My Cheap In-Laws Keep Ruining Our Vacations. I Don’t See a Way Out.

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I am a 50-year-old woman married to a man whose parents are in their early 70s. His parents have never treated me well, and we don’t get along. But now they’ve started ruining all our vacations.

They bought an obscene amount of timeshare points in their younger days. I know the maintenance fees are eating up the entirety of their travel budget. Their solution? Force our family into going on vacations with them. They cover the room; we cover everything else. I hate this. They’ve never admitted that this is their plan, but it’s obvious.

At dinner, my father-in-law orders the most expensive item on the menu. My mother-in-law watches what I order like a hawk to figure out what she should order. It’s all bad. I keep calling my husband’s attention to it, and he keeps making excuses for them. Recently though, at the first dinner of our vacation with them, when the bill came, they just automatically said, “Thank you!” without even pretending to take out a wallet. My husband paid but said, “Sure, but we can’t afford to do this all week.” My mother-in-law’s smile dropped quick. Suddenly they told us they couldn’t afford to do anything during the week. So we were stuck doing free/cheap things only and cooking meals back in the room.

I’ve been wrestling with this, wondering if it only bothers me because I don’t like them. But the fact is, vacations are supposed to be restorative, fun, maybe educational, whatever. With them around, I am stressed and miserable. It’s not a vacation. And now we can’t do much unless we foot the bill. Also, we have two kids. We can afford to pay for his folks but only if I dip into my inheritance from my father which I want to protect for our retirement and my kids someday. I’d so much rather use our money to pay for our own accommodations and our own expenses and leave his parents out of it. I’m also frankly worried that they’re eyeing my money (most of our retirement fund is my 401(k) and my inheritance). My husband and I share money, but I do not want to be paying for his parents’ later-age care (which I see as a problem coming down the road). Not with how they’ve treated me over the years! How do I get out of vacationing with them? Also, am I a terrible person?

Not wanting to be taken advantage of by your in-laws doesn’t make you a horrible person. Everything you’re saying here is spot on, especially being wary about how this is going to affect your finances down the road.

Let’s start with the vacation. You’re absolutely right that this does not sound like a vacation at all. It sounds like your in-laws are dragging you along while they attempt to make the most out of their timeshare mistake while also getting a free meal ticket. No, thank you. That one is somewhat easy to get out of.