Complicated vacation with inlaws

[Markago]

Hello to all, I am in a big dilemma and I need the opinion of someone outside the situation. First thing I apologise for my not perfect english, I am an Italian living in USA. I got married with an american girl 4 years ago and she is AWESOME, I mean we do have our conflicts and we have two very different personalities and cultures, but she is the best thing she ever happened in my life! I have to say 2 words to try to describe our situation because it is a little complicated. We live in a big house with my parents (we live in in inlaw apartment with all our separate everything but still my parents are next door) on top of that the business that me and my parents own is not doing so well and my wife is helping them financially. As I said, she is awesome. She has a good job and she is making good money but still we have lots of expenses for building our future together (we don`t have kids yet, but planning on it) and many times these extra expenses make things more stressful. Now... even if my parents live next door I have to be honest they are not being intrusive at all and they try to make us have our own things and they are never opinionated about me and my wife's choices. Now, I am starting to have problems with my wife's mom. She is a good person, really, my wife says of her that she wouldn`t never do anything to hurt my or anybody else's feelings (and I agree on that, I see that) however she is a very controlling person (my wife told me once that grandma had alcohol issues and her mom as a young teeneager had to deal with it and hide it to the younger sister). Now... every summer since I know her we had vacations together during the summer (my parents are never going, they are very reserved people, so it is just me, my wife, her parents, her brother and sister) either around weddings or a couple of days at the beach, this summer they (my mother in law) decided we all have to go to a middle of nowhere beach 7 hours of driving from here and rent a house there for a week. I told them that doesn not appeal to me, I work at home and for vacation I wanted to go somewhere fun like Florida where there are actually things to do beside fishing and sitting on the beach. Next thing I heard couple of weeks later was that she already booked the house and my wife had to pay around $ 1000 for our 2 quotes. That already annoyed me very much, as once more she don`t give a crap about what I feel. My wife is too nice and she don`t want to hurt her feelings so she usually say "YES" to everything. On top of that I have an important business trip in September and I will basically have no time in August to go there, to which my wife told me "I`d love you to go with us, but if you can`t I`ll understand". Again...she is awesome. In the meantime we had extra expenses recently and we are being short on cash this month, and of course her mom is stressing her out cause she need the money for the deposit (deposit? She needs the whole freacking 100%... WTF!) I feel like we should cancel the trip or at least she should not pay my quote, as I never was took in consideration. Am I being a jerk? I understand my wife is doing a lot for my parents, financially too, but again... they are in real need, it is not sor some stupid vacation. I don`t want to cause extra stress to my wife but by shutting up about htis I feel like I am going to cause more stress in our future if I don`t put my foot down on this. What should I do? My wife is not even talking finances with her family (which for me, as an italian, is WEIRD) she bought a new car 3 weeks ago and didn`t told her mom because she didn`t want her mom "stressing about if we can afford it". I don`t know...I see something messed up here but I don`t know what to do as I see my parents situation messed up too, for different reasons. HELP!!!!

[Balzac]

I'm guessing here but the $1000. is a lesser sum that assistance to your folks? I would tread lightly as this is your wife's family. Whether you attend or not is really determined between your you and your wife. Of course a business obligation is a nice "excuse" and perhaps you can attend for a short time?

 

How often do you visit with your in-laws?

[Markago]

Thank you for your reply.

 

I was thinking of joining just for the weekend but, again, I feel it is silly to stress out to pay her family vacation money when we have so much going on in our lives. I feel would be totally fair to help her family financially too if they would be in need, but I feel vacation money is no need.

 

We visit about once every two months which seems not much but I also have to say my wife drives abound 40000 miles a year for work and she is not really excited about being in the car in the weekend too. Since we are married (4 years) her mom visited us 3 or 4 times only.

 

Bottom line, I am trying to put my needs behind (I would LOVE to take the phone and tell them what I feel) because I am trying to do what would be best for my wife.