Dear Sars,

I’ve been dating my boyfriend for five years now and it’s come around to the time of the year that we usually both go out to California for vacation. One thing, though – I don’t want to go this time.

To save money, we always stay at his parents’ house, and enjoy free room and board and use of a car. My problem is his family. I don’t get to see BF often during the week, and I really want some time alone for the both of us. Instead, I end up being secondary to his wonderful folks, who have a miserable marriage. Imagine Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (e.g. “Boy, that was a great television commercial.” “Norman, why do you say such stupid things, nobody cares!”). Plus, his mother will follow me around and bad-mouth her husband, my BF, her son-in-law, et cetera and try to get me to agree with her – “am I right or am I crazy?” Plus his sister and son-in-law come over and I end up babysitting two spoiled brats. And if I try to go to a far corner of the house and read or watch television alone, BF will find me and insist that I socialize, “we’re staying here free, it’s the least we can do blah blah.”

So I end up tense and resentful, not being able to do what I want because his family doesn’t want to do it. I’ve tried to suggest that we do something else in California or somewhere else and “let’s give your mother a break with housing guests.” But no. BF’s parents married and divorced twice when he was a boy, so he’ll take any semblance of “normal” family life and is used to this appalling behavior. So he’ll accuse me of disliking his family, which I do sort of, so I feel guilty and give in.

So this time I just want to go somewhere myself and do whatever I want to do. How do I tell this to him without breaking up with him or admitting, “I’m doing my own thing because I’m sick of your twisty family ruining my vacation for another year”?

Surly, Resentful and Spineless

Sorry, but there’s no way. You’ll have to tell him the truth, and frankly, it’s way past time he heard it. Grown-ups do not “vacation” at their parents’ houses every single year. Grown-ups save up their money and go where they want to go, and grown-ups make an effort not to inflict the dysfunctional bullshit of their immediate families onto their significant others if they can help it.

I don’t know where your boyfriend got the idea that you – or anyone without a hundred-gallon drum of Valium at her disposal – would find listening to his parents’ squabbles and babysitting his nieces and nephews “relaxing,” but you need to disabuse him of the notion, and fast. Tell him you love him, but you refuse to make the trip to California again. Tell him you want to take a vacation with him and him alone, not couch-surf through another nerve-wracking week in his old bedroom with his emotionally constipated mother as a soundtrack. Tell him you understand that he wants to spend time with his family, but that it’s his lookout, not yours; you’ll spend time with them too now and then, but not every year, and not when it’s a vacation. Invite him to come to Tuscany, or to Toulouse, or to Tampa – anywhere but his parents’ place. If he declines, go without him. When you get home, give the relationship a second thought, and a third. The boy has issues, and I don’t blame him, but if he can’t prioritize his relationship with you once a year, he’s got bigger problems than you can solve.

[7/14/00]

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