We all have that one thing we absolutely cannot compromise on. For her, it’s the temperature of the room she’s sleeping in (and honestly, same).
What would you do if your in-laws kept their house temperature at a suffocating 80 degrees all summer long, and your spouse got angry at you for no longer wanting to stay there for two weeks out of the year because of it?
This 36-year-old woman and her 37-year-old husband live close to Washington DC, and her husband’s family lives in the southern part of Mississippi.
She and her husband spend two weeks out of every summer visiting his family, and her in-laws are wonderful, except for one glaring detail…they keep their house’s thermostat set at 80 degrees. In the summer.
“It’s unbearable. I do not sleep. It makes me nauseous. If I try to ask for more AC, they oblige for 10 minutes, then complain about being too cold,” she explained.
“My husband is also miserable, but he deals with it. Tonight, I told him he’s more than welcome to visit this summer, but I will not be joining him. It’s not relaxing for me. I do not want to use my vacation time to be miserable for two weeks.”
“He got upset and said spending time with his family and his wife together is important to him. He said I was being selfish (I am being selfish, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing here).”
She informed her husband that she’s staying home, unless her in-laws are down to make the house colder for those two weeks. She also suggested that they could stay in a hotel nearby.
But none of those solutions worked for her husband, as he’s adamant about staying in his family’s house. However, he’s not willing to talk to them about the temperature and how hot it is.
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This made her mad, and she reminded her husband that his job as her spouse is to ensure her well-being is taken care of, and having to exist inside a boiling house isn’t doing that.
Their argument got heated, and her husband isn’t happy with her for choosing this hill to die on.
“It seems like such a trivial issue, but it can be unbearable getting minimal sleep, sweating all the time, with no relief for 14 days straight,” she concluded.
She’s left wondering if she’s wrong for refusing to visit her in-laws unless they book a hotel or the temperature in their house changes significantly.
I’m on her side, and I would not be able to survive a house set to that temperature in the summer. Heck, I don’t even make my house that warm in the winter!
I think her husband is being rudely unreasonable for not taking her feelings into consideration and for not budging on booking a hotel, which would be far more comfortable.
But I do have one more solution for her: instead of staying home, she can go on the trip, but stay in the hotel alone.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
