^This. It describes my mother perfectly. Several of her friends and family members were very direct, tell-it-like-it-is people but my passive-aggressive mother is not. I always marveled at her ability to redirect, spin, or in some other way, not answer a direct question that made her uncomfortable. If, later on, she was asked why she didn’t answer directly, the answer was always some version of “Well, to say what I really thought would be rude.” or “Oh, I just couldn’t embarrass them like that…”.
My sisters and I think she missed her calling as a politician, especially these days…
As I’ve mentioned a few times on this forum, people can avoid a lot of problems if they focus on communicating using the “4 F’s”, that is, strive to be firm, fair, frank, and friendly. If the counter-party can’t reciprocate, that’s their problem. In my view, it’s better to give communication a chance than to assume, speculate, and wonder what if?
If it is really important and it is with my family/close friends then I would be frank. In this case, how important is it to use someone’s vacation home? And it doesn’t sound like OP cares that much for the wife.
We have a family cottage that others own…not us. We have been given a blanket invite to use the place if no one else is. We don’t. It’s not our place. Occasionally DH goes there to help the owners with a project. But a vacation there…no.
And we get along and like everyone who owns the place.
If I’m going to a vacation home, frankly, I’d rather rent.
I’m in the no way in hedoublehockeysticks camp. I would feel SO uncomfortable.
Sherpa, I think that your communication advice is generally sound, but not in this case. If the wife of the other couple wanted to support the invitation, she would have joined in issuing it directly or through her husband. What they got instead was the husband basically relating how his wife didn’t want to lend it to people and he worked on her for a year to accede to this. Since the wives aren’t in touch, for the OP to approach the other woman with questions about her feelings on the subject would be very intrusive, IMHO.
Perhaps after the OP’s H tells his friend that they just don’t feel comfortable knowing that the wife would rather not lend the place, the wife will either extend the invitation herself or tell her husband to reassure them. In that case, I would possibly go. Otherwise, no way.
Lol, milee. My MIL was a deeply polite southerner and almost never asked a question directly. She would say, “Thank you, but it seems like a lot of trouble for you.” A declaration, not a hint she wanted an encouraging response. Even more likely she’d add, “Maybe we can go sometime with you.” That leaves it open, she appreciated the offer, but knows there are two sides.
If there were hesitation on the other person’s side, they wouldn’t automatically say, “Oh, no inconvenience.”
I suspect the husband very much wants to be generous and there are plenty of reasons why the wife isn’t into it.
Btw, we were once offered a family friend’s place. We’d spent decades hearing how great it was and MIL had been. But it was difficult. I ended up cleaning more than any mess we made, plus ensuring everything was in the exact places as we found it. I worried what I cooked on the last night would leave lingering smells.
“I ended up cleaning more than any mess we made, plus ensuring everything was in the exact places as we found it.”
A few years ago, one of our friends in another generously let my sailboat racing team stay on their very nice, classic boat during a regatta we’d all traveled to. Our team was respectful and careful, knowing that the boat was up for sale; we wanted to leave it spotless and in perfect shape. The day we were leaving, we deep cleaned and went over everything with a fine tooth comb. When we started looking at the details, there were lots of tiny things we weren’t sure if they’d been like that when we arrived or had broken when we were there. Since I had all my tools and supplies, we just went ahead and repaired everything we could see - small statue that had a cracked piece, model wooden boat that had a part snapped off, TV remote with a broken cover, wooden outdoor chair that was loose/shaky, microwave handle loose, etc. Just did it all and left a nice thank you note and homemade treats as gifts.
The next day the owner called up, shocked and said he’d never seen the boat looking that good and asked why we’d fixed all that stuff he’d been meaning to get to for months. I was just glad and relieved to know it wasn’t my team that broke them in the first place.
Guess I find that stuff stressful. It’s so kind when people host that I want to leave things nice. It’s easier for me to pay to stay somewhere and not stress about it sometimes.
Described the situation to H and he completely agreed that until recently he would have been annoyed
with me and not understood reasons to decline. Today he said that the invitation should be declined.
36 years in the making but I appreciate his newfound ability to see the whole picture.
