My in-laws treat our hotel room as proof we do not want to be family

My husband and I live six hours from his parents. When we visit, they expect us to sleep in his childhood bedroom. The bed is a full-size mattress against a wall, the bathroom is shared with two other relatives, and his mother starts conversations through the door at 7 a.m.

For years we told ourselves it was only a weekend. Then last Thanksgiving I woke up with my neck locked, my husband had spent half the night on the floor, and we argued in whispers about whose turn it was to ask his dad for the shower. On the drive home, we agreed that future visits would include a hotel. We would still spend the full day with family. We just wanted sleep, privacy and a door nobody opened while knocking.

We booked a modest hotel fifteen minutes away for his mother’s birthday weekend. When my husband told her, she went quiet and asked whether the house was ‘not good enough for us anymore.’ He explained that we sleep badly in the small bed. She offered to buy a new mattress, apparently missing that the mattress would still be the size of the room and that this is not a renovation request.

At the birthday dinner, his sister joked that we had become ‘hotel people.’ His father kept announcing how empty the house felt after everyone left. The next morning we arrived at 9:30 and learned they had eaten the special breakfast at eight because they assumed we wanted our own plans.

My husband was hurt. I was angry, but I also saw how the arrangement looked to them. In his family, staying under one roof is part of the visit. People make coffee in pajamas, stay up talking and help with breakfast. Our hotel removed us from those edges of the day, even though it made us much more pleasant during the hours we were there.

We offered to host them next time, but his mother said traveling is harder for them. We offered to come over earlier if they told us the schedule. His father said family should not need an itinerary.

Now my husband wants to stay at the house for Christmas to prove this was not rejection. I think that teaches everyone the guilt worked. I am willing to arrive early, stay late and take responsibility for protecting the informal time they value. I am not willing to sleep badly so the visit looks intimate.

How do we separate where we sleep from whether we love them? Is there a compromise that does not turn our comfort into a referendum on family loyalty every visit?