Okay, got to vent.

I'm in the awkward position of my parents (read: mother) inviting herself along to a friends trip my wife planned and bought me for my Christmas/birthday present. They recently moved here to help us watch the baby, and part of the surprise to me was flying my sister into town who none of us see too frequently, though they just saw her a few weeks ago. My mother seems to know no boundaries where my sister is concerned, and while I feel silly and peevish as a man in my thirties resenting my parents crashing a social event, and while I generally am glad to include them in things, I do resent my mother trying to force her way into a trip and effectively making my present not about me but her seeing my sister. Plus, I see my parents 6-7 days a week now, and I see most of these friends a few days at a time tops, maybe once or twice a year since I moved.  

I was really looking forward to a getaway for uninterrupted quality time with friends I rarely get to see, and as much as I enjoy my parents and their company, that's simply not what this trip is for, and we don't need to do absolutely everything together. It's a weekend getaway Fri night to Sunday morning. We rented a cabin, and we're all doing a race Saturday morning. My parents initially talked about crashing the race which I guess I couldn't really object to. It's a big open outdoor festival anyone can go to while people race in various timeslots throughout the day, and it seemed silly to "ban" them. Then my mothers plans kept encroaching more and more, though, toward crashing the cabin for a while, etc. "but my daughter is there!" It's this weekend, and this needs to be resolved. I've 95% resigned myself to calling my mother on the way home from work to "disinvite" her although she was never properly invited to begin with! After she decided they were included I was too caught off guard/nice to outright say "Hell no!", and I made the mistake of being like "well, I guess you can come to the race, if you want, that makes sense.  You won't really get to see us much since we're running, though."  Part of the problem and further complicating things is I wasn't present when my wife told my parents about my gift, so I don't know exactly what she said or what they heard. I believe that my wife didn't invite them, of course, but I can't discuss specific details with them to explain how they misunderstood. 

Ugh. Now, I'm in the awkward position of compromising my trip while feeling resentful and railroaded by my mother for how it came about or having a very awkward conversation that will upset my parents. My mom is overly sensitive and emotionally overreacts to everything, anyway, but I feel bad for my dad being collateral damage as I'm sure he is genuinely confused and thinks the invitation was extended to them. My wife feels like its the equivalent of my mom snatching her Christmas gift to me out of my hands, opening it and sharing it with my sister while she and I watch on. If I say nothing, my wife and I will be upset. If I do, my parents will be upset and I'm likely to have an emotional nuke to deal with. As it is, I'm too stressed out about it all to even be excited about my trip. It doesn't help that while this was planned months ago, my Dad's birthday was this week (already passed and celebrated), and I feel bad objecting since they moved up here to babysit our kid for us.

Sorry to vent. There is just no painless outcome that I can see here.  

Yeah, I think you're right, and that seems to be consensus of most people I've asked.  You're the first to hit on the bolded part, though, and I think that might actually be the most important part.  Up until last night, I didn't realize the significance of it as much as I should have as she would say things like "Well, it's not what I intended, but it's your trip, so do what you want" yet she still seemed upset. She explained the Christmas gift analogy last night, which makes perfect sense, and it finally hit me that while it's my gift, it's her trip, too. These are some of OUR best friends, not just mine, and she put this whole thing together, and she is the type who values experiences over things, so it really truly is like having her gift to me snatched, and frankly, this was one of my all time favorite gifts, too.

My parents have never much understood formalities that I have seen, and especially my mother. She does not understand social cues at all, and she is also extremely sensitive and takes everything personally, even the most polite constructive criticism, and amplifies it tenfold, so that no one can say anything to her lest they deal with emotional fallout. I haven't lived in the same city as them for 15 years until last month, and this type of scenario is precisely one of the concerns I had. Ah, well. The conversation needs to happen. With them living here now and being our daytime babysitters, I absolutely need to prevent resentment between them and my wife as much as possible and setup some firm boundaries.  I'm having an unpleasant conversation tonight.  Thanks for listening and chiming in.

Hope it goes as smooth as possible Impulse.

I am thankful that in my 15 years of marriage my wife or folks have never intentionally or unintentionally threw me in the middle like that. Cause yes, they gave me life, but you're not going to win over my wife and boys. Just as I never felt they ever put me second to anyone else when I was a child too. At least intentionally.

I was going back and forth at deleting my comment, cause I kept thinking, it sounds like I was blowing off your situation, or that I was putting your folks down. But glad you saw it as I intended it to be, merely unable to really give you any real advice cause I've not yet been in that situation. At least not between my folks and my wife. :thumb:

I don't know where this info would go but, I read that Roger Slifer died on March 30th.

Yeah I saw that too.

The good news is you just learned your parents are more considerate than you thought they were.