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Help! My In-Laws Keep Forcing Us to Go on Lavish Vacations With Them.
Q: I recently returned from a weeklong vacation with my in-laws and I’m exhausted! I love my in-laws, but a week straight with them in close confines was frankly torture. My husband’s family is very close; in fact, we all live on the same street! We see each other almost daily and my mother-in-law babysits our kids during the week while we’re at work.
The vacation we took was very extravagant and paid for almost completely by my in-laws, but not at all how I would have chosen to spend a week of precious vacation time. In talking to my other siblings-in-law, they all felt the same way. The vacation was also a “surprise” and we were all only given about two months’ notice. We know that if work commitments had not allowed us to go, there would have been HUGE problems and drama, so we all had to rearrange our work schedules and other days off in order to make a vacation that none of us really wanted to go on happen. This is not the first time this has happened either; my father-in-law frequently springs trips on us to destinations of his choice, on dates of his choosing, without any input from us, and we are all expected to be excited and grateful because he’s footing the majority of the bill. He does not appear to understand or care that this can create real issues for us at work when it comes to requesting time off.
My husband and I have not gone on a true vacation of our own, that doesn’t involve visiting family of some sort, for almost five years because of these “surprise” trips. I know my father-in-law thinks he’s doing something nice, but it feels more like he’s just trying to control us and the way we spend our time. I feel like a total jerk for complaining about being treated to extravagant vacations, but my husband and I are grown adults who are lucky enough to be able to afford to have nice vacations on our own with just our children, but we never can because we only get so much vacation time per year and it’s all taken up with these family trips. We spend so much time with them already that it would be nice to have it be just us for once. I know that my husband’s siblings feel the same way.Should we say something to my father-in-law? How do we tell him we don’t want to do these trips anymore, or would at least prefer shorter durations or less frequent trips, without making it seem like we are ungrateful and don’t want to spend time together? I am afraid that he will be irreparably insulted. Or are we all being terribly childish and we should just be happy and grateful that he wants to treat us to nice trips?
A: “It’s not a good time for me to take off work, so I’ll have to miss this one” or “Thank you so much for being so generous and thinking of us, but we’ve already made plans to use our time off to take the kids to Disneyland” should be enough of an excuse for any reasonable person. And if he’s not reasonable, well, he can have a tantrum but it’s not your problem. Because this would represent a change to the way your family does things, you can even warn him: “Just wanted to let you know that we’re so grateful for the amazing times we’ve had and we appreciate you, but we’ve planned out our vacations for the coming year so we won’t be able to go on any surprise trips. Let’s make sure to spend lots of weekends together instead.”
But I’m reading between the lines here to guess (based on the fact that he can afford to fund extravagant vacations for the whole family) that the real reason you don’t want to piss him off might be because you’re worried about being cut off financially or written out of the will. If that’s the case, you’ll have to decide whether the vacations are worth the price.
The vacation we took was very extravagant and paid for almost completely by my in-laws, but not at all how I would have chosen to spend a week of precious vacation time. In talking to my other siblings-in-law, they all felt the same way. The vacation was also a “surprise” and we were all only given about two months’ notice. We know that if work commitments had not allowed us to go, there would have been HUGE problems and drama, so we all had to rearrange our work schedules and other days off in order to make a vacation that none of us really wanted to go on happen. This is not the first time this has happened either; my father-in-law frequently springs trips on us to destinations of his choice, on dates of his choosing, without any input from us, and we are all expected to be excited and grateful because he’s footing the majority of the bill. He does not appear to understand or care that this can create real issues for us at work when it comes to requesting time off.
My husband and I have not gone on a true vacation of our own, that doesn’t involve visiting family of some sort, for almost five years because of these “surprise” trips. I know my father-in-law thinks he’s doing something nice, but it feels more like he’s just trying to control us and the way we spend our time. I feel like a total jerk for complaining about being treated to extravagant vacations, but my husband and I are grown adults who are lucky enough to be able to afford to have nice vacations on our own with just our children, but we never can because we only get so much vacation time per year and it’s all taken up with these family trips. We spend so much time with them already that it would be nice to have it be just us for once. I know that my husband’s siblings feel the same way.Should we say something to my father-in-law? How do we tell him we don’t want to do these trips anymore, or would at least prefer shorter durations or less frequent trips, without making it seem like we are ungrateful and don’t want to spend time together? I am afraid that he will be irreparably insulted. Or are we all being terribly childish and we should just be happy and grateful that he wants to treat us to nice trips?
A: “It’s not a good time for me to take off work, so I’ll have to miss this one” or “Thank you so much for being so generous and thinking of us, but we’ve already made plans to use our time off to take the kids to Disneyland” should be enough of an excuse for any reasonable person. And if he’s not reasonable, well, he can have a tantrum but it’s not your problem. Because this would represent a change to the way your family does things, you can even warn him: “Just wanted to let you know that we’re so grateful for the amazing times we’ve had and we appreciate you, but we’ve planned out our vacations for the coming year so we won’t be able to go on any surprise trips. Let’s make sure to spend lots of weekends together instead.”
But I’m reading between the lines here to guess (based on the fact that he can afford to fund extravagant vacations for the whole family) that the real reason you don’t want to piss him off might be because you’re worried about being cut off financially or written out of the will. If that’s the case, you’ll have to decide whether the vacations are worth the price.