Perspective | Carolyn Hax: She just wanted to be alone, then her in-laws crashed her vacation - The Washington Post
Dear Carolyn: My in-laws have a second home, which they have always encouraged my husband and me to use “even when we’re not there, just to get away and have a holiday with each other.” We’ve never taken them up on the solo offer before, but this year my husband and I really needed a place to recharge our batteries, alone. In addition to the awful covid year everyone had, I had two miscarriages and lost my sister in a car accident. So we asked, very specifically, if there was a week the house would be empty so that the two of us could use it.
We arrived today, and as we pulled into the driveway, my mother-in-law popped out of the neighbor's house. Turns out my in-laws arranged to stay next door for the week “as a fun surprise.” Her rationale was that we were, technically, given the empty house, but this way we can still plan “some activities” together: She's suggested dinner every night plus one other activity every day.
My husband thinks we need to suck it up and commit to at least a few meals, since my in-laws drove all this way. I feel furious, exhausted and sad. I needed to be alone this week.
Need to Be Alone: I am so sorry for the year you had. And furious on your behalf at your in-laws’ brazen emotional trespassing.
I didn't see your question in time to answer you in the moment. But your story stayed with me, and I'm confident others will not only sympathize, but also feel it right in their own realities.
The only answer here — only — was for your husband to explain to his parents, calmly and firmly, that you both love them and enjoy their company, but took this week to be alone. He could have left it there — without apology — or continued to point out that surprises are not gifts when they presume to schedule other people's time for them. People are allowed to have needs, honor them, and disappoint others in the process.
He could also have added that under different circumstances you might have been happy to share a week — so the answer for any possible next time is to check with you first. There’s nothing wrong with reading the moment and offering comfort that doesn’t compromise the message.
(To anyone who is mentally composing a response to me that the owners of the home or parents in general have this prerogative, stop. Just stop. They don't. Thank you.)
I don't know how this played out, whether your husband stood up for you and your marriage in the end, and whether your in-laws were good sports about it.
I do suspect that if he didn't, then it's due to his having been conditioned throughout his childhood to accept such trespassing as normal. And if so, then I expect you still harbor resentment for that. Earned.
So if he ultimately let you down and agreed to the dinners with Mom and Dad and if you just sucked it up — if you didn't respond to this marital capitulation by getting in the car and leaving, a choice I'd back 100 percent — then we've arrived at my other reason for answering this after the fact:
Marriages don't work like oysters — the grit of unresolved anger will cause serious internal damage, not serve up pearls.
So if you're at that point, then please share this belated answer with him as an opening. Say why this still bothers you and why it's important to talk about it so long after the fact: to establish once and for all that you chose each other as your people. And while claiming a partner's full attention all the time (to preempt their nurturing any connections outside the marriage) is problematic to the point of harm, there will be times each of you needs to call “dibs” on the other's attention without having to justify it.
Though justify it you certainly could: Crushing grief and “they drove all this way” hardly warrant his equal concern.
Letting go of a lost cause has two difficult and complicated steps, oversimplified as follows: Fill up your life meaningfully without this person, and resist the temptation to idealize what isn’t there. Because if you could have it, then you would. A good partner is all in, and I gather your friend is not. I’m sorry.
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source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/01/09/carolyn-hax-inlaws-crashed-vacation-miscarriage/
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