Family Matters
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Vacationing with the in laws...
I think that every other or even every 3-4 years sounds like a good idea. I agree with others that adults do vacation with their families, but no point in doing it if it's miserable.
I also think a cruise could be a great idea as long as you have your own room. We went on a cruise with MIL, BIL's family and us, 8 people total in 3 cabins. It was fine. We had dinner together every night, sometimes other meals and did our own things during the day for the most part. But you NEED that room of your own so you can get away.
You both seem to have trouble with compromising. Your DH wants to insist that you attend every family vacation and you are insisting that it's strange for adult children to vacation with their parents.
Your DH needs to understand and acknowledge that you were uncomfortable and make every effort to help you enjoy the vacations. Perhaps you only go every other year, as others have suggested. I won't go into this, as you've gotten advice for your husband already.
However, you need to adjust your attitude as well. It is not unusual for families to vacation together. It happens all the time, and it is often people's most memorable vacations. You just have to do it right. My family went to Disney World once with 13 people. We're considering doing it again soon, but now there will be 20 of us (parents, me and my siblings, our spouses and children). We don't plan to spend every waking moment together. We make some dinner plans for the whole group and we make plans with smaller groups (which may just be me and my DH).
I don't think you should just stomp your feet and say, "No! I'm not going!" You need to come up with a compromise with your husband. You go, but get your own place to stay, plan some alone time, etc. Compromise is part of marriage and it's a two-way street.
Your marriage and the new family it created didn't invalidate his family. They are still his family. Lots of families have traditions like this and expecting him to abandon his for you is ridiculous and selfish.
There should be some sort of compromise, I don't blame you for being miserable and not wanting a repeat of what you endured but banning travel with his family when that is something they seem to enjoy isn't the right response. If he still wants to go you need to suck it up a little. The marriage isn't all about you and sometimes we grit our teeth and do things for our spouses we would prefer not to do. As a married couple you should be able to figure out a fair compromise on this because the ability to do that is kind of central to marriage.