Context: my wife and i bought a cottage 5 years ago. high maintenance property, but we love it. my in laws (parents in law, sister in law/husband/2 loud kids, brother in law/partner less so) use it nearly as much as we do, which is generally fine. its got the space.
This year, we’re going to get limited use of it because my wife is expecting and we’ll basically be done going after this weekend through labour day. we had them up around Canada day for a long weekend, and they were up two other times this summer already too.
we planned to have a quiet last weekend before baby arrives with just our family. Then we invited her brother/partner because they hadn’t made it up this summer yet and likely wouldn’t make it up till labour day as well, and they’re chill people who won’t ruin an attempt at a quiet weekend.
sister in law finds out that they’re coming up and messages brother, mother, my wife all trying to find out why we don’t want them up there. (her FOMO is S-tier), and basically wrangles an invite out of my wife. doesn’t say anything for 24hrs, then when prompted says theyre still thinking about it, then silence for 3 days. now we’re about to leave in a few hours, and she messages this morning saying they’re coming, whats the food plan?
well the food plan has already been sorted out with brother in law/partner since it was radio silence, we assumed they weren’t coming (high allergen needs in the family too).
I get pretty pissed, morning gets ruined, wife doesn’t want me to say anything because conflict aversion in the family is also S-tier, but is also feeling like she doesn’t even want to go anymore. I call mother in law to give more context and ask her to convince sister in law not to go. wife finds out i called and gets angry because now she’s in the middle between me and her sister… i was attempting to remove her from the middle of it, but also trying to avoid conflict with the sister in law.
I just think we need a quiet weekend which was made clear, and probably should have been respected from teh start, but then when the invite is made, they shouldn’t have waited till the 11th hour to derail all of our plans.
AITA for try to rescind an invite to my sister in law and her family? (who PS, we’ve already given permission for them to use on their own with one of the brother in law’s family members the next weekend, no questions asked!)
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Context: my wife and i bought a cottage 5 years ago. high maintenance property, but we love it. my in laws (parents in law, sister in law/husband/2 loud kids, brother in law/partner less so) use it nearly as much as we do, which is generally fine. its got the space.
This year, we’re going to get limited use of it because my wife is expecting and we’ll basically be done going after this weekend through labour day. we had them up around Canada day for a long weekend, and they were up two other times this summer already too.
we planned to have a quiet last weekend before baby arrives with just our family. Then we invited her brother/partner because they hadn’t made it up this summer yet and likely wouldn’t make it up till labour day as well, and they’re chill people who won’t ruin an attempt at a quiet weekend.
sister in law finds out that they’re coming up and messages brother, mother, my wife all trying to find out why we don’t want them up there. (her FOMO is S-tier), and basically wrangles an invite out of my wife. doesn’t say anything for 24hrs, then when prompted says theyre still thinking about it, then silence for 3 days. now we’re about to leave in a few hours, and she messages this morning saying they’re coming, whats the food plan?
well the food plan has already been sorted out with brother in law/partner since it was radio silence, we assumed they weren’t coming (high allergen needs in the family too).
I get pretty pissed, morning gets ruined, wife doesn’t want me to say anything because conflict aversion in the family is also S-tier, but is also feeling like she doesn’t even want to go anymore. I call mother in law to give more context and ask her to convince sister in law not to go. wife finds out i called and gets angry because now she’s in the middle between me and her sister… i was attempting to remove her from the middle of it, but also trying to avoid conflict with the sister in law.
I just think we need a quiet weekend which was made clear, and probably should have been respected from teh start, but then when the invite is made, they shouldn’t have waited till the 11th hour to derail all of our plans.
AITA for try to rescind an invite to my sister in law and her family? (who PS, we’ve already given permission for them to use on their own with one of the brother in law’s family members the next weekend, no questions asked!)
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> AITA for rescinding a cottage invite to my sister in law and family, who wanted to join our cottage weekend at the last minute?
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA. You weren’t uninviting her out of nowhere you just wanted one chill weekend before a literal baby shows up. She ignored boundaries, ghosted for days, then popped up asking for a food plan like it’s her Airbnb. That’s not guest behavior, that’s main character syndrome.
YTA
But not for rescinding the invite. It’s because you circumnavigated your wife rather than communicating with her about how to handle the situation.
If you didn’t want MIL and SIL to come, then you needed to be clear with your wife and then figure out how to approach that especially with them trying to confirm joining so last minute.
The whole thing was handled poorly. If you wanted to keep it a quiet weekend, you and your wife needed to be in agreement. You weren’t. She invited her sister. Once that happened you either suck it up, or derail it immediately.
Instead you sat on it for days, and instead of communicating, or setting a boundary (“let us know within 6 hours so we can plan, or you aren’t coming”) you made assumptions. Then you didn’t speak directly to your SiL, but pulled in an uninvolved party at the last second, creating yet more pathways for drama and ignoring your wife’s wishes?
YTA
ESH i’m sorry but this sounds like a problem the both of you have had a hand in creating and allowed to fester. being ‘conflict avoidant’ is fine to a point but if you all are about to be parents you need to get comfortable with standing up for yourselves and communicating like adults real quick !!
it sounds like what should have happened when SIL asked to join is you and your wife should have a had a convo and just said no. but after an invite was extended and there was radio silence you should have sent a message disinviting not just assuming. that’s not starting conflict it’s just communicating to ensure that conflict doesn’t start.
your SIL is firmly in the wrong but it sounds like you and your wife are being AH to yourselves because you are so intent on keeping the ‘peace’. Is it really peace if it makes you upset or uncomfortable to uphold it?
ESH. It sounds as if Wife invited the SIL, so it’s up to Wife to pull the invitation. You shouldn’t have stepped into Wife’s invitation, however forced, and got MIL to jump in.
However, SIL was an A for diddling around until the last minute about coming and then chirpily asking about the food plan.
Possible response: “Great! Look forward to seeing you and family. Because you’re so last minute and thought you weren’t coming we and BIL made our own food plan already for our families and don’t have extras. Shop for your family and bring whatever you want your family to eat and drink.”
For gods sake have honest conversations. You’re going to say you were trying to avoid drama but you are in the middle of drama right now anyway.
If you had just told SIL. Sorry you didn’t reply so we didn’t plan for you coming. Too late to change plans now. Sorry. End of conversation.
Your family dynamic sounds exhausting. You don’t have to do everything with the entire family every time.
YTA.
The problem here is that you and your wife are not on the same page. You’re bending over backwards to blame everyone else, but again, you and your wife are 100% to blame for this mess.
It is never OK to rescind an invitation unless there is an emergency (meaning death/an emergency room/a fire truck). It’s also never OK to go behind your spouse’s back and try to get what you want on the sly (yes you did).
In future, you and your wife need to make decisions together about what you’ll do for the weekend. Then you need to communicate them to everyone else who is involved. It’s hard to tell your wife and other people things they don’t want to hear, but that is what you are going to need to do to avoid the kind of drama you have created by not being clear with people.
ESH
Ask her brother to handle her sister and say you’re out of logistics. It was supposed to be chill so it’s their JOB to make sure neither of you lift a finger.
NTA.
You didn’t rescind anything, you tried to avoid an invite being guilted into existence. You own the cottage, wanted one last quiet weekend before a major life change, and that’s more than reasonable.
SIL ignored everyone for days, then shows up last minute expecting plans to change? That’s on her. This isn’t about food , it’s about boundaries. You’re not starting drama; you’re trying to preserve some peace.
I don’t think you’re the AH, I would totally feel the same way… I’d also be kicking MYSELF because I would recognize that this cluster was mostly the fault of me and my wife not communicating properly. You WBTAH if you back out now. You can’t cancel at the last minute- or you can, but you’d need to be okay with being a bit of an AH. I actually blame your wife a tad more as it’s her family- she needs to be a big girl and use her words.
You and your wife need to download on who to avoid this moving forward. Nothing you can change now!
NTA you should have communicated both to your wife and in laws better, but you’re not required to provide them with vacations.
Don’t go. Let your wife entertain and feed everyone.
I don’t understand why you’ve let this become community property. Do you enjoy paying for something that everyone else uses so much?
You screwed up when you invited someone there with you at all. Of course someone would find out and feel left out, because that’s the family dynamic. You want quiet, you go by yourselves.
I mean, it’s your cottage, you invite whoever you like, but if you’re not strategic about it you’ll just keep on getting frustrated, because this will happen again. So you either do what you like and own it, as in say what you mean and do as you say, or you play nice and play chess with them. You can’t keep the peace AND get what you want with people like this without being somewhat manipulative.
And you have a communication problem with your wife
ESH-Only because I read other comments where you made it clear to your wife you were not comfortable with everyone coming to begin with. Only reason YTA is you went around your wife. Don’t do that. Your wife is the AH because she doesn’t want to stand up to her family which in turn means you have to and that isn’t right.
My house has the rule that we deal with our own families and the one saying yes is the one that is committed to dealing with issues. If either of us commits to something without asking the other to join them first then they know they may be doing it on their own. For example. If my wife commits to helping move things for her family member but doesn’t ask me first then she is aware I have the option to not help. She is committing herself not both of us. She can ask but I can say no without her getting mad.
This happened once when I already had a prior appointment she forgot about and her family got upset when I didn’t come because they thought I would bring my truck/trailer. My wife just said you asked if I could help not “can my husband and I help”. You also didn’t ask for the truck/trailer. Next time be clear what you want so I can answer appropriately.
It is all about communication and your wife is a doormat especially since she is avoiding stress being pregnant. I love that in your comments she seems to be fine fighting you but not her family.
ESH. It’s kinda hard to recind an invitation of any kind. You wanted a nice calm weekend but apparently your wife doesn’t. Let her have her family since it’s apparent she doesn’t want a quiet time and when she complains about her exhaustion just remind her she wanted this. People can bring their own food to avoid allergies. Next time you want privacy keep the visit a secret and tell wife no one else can come that visit. Good luck and congratulations on your baby
ESH
Accepting that it was being handled by someone else is just a means if avoidance. If you truly wanted this handled, you would have dealt with it directly, and both you and your wife needed to be on the same page.
Just because your wife wants to avoid family conflict doesn’t mean she shouldn’t. We all want to avoid family conflict, but it’s not an excuse to not deal with. So, she wasn’t responsible enough to work this situation out, but, nonetheless, she is now in the middle of family conflict despite she tried to avoid.
YTA.. the only way to get peace and quite is to go to the house just you and your wife. The moment you start inviting some but not all family, you are going to end up in this scenario.
At the same time, I would absolutely be pissed in this situation. Your wife invited other people with out discussing it with you first. You went around your wife to get out of the situation she created without involving her. Your marriage sounds exhausting and the way you deal with family sounds exhausting.
ESH….Both you and your wife for not setting boundaries with anyone on the cottage home you purchased to begin with.
For this, your wife for okaying something without asking you first because she does not want drama for her family. You because you called your mother in law instead of sister in law directly. Big a big boy adult and deal with this head on instead of involving other people.
I do not know if there is anything you can do as of now for this weekend. But you both need to develop your shiny spine and set boundaries for the future. Especially with a child in the mix.
Tell SIL you didn’t think she was coming since she didn’t reply til last minute. Tell her she is welcome, and the “food plan”is she must bring her own food as the food already bought is only enough for you, wife, BIL and his partner. And since your wife is pregnant and exhausted, the “food plan” is that guests will take turns cooking the food they bring. I hope you’ve already set boundaries in the past that guests clean up after themselves, help with or take over chores. If not, set that as new “my wife is pregnant, exhausted, and won’t be cooking, cleaning, changing sheets, etc.” rules, so everyone is expected to pitch in and cook, clean, etc.
Honestly just tell them no.