when do you give up being the one who stays in touch?

Parent Cafe
61

I haven’t read every post here , but I see some criticism of the OP for expecting her H’s family to travel to see them once in awhile.

OP - I totally get it. There is a particular dynamic when there is one family member who is “the one who left”. This is H in his family. We have never lived within 700 miles of them, but we have always made a big effort to travel to see them. Not so big of a deal when we were first married and it was the only travel we could afford, but times have changed. I admit that MIL and my late FIL traveled to see us twice a year which was lovely. H’s sisters however, do not. Yes I get that “they have lives”, but guess what? So do we. In fact all of their now grown children attended local colleges and now live very close to them. OTOH , our oldest attended college in another state and still lives in that city. Our younger child attended a school 10 hours away and and now attends a college overseas. H and I both have careers and limited vacation time. My folks live near H’s family, but spend part time in Florida. I am close to my sister who lives in New England (we are in NoVA), etc. so yeah we have a lot of other places to go.

That said, we did talk H’s sisters into coming to see us once and they had a great time. One of them has been back once or twice (I am talking over 36 years).

So yes, I see where the OP is disappointed in her H’s family never making an effort to visit.

62

We are the “away” ones and noone comes ip here to visit. (Despite all the free museums and sightseeing!) We have always schlepped the kids for the ten hour drive to them. We are in a better financial position to do so, but we keep telling them that once they get here, we’ll feed and house them.

Agree with others that taking out the relatives periodically is a good idea. Your H still likes his family — this is a GOOD thing. They seem to like him as well. Too many folks here have horror stories of cruelty and dysfunctional situations.

63

Every time these situations are discussed on CC, I feel grateful we come from small families. Life is full of enough drama and expectations without throwing lots of other people into this mix, who have different expectations of “acceptable” contact, visiting, etc. It’s a lot easier just to be able to take things at face value.