I'm the one that searches out bargains, so it'd be cheaper for all of them to come with us than plan their own thing. But there just isn't anything I can say that won't make me look bad in their eyes.

 

[hollieplus2]

I would just let them know that although there may be room for a couple more, this is your family vacation to spend together and you would love to make arrangements for an all together family vacation in the future. Let them know you think it's a great idea and let MIL help plan or something. That way she feels involved. I would make it a long weekend not a whole week type thing and somewhere pretty close and not too expensive. Don't let them bully you into taking them. Then you will have them with you from morning to night and you won't have any fun. You shouldn't spend your hard earned money and be miserable.

 

[bcvprincesses]

I totally understand. I am so sick of my dh parents just joining us everywhere we go. We are leaving for Disney tomorrow for our dd's gymnastics meet and they are going to meet us there. Ummmm I don't think anyone invited you. They usually tell us that they are going to go a few weeks before we leave. They also invited my dh's aunts. They expect us to drop all our plans and meet them. We have made plans for dinner and they just think that they can come. My dh will never say anything to them and they are totally driving me crazy.

These are the same people that have a remote for our garage door and just open the door and come into our house. No knock or anything. They showed up at our house on Jan 1 at 9 am and woke us all up. I was sooo mad. My dh doesn't understand that they really should at least knock and wait for someone to open the door.

 

[runwad]

I totally understand. I am so sick of my dh parents just joining us everywhere we go. We are leaving for Disney tomorrow for our dd's gymnastics meet and they are going to meet us there. Ummmm I don't think anyone invited you. They usually tell us that they are going to go a few weeks before we leave. They also invited my dh's aunts. They expect us to drop all our plans and meet them. We have made plans for dinner and they just think that they can come. My dh will never say anything to them and they are totally driving me crazy.

These are the same people that have a remote for our garage door and just open the door and come into our house. No knock or anything. They showed up at our house on Jan 1 at 9 am and woke us all up. I was sooo mad. My dh doesn't understand that they really should at least knock and wait for someone to open the door.

Yuck, I feel for you We used to have issues like that earlier in our marriage but now that his parents are getting older (late 60's) and we live 50 minutes away from them it's better. Although now we sometimes have a different set of issues, they come down then have to spend the night because they don't like to drive back at night but it doesn't happen so much that I can't put up with it, and I do understand. And MIL loves her son so much and I do feel their time together is short therefore my quandry and guilty feelings. Uggh, I guess we'll probably not say anymore about this and hopefully she'll forget her conversation with DH. (oh that is so bad, I'm sorry).

 

[rt2dz]

I have not read all the replies, but I do KNOW how you feel. My parents want to do a huge family vacation (them, me, my 3 siblings, 2 spouses, 9 grandkids) and DH's parents would like to tag along with us sometime & bring DH's neice. Either way it is a recipe for disaster. But at the same time, it might really be nice in other aspects (don't think DH's parents will be around much longer, both have health issues).

This is what we have decided:

While my parents want to go to Disney & rent a large home offsite for everyone we have said no. Our vacation is important time for us to connect as a family without the everyday distractions. We can all go to Disney, but we need seperate accomidations. While my mother objected, I did point out it would be hard to find one place for that many people and she relented. I said we would have some scheduled activities to do together, but we also need free time to be alone. We decided we would meet for at least one meal every day together and then a few things together, but not all day, every day.

With DH's family, they just want to tag onto something we've already planned. We've told them we would do the planning, but the date and time must be decided on for a future (not in current planning stages) trip. We just tell them that we need the advance notice to plan the trip accordingly, that things can't be changed midstream. We will then only have them meet us for part of the trip. Most likely, they would join us for Friday pm/Saturday am- Monday afternoon. We just figured we could suck it up for 3-4 days and still have the bulk of our vacation as just us (our trips are usually 10 days).

I know that probably wasn't much help, but it might give you (or someone else) a few ideas to work off.

 

[yellownovawife]

With your DH and kids all being so busy all the time you have every right to be "selfish" and want to keep this family time just fo you! If you look bad in their eyes it is only that they cannot understand your family dynamics. Before you know it - your own kids will be off on their own - planning things without you! You have evry right to enjoy this time with them now! Do not feel guilty!

 

[Darcy03231]

What I've done in the past is let relatives know when we are going to be there, but make it clear that I am only booking accomodations and making arrangements for our family and they are on their own for their own arrangements and accomodations. We fly so we don't have the driving issue, but you could say that with all of the family and the luggage you really don't have room for anyone else. While you're there make plans for a couple of meals with the family and that's it. WDW is big enough that you don't have to see each other if you don't want to. Since I started doing this no one in my family has come yet!

 

[mericletwins]

I would probably tell them the arrangements I had made and let them make their own arrangements if they want to be there at the same time as you. Before I did this I would make sure that I had my room/resort and all my ADR's together. I woudl then inform them of the plans and say this is what we are doing, let me know if you would like me to TRY and add you to any ADR's we have. Chances are you won't be able to add to all of them and even if you can, say you can't for a few. Make it clear to everyone that decides to go and that makes their own travel arrangements/reservations that you will be spending some time with just your family on the trip and that is that.


Only do this if you feel that because of MIL health issues this may actually be the last chance for her to vacation this way as a family. It would give a happy medium I think to spend some time together and some apart on the trip.

(I would not add anyone into my room/condo because then you have to pick and choose and that will just lead to disaster!)

If you are completely opposed to spending any of your time with the extended family then tell them that you are looking forward to this as a family and then you would be happy to plan another trip with the extended family some other time.

Edited: If you tell them you would be happy to be involved in planning another trip for the extended family, make sure that you actually do it and offer up some suggestions for places for them to look over. I would do this right before I left for Disney so it would give them something to do while I was gone.

 

[runwad]

While those are all very good replies, noone in our families have every been to Disney except us and no way would 60 yr old's who've never been have any clue how to go about making their own arrangements. They fully intend to ride with us and stay with us. I think my best bet is to say we're driving the car, therefore no room, and that our condo only sleeps 4 but we checked and our son is ok to add since he's so small. I'll do like others have suggested and just have to say we'll try to plan something all together another time, non-disney....but I don't even want to do that, but will have to suck it up and probably have to. But it'll have to be next year not this year.

 

[mommyceratops]

You know don't feel guilty. I just did a trip with my MIL and Dnephew and will NEVER EVER do it again. It is just to hard we go to Disney to be with our family, it was miserable...trying to please everyone no one was happy and it just stunk.
I like my MIL a lot but not to travel with.

 

[mouseketeer_mom]

I would just let them know that although there may be room for a couple more, this is your family vacation to spend together and you would love to make arrangements for an all together family vacation in the future. Let them know you think it's a great idea and let MIL help plan or something. That way she feels involved. I would make it a long weekend not a whole week type thing and somewhere pretty close and not too expensive. Don't let them bully you into taking them. Then you will have them with you from morning to night and you won't have any fun. You shouldn't spend your hard earned money and be miserable.

Ditto. Just what I was going to suggest.

 

[rhonhod]

I was actually sad when I mad our plans for WDW. My brother and his wife and 3 kids usually go on vacation together.They couldn't go this time because they just bought a new house. I love vacationing with them!! My brother is my DH best friend and DSIL is mine, so we have a great time together. Am I crazy?

 

[AlleyKat]

These are the same people that have a remote for our garage door and just open the door and come into our house. No knock or anything.

Who gave them the remote?

Make a habit of locking the door that connects the house to the garage.

 

[dcox931]

vacationing with family is tricky.. especially extended family..

I always prefer to stick with close family when its vacation time.. easier on everyone.. plus i dont get along so good with the rest of my family.. lol

 

[unbroken chain]

Don't feel guilty. Look at it this way. If people are going to be unhappy and uncomfortable, is that the kind of family vacation memory you want your kids to have of your MIL? No. You'd rather they have good memories of her. People with Alzheimer's can become aggressive and harsh sometimes - personality changes. The person can't help this, of course. But this might make shorter visits (perhaps more frequent) better than 7 straight days and nights, not to mention 15 hours in the car each way!

My MIL would show up on relative's vacations, uninvited. We learned never to tell her where we were going or staying. But my husband was pretty vocal about how much he hated his mother so he didn't want her there either.

 

[runwad]

People with Alzheimer's can become aggressive and harsh sometimes - personality changes. The person can't help this, of course. But this might make shorter visits (perhaps more frequent) better than 7 straight days and nights, not to mention 15 hours in the car each way!

Yep we're starting to notice this a little with her, I told DH his mother was always so positive NEVER said a negative thing about anyone or talked about people behind their back but now I"m starting to notice her doing both a little. I just really hope we'll be able to wiggle our way out of this without too many hurt feelings, but I don't think so. Someone is going to be mad. My family gets mad everytime they all make plans to go somewhere together and we don't go with them...I don't mind that, but when they start intruding on my plans well it just seems a little different. Plus I resent the fact that I have to defend myself to them all and be so sneaky with my vacation plans, I guess I just need a thicker skin...always trying to not cause trouble or hard feelings.


And rhonhod you're lucky you feel that way!! I don't think you're crazy at all.

 

[AlleyKat]

It's hard to tell Family you don't want them along.

And I'm resentful of the fact that they are putting me in this postion

The family dynamics behind the many threads I've read detailing the type of scenario you describe always has one member, such as yourself, that all other members rely on(sarcastic way of saying "use")!

The grunt work is done, then low and behold, friends and family come out of the woodwork planning, scheming and outright stating how they are able to go, when they were never asked.

The ignorance...it boggles my mind!

As for your MIL, she may not have alzheimers disease. If a diagnosis is confirmed, there is nothing you need feel guilty about!