<p>Here’s my pattern when having overnight company: </p>
<p>Day 1 - fine</p>
<p>Day 2- the tension headache begins; I take every pain reliever I have in the house, knowing nothing will help because my headaches last 4 days once they start</p>
<p>Day 3-4 - headache persists; added to it are stomach problems from taking so many over the counter pills</p>
<p>Day 5 - headache goes away, often after company does</p>
<p>This happened over Thanksgiving with my inlaws’ visit; this past weekend with my own parents’ visit. They’re on their way back home and I’m still ill.</p>
<p>Am I the biggest nutcase ever, or does this happen to anyone else?</p>
<p>That’s why they have hotels. We avoid overnight guests if possible nor do we stay overnight when we visit. The only exception would be my brother but I guess he feels the same as he always gets a hotel room of his own. No headaches–no worries.</p>
<p>I think if life were like “The Invention of Lying” you would see many more feel the same way.</p>
<p>With a hotel would have to come either a rental car, or (in the case of our aging parents), we’d have to shuttle them to and from the house. After 20 years of having the parents/inlaws staying with you, how do you switch to a hotel? I can’t imagine REALLY being honest (“Your presense makes me physically ill.”) </p>
<p>Plus I still think I would get sick…it’s the VISITING that does it to me as much as anything. We try to have a busy schedule when the parents are here, but there are still blocks of hours at a time when there is nothing to do but TALK. That is what gives me the tension headaches. (I have a son on the autism spectrum. When we have company, after about an hour he just disappears into his room for the rest of the night. Would that I could do the same!)</p>
<p>This too shall pass. My in-laws are deceased and my parents are now too sick to travel.
So those days are over for me.</p>
<p>In my extended family it is sort of an insult to have your relatives stay in a motel. So I understand. Tell them you are struggling with migraines (sounds true enough). If you pay for the motel, they might like it.</p>
<p>Too much talk when you’re in the house with them? Watch a “must see” movie or sports event on TV together. Leave the room frequently to “get refreshments.”</p>
<p>Oh I know. And I fear that I’ll be visited with horrible guilt that I didn’t spend more time listening to them talk (about their ailments, the ailments of people I don’t know, who died, how the neighborhood has gone downhill…). And I know that I deserve to get it all back when my own kids are grown. (Only I’ll be the one begging to stay in a hotel.)</p>
<p>missypie - it sounds like you have two sets of high-maintenance, high expectation parents. my in-laws drive me nuts, not physically ill maybe, but I get really snippy after about 48 hours. either they just sit there waiting for someone (usually me) to make conversation, or they make comments like (after seeing D dance in the Nutcracker for the first time) “well, maybe she’ll be better next year.” I’m not kidding.</p>
<p>on the other hand my own father brings his laptop and his Kindle, and helps in the kitchen. he and my brother were here this past weekend, and I slept in on Saturday morning, thinking they would do the same after a long trip. imagine my surprise when I got up and discovered they’d already been to the local coffe shop for breakfast and were happily reading the paper in my kitchen. everyone should have family/overnight guests like that!</p>
<p>Actually they aren’t high maintenance…they just don’t do anything…they just* exisit *there in the house. They would never dream of turning on the TV or watching a movie or reading a book or cooking a meal or washing a dish or taking a walk on their own. They’re just there, watching me. Several times when I hadn’t made there be something for them to do they were just sitting…sitting, staring into space. I just can’t take the pressure of amusing someone for more than a couple of hours. I have what some would consider a high pressure job. No problem. But keeping others occupied in my home is too much for me!</p>
<p>Edited to add that when I had each baby and the parents would come down to see the baby, neither mom cooked a single meal. We were using up the pre-frozen casseroles to feed us all. I don’t think I give off a vibe of “this is my kitchen don’t touch” but all either set of parents seem capable of doing is to sit on my couch or sit at the kitchen table.</p>
<p>I agree, it is really stressful, even if you love them. I get an average of 9 or 10 weeks of company a year since we live in South Florida. My MIL comes for 3 weeks over christmas, a week in April and a week in August. My mom comes for two weeks in February. My sister and her kids come for a week in November and a week January and my single sister comes for a week in late April…EVERY year. I do get the anxiety headache before the visits but usually can ride it out (advil and good red wine). When they leave, the linens and towel laundry goes way up while my food bill goes way down. </p>
<p>I am not complaining though. I feel so very fortunate that my family loves me and wants to spend their precious vacation time visiting me. They really do enrich my life. I feel very fortunate and grateful that I can provide this (vacation home) for them, especially in these economic times. It is worth the temporary lack of privacy and transient anxiety attacks.</p>
<p>I’m getting a headache just thinking about it!</p>
<p>I too am not a good company haver. The quiet doesn’t bother me when it’s just my family and me (if it is quiet), but I can’t stand the quiet when I have guests - cause that feels like my cue to “entertain”.</p>
<p>Seiclan, being in Texas, we’re pretty much safe from company in the summer…Son was baptised in July of '91 and I don’t think either set of (northern) parents have visited in the summer since.</p>
<p>The two sets of parents are who we mostly have. On occasion we’ll have a brief visit from H’s brother - they have three kids who stairstep ours, so the house is full of activity. My own sister is the guest from hell…she manages to ruin a piece of furniture with every visit -nail polish remover, glass of ice on wooden table over night, etc. Fortunately, she doesn’t come to visit very often.</p>
<p>Do they host you when you go there by giving you every meal, preshopping groceries, and absorbing you and your kids? </p>
<p>Your inlaws might figure it’s just a return of a style in which the guest never lifts a finger. If it’s unshared and unreciprocated between generations, then no fair.</p>
<p>It’s really hard to slow down enough to be with folks who do…nothing. Can you give them all the unmatched socks from the last year and ask them to put their best minds together? Jigsaw puzzles? Are there any lonely old neighbors near you to have in, let them talk amongst themselves? </p>
<p>Actually I do sympathize with you. If you leave the room, that seems rude; if you stay, it’s making you sick! </p>
<p>When they say stupid things about your kids, like in the dance (“maybe she’ll do better next year”) ouch, that stuff hurts. All you can do is innoculate your kids by saying, "they’re kind of old and not in good practice saying things like “good job!”</p>
<p>I used to run interference when an elder would require my kids to perform like monkeys for them, “play your clarinet!” or my favorite: arranging same-aged cousins to stand next to each other so they could comment on their growth. On that, I simply said (looking at the cousins), “No. They don’t have to do that.”</p>
<p>WITH THE EXCEPTION OF FAMILY…I love having house guests.
I would rather have a complete stranger stay for a month, than have an in-law over for a night.</p>
<p>I honestly can’t remember the last time we visited my parents…it may be as long as 8 years ago. I hate being a visitor as much as I hate being visited. </p>
<p>In all fairness, my parents are treating me exactly the way they want to be treated. A couple of years ago, my niece and her boyfriend visited them at Christmas…they still can’t stop talking about how awful he was…he got up one morning and COOKED HIMSELF AN EGG!!! Mom had to spend “hours” cleaning the kitchen. He had the nerve to play a CD that he got for Christmas on their CD player - without asking. He used their computer - without asking. They think he’s the rudest guy on the planet because he made the fatal error of making himself at home in their house. They hate that, so I guess they assume others will hate it too. So they sit, doing nothing until invited…“politeness” that makes me ill.</p>
<p>As for the inlaws…they have a lake house that we used to visit…it was the opposite of a vacation…we’d do endless grocery shopping and cooking and dishes so as not to be any trouble. Last time we visited we rented a condo.</p>