Dear Eric >> I recently took a vacation with my mother-in-law, and we had a miserable time. It’s causing a rift in our relationship.

I’ve been with my husband for four years now, and in hindsight, his mom and I have never spent more than a few hours alone together. In those times, I’ve seen glimpses of a part of her personality that I found a little difficult, but for the most part, we’ve gotten along fine.

However, we recently took a girls trip together to one of my favorite cities, and to put it frankly, it was awful. She complained the entire time about anything and everything — the hotel, the weather, the food, people walking on the street, the music playing in stores — everything.

I spent the entire weekend trying to make her happy, but nothing worked.

By the time the trip ended, I was exhausted, frustrated and hurt. I was excited to show her a place that I loved, and she never even gave it a chance. She was miserable from the second we arrived.

I’m not usually one to suffer in silence, but because I still feel so new to the family, I hesitate to say anything. I’ve been avoiding family events for a month now, but that’s not sustainable. What should I do?

— Trip Gone Wrong

Dear Trip >> Some people love to complain, and some people hate having a good time. I’m sorry that your mother-in-law seems to be at least one of those types, if not both.

I know it hurt your feelings. For the sake of your relationship, you may want to categorize the trip as an unfortunate lesson you learned about how much socializing you two should do together.

This allows you to say to yourself and to her if you’d like, “well, that wasn’t what I’d hoped for, so we won’t do that again. We can stick to the events where we get along.”

I think it will also help if you forgive your mother-in-law for being such a poor sport. She rejected your offering and some of what you’re feeling is probably rooted in resentment about that.

Staying away from family events isn’t going to solve it and only contributes to your unhappiness.

If you can put this trip behind you, you may be able to see other ways of building a relationship with her and, perhaps more importantly, things you should avoid in the future for your own well-being.

Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com