Never enough!

[badgermom]

I need a sanity check on this. I love my mom and her partner, but I feel like it's a constant guilt trip about how much we see them. They live about 2.5 hours away and I would say that either one of them comes here or we go to visit nearly twice a month. Every visit seems to start with how much they miss the boys. About half way through they start pressuring us to stay longer than the plan and then last ditch efforts to keep us from going home (typically something they "forgot" to ask h to fix) are how they end. We saw them last weekend for my sister's dance competition/lunch and we are going up for the day tomorrow. Today I started getting texts asking us to stay overnight. I said no. We have to spend Sunday doing things to get ready for the week. The response, ok...why don't you leave e with us so your errands are easier. One of us will bring him home on Monday. Also no. Thanks for offering, but I'd like to spend the day with my son. I appreciate all the help they give us (covering days daycare is closed, coming up when H takes long trips for work, weekends away now and then, etc...) and we genuinely love seeing them, but I hate that a good chunk of each visit ends up being a guilt trip. We are seeing them a reasonable amount, right? And I'm not crazy for wanting to say something about the constant guilt trips?

[shevacc]

You're seeing them much more often than we see either my parents or my ILs. Are all the visits short like these or do you occasionally stay overnight? I totally sympathize with wanting to prepare for the week. It's night and day the weeks I'm prepared versus the weeks I'm not. Have you told them directly to lay off the guilt tripping?

Most of our family we see every 2 months or so. We drive 4 hours to see BIL/SIL/3-year-old cousin every few months partly bc the cousins love to play together. Ideally we'd drive down one month and they'd come visit the next but realistically we go visit them a lot more than they come to see us, so we try to drive down ~every 2 months and sometimes we get a bonus visit in between. My parents live across the country from us and we fly to see them once a year. They come to see us 2-4x a year and stay for a week or so. ILs are a 10 hour drive away (they live hours from an airport so we can't really fly there). We try to make the drive yearly. They come to see us 2-3x a year, sometimes at BILs (the midway point) and sometimes driving all the way here.

[badgermom]

We do overnights most visits. The past two have just been short. I really love seeing them and the boys love the visits too, it's just exhausting to feel like they always want just a little more time. I think I'm going to talk to my mom. H's family lives a plane ride away, and we probably see them 4-5 times a year. We also get the "we miss the boys" guilt from them too. I just wish our families understood we have a two year old and a five month old, we both work full time, we love them...but we really are doing all we can do.

[laurensmomma]

I think you're perfectly right to be annoyed by the guilt trip. While it's understandable that they miss the boys, it sounds like they aren't being understanding about your time and needs. I think having a direct conversation with your mom about how the guilt trips make you feel is a good idea. Who knows, maybe you guys can figure out some solution so that everyone is happy. If not, stick to your guns because you have to make sure your family is doing what's best for you guys. Good luck!

[alicia45]

Apr 18, 2014 13:21:12 GMT -5 laurensmomma said:

I think you're perfectly right to be annoyed by the guilt trip. While it's understandable that they miss the boys, it sounds like they aren't being understanding about your time and needs. I think having a direct conversation with your mom about how the guilt trips make you feel is a good idea. Who knows, maybe you guys can figure out some solution so that everyone is happy. If not, stick to your guns because you have to make sure your family is doing what's best for you guys. Good luck!

This is what I was going to say. We get the guilt trips too but I always come back with they can visit us too. If they really wanted to see the kids that much more, they could come to you. My MIL complains but makes little effort to come. It's much easier for adults to travel than to pack up kids and travel with them.

[badgermom]

I talked to her. She kind of blew it off. " I never want to make you feel that way. Whatever works for you works for us." At least I made it clear I don't want to spend the whole day getting guilted. We shall see. Thanks for the encouragement to say something. Hopefully it worked!

[Beener]

I'm torn on this one. I totally get not wanting to hear the guilt trips and agree that they could make an effort to drive down to you and make things easier.

But at the same time, you are so incredibly lucky to have people in your and your kids' lives who feel this way and want to see you so much that it is hard to be mad at that, KWIM?

My mom is much like yours and I often have to remind myself when I start getting annoyed that she's coming from the best of places with the best of intentions.

[katfco]

This is one reason I'm glad we don't live that close to Dh's family, because when there was a possibility that we might live within a few hours of them, there was an expectation that we would see them several times a month.

While, like Beener I think it's great that you have family members relatively close who want to spend time with you, there needs to be a balance between too much and not enough. Twice a month when you're 2.5 hours away from each other seems like a lot to me.

I think also it's pretty mean to guilt trip you to try to get you to change your plans and stay later every time, especially at the last minute.

[badgermom]

I totally get how lucky we are to have such wonderful family support. It is great for the boys and I'm really close to my mom, so it isn't even that I want to see them less. It's just that I want to truly enjoy the time we spend together as much as we can. I don't want to spend it grumpy because she keeps pressuring for more time or making me feel like I'm not making seeing family a priority when I feel like we are.