<p>Not really vacation arrangement, more sleeping arrangements when visiting family. I have two relatives that both have adult children home for the holidays. While it doesn’t matter what I think, I think it is a bit odd.</p>
<p>Couple #1: 29 and 30 year old married 3 years. Both sets of parents live here in the same city and are friendly. Seems the girl is staying the week at her mother’s house with her mom and mom’s second husband. Mom says this allows them girl time. The boy is staying with his parents. </p>
<p>Couple #2- Each is 24 years old, engaged and will be married in a year. They live together while attending medical school a few hours away. Like the first couple, both sets of parents live in our city. This couple will spend the 3 nights they are here at the girls parents house as they don’t like to be separated. I asked the girl’s mother how his parents feel about him not staying at home with them, but she did not know. I am sure the couple will spend some time with the boys parents while in town.</p>
<p>Am I the only person that thinks these couples should reverse their arrangements?</p>
<p>Personally, I think people (including couples) should be free to make whatever arrangements work for them and their families, without being judged.</p>
<p>Perhaps couple 1 has good reasons reasons for splitting up like this. Perhaps couple 2 take turns at whose house they stay in. Why does it make them odd because you think it should be different?</p>
<p>I don’t really see the problem. The married couple lives together and when they go home, they probably want to see their families. They get to see each other the other 350+ days of the year. I’m sure they can go a few days apart. </p>
<p>Maybe couple 2’s parents have a problem with them living together while engaged. Maybe they don’t have the space. Maybe there’s tension and it’s easier this way. </p>
<p>Really, I don’t care though. Nothing seems odd to me about either of those. Then again, I don’t generally analyze people’s vacation styles :p</p>
<p>Well, aside from calling married people in their 20’s and 30’s “boys” and “girls”, I don’t see a problem. Married couples see each other day in and day out so spending one on one time with their families of origin is probably a rare thing for them. The younger couple may have more room at the one home, less in the other, or one set of parents is retired and the other isn’t and has more time to devote to them. Or maybe one mom cooks better. Who knows-and who would care?</p>
<p>I go back east to visit my siblings once a year-my H does not come along. I bring my youngest. He met them all one time and that was fine. He’s not that interested in going to my old haunts with my middle aged siblings, listening to us talk about the things we used to do, etc. That’s fine because IT WORKS FOR US. No one else needs to care, as with the families mentioned above.</p>
<p>I would just assume that whatever arrangements they have made within their marriages and with their extended families is not my business, and butt out.</p>
<p>Agree that referring to the individuals in theses two situations as girls and boys is just…well…odd.</p>
<p>So you think that the married couple should stay together, and the not married couple should stay with their respective parents? So it has everything to do with whether or not they have a marriage license, and nothing more? I ask because I’m not seeing a significant difference to the situations otherwise. </p>
<p>Both sound like arrangements that suit their respective families.</p>
<p>I thought it was very sweet for couple #1 to each stay at their parents’ house. It gives them some real personal time with their own parents. I would think they would probably get together at times during the week as a couple with each set of parents (but I could be wrong).</p>
<p>H and I have been married over 30 years. Our parents live about 10 miles from each other and when we visit I always stay with my parents and he stays with his. We both make a point of seeing each others’ families but this arrangement allows us to spend more time with our respective families. It works for everyone.</p>
<p>I could not care less if anyone thinks that this is “odd”.</p>
<p>My BF and I own a home together but we’re not yet married, though we intend to be in the near future. Should we stay separately when we go to visit his family? If so, wouldn’t it then be awfully strange when his family comes to stay with US??? What should we do, have me sleep in my own guest room?</p>
<p>I don’t understand motivation to question sleeping arrangements of another household.
Shouldn’t that be their business?
I sense OP had the impression more people would feel otherwise. </p>
<p>Couple #1 probably has a very active sex life and find it difficult to refrain from loud sex when they are sleeping together. By staying in separate homes they avoid the awkwardness of having sex in the parents’ home, or the difficulty of abstaining.</p>
<p>Barring really extenuating circumstances, # 1 is not anything I would ever encourage my kids to do and I personally don’t know any parents of adult children who would. The engaged couple can go either way, but it’s certainly common at that stage to start spending holidays as a couple. I don’t see anything unusual about that one.</p>
<p>Some things about my life would have been a lot easier if #1 had been an option for us. None of my siblings is married, and my parents never really got the hang of how to be welcoming to a non-child when my wife and I stayed with them. Nor was my wife all that interested in adapting herself to my parents’ and siblings’ quirks. Her parents – just her mother really; we never stayed with her father – didn’t have any problem with me, but the respective parents were all jealous of the time we spent with the others. </p>
<p>Splitting up would have been a great solution if our parents hadn’t lived 300 miles apart. And if we had never had children. Children kind of wreck the splitting-up option, too.</p>
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