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When you find a partner you love so much that you want to settle down with them, you accept that this includes merging your families. For better or for worse, they will become a part of your family and you will become a part of theirs, and if you want to you’ll create your own little family right there in the middle. And if you all get on very well, this is no problem at all – you’ll probably even build a little symbiotic relationship of favours with grandparents caring for the kids in return for some help with DIY or yard work or something.

But if your partner’s family aren’t really your kind of people – as the woman in this story is finding? Well, there’s plenty you can do, but toleration is going to be the order of the day. However, after tolerating them you can also request some boundaries with your partner and their family, and if your partner is a good understanding person, these can be easily negotiated – as this woman thought she’d achieved. But it turned out that things were rather different.

Read on to find out why.

AITA while my mother-in-law stays at our summer house?

Here’s the situation. My partner has been renting a small apartment at the shore and has previously allowed friends and family to stay there over the years before we got together.

People have liked to use it as a hub since the area is fun, and he didn’t mind people doing that while he wasn’t there.

That has stopped – except for his mother who has gone down weekends during the summer and slowly began extending her stays into the weeks last year.

We would also go down on weekends and share the space (not really fun since she is known for being a hot mess with partying and smoking), but it was for small amounts of time and honestly it’s not my apartment.

But recently, things have changed for this couple.

This year my partner and I had a baby together. When he was a month old we were able to take a quick escape to the apartment for a change of scenery with our little one, and his mom decided to go down and stay the entire time we were there.

She was not there to help out, but to use it as her apartment for the week (she’s become extremely entitled with it all, and acts like it’s hers though she doesn’t contribute at all.)

Even though she has strict rules to not drink while we were there, I expressed my disappointment to my partner for not having alone time and then other frustrations (as she constantly was telling me what to do with our baby, clanging pots and pans for midnight snack prep, and overall was just a lot to handle while I’m also postpartum trying to figure it all out).

He apologized not realizing how much it would be on us, and said the next time we went down for an extended stay it would just be us.

However, things really didn’t go to plan.

Fast forward to now, he took vacation and we’re about to go down for ten days and I just found out she’ll be there for seven.

I was visibly disappointed when I found out, and told my partner that I’m always on edge while she’s around and her being there frankly takes away from it being us and family bonding.

She’s already down there too, and when asked about babysitting one night so we could go to a spot with live music she said no because she wanted to go, so it’s not like having her there is anything other than her wanting to have it for her wants.

Let’s see how she’s feeling about this.

I recognise it’s not my apartment so I don’t have the authority, and actually feel bad that I have to bring up how uncomfortable this all is when it’s his mom (even though they have a very strained relationship).

Now he’s mad at me and doesn’t want to go because it won’t be fun knowing that I’m feeling uncomfortable. I hate how it’s putting a strain on our relationship, especially during an already hard transition time with a baby.

And while I’m upset that it wasn’t communicated for her to not be there, I also am ticked that she doesn’t think to give us even a little alone time. Am I wrong for being honest and sharing how I feel? Cause now it seems so much worse.

AITA?

This woman keeps mentioning that it’s not her apartment so she doesn’t have authority – and fair, it was her partner’s to begin with – but they’re a team now and it’s important as they go through parenting that they act like a team.

This means that she gets her voice heard and he follows through on his promises, which this time he has failed to do – though to his credit, he seemed to take her concerns seriously last time they were there.

His mom is dominating and clearly quite unpleasant to be around – now, her partner needs to be putting his partner and child first, instead of his mom, and tell her no.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person thought that her partner was the issue.

And others thought she should refuse to go.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who moved her mom in after her dad passed, but doesn’t want to fill the role of a spouse.

Meanwhile, this Redditor did not like the way he was blaming his partner for this.

This woman explained clearly why she had an issue staying at the guesthouse when her mother in law was there, and her partner promised that next time this wouldn’t be the case. He even told her that he understood. So for him then to go back on this and either be completely negligent in booking his vacation days when his mother would be there, or to just refuse to tell his mom no is completely reversing the promise he’d made. But worse than that, he is now guilt-tripping and blaming his partner for not wanting to go there when his mom is there.

Let’s not forget that his mom, who is spending more and more time at the beach house, isn’t contributing a penny to it. Because it seems she is just that entitled. And if this woman’s partner continues to refuse to stand up to his mother, this situation is only going to get worse. Honestly, if he keeps treating his partner this way and putting his mother’s happiness over his family’s? Well, he won’t have a partner for much longer.