Are you the ones that do all the traveling to family?

[niccig]

I'm starting to get fed up with everyone except for my MIL.

My MIL visits us every year from MI, and this year changed her plans so she could be here to look after DS for me. So MIL rocks in this instance.

DH wants to visit his uncle in CO for Thanksgiving. We're already going to Australia to see my parents at Christmas and I do not like to travel for both holidays. I sucked it up last year and went to visit the uncle at Thanksgiving and MIL at Christmas. We really like them, like visiting them, but I worked out that in 8 years we have visited them 4 times, if we go at Thanksgiving it will be 5 times. They have visited twice and they weren't actual visits - one was a overnight as coming through LA on international trip, and the other was for DH to help on a project. They have a house in Mexico and go there 2-3 times a year..

My sister has visited 3 times from Wales, 2 of those were work conferences near by and she detoured to us.

My other sister has flown from London to Crested Butte to go skiing 4 times in last 5 years, and visited us once when DS was 6 months old.

In the same time period, we have visited my sisters twice, and we're planning another trip next year.

My parents have not visited in 3 years, but in that time we will have gone to Australia 3 times.

We have visited SIL twice in 3 years, they have visited once in 7 years.

I think I am totally justified to tell everyone to get on a freakkin plane if they want to see us. I am DONE DONE DONE with being the one always at the airport. DH says some people can't afford to visit us, well neither can we if we're always traveling to see every family member.

So, any advice to make my case to DH...MIL is not included in this rant as she actually visits us.

[Melanie]

Why not just head them off at the pass and send out some holiday invitations complete with accommodation information (unless you host them at your place) and other 'fun things to do' in the area at that time.

[cindys]

YES!!!

We travel to see DH family who live an hr away all the time....We have been married 8yrs and they have been to our house maybe 5 times..His brother has been to our house once..We have tried on several occasions to have Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve/Day at our house and no one will come because they dont want to travel but they think its okay for us to travel with our little boys and all that entails..We do go there Christmas Eve but DH tried to get me to go there Christmas Day too..HA!

I finally told DH we would not be leaving our house on Christmas Day..If they want to come visit then fine but I am not dragging my babies away from their fun things to go sit at his parents house and stare at each other..MIL doesnt even cook so Christmas Eve dinner every year is Chick Fil A nugget platter.Sometimes my Mom goes with us and she bakes cookies from scratch and takes them..MIL cant eat them fast enough.

It gets on my nerves so bad let me tell ya....

His parents wont go anywhere but to Walmart 10 minutes from their house..

DH always blames it on the fact that they are "older"(60 & 67).. WHATEVER is what I say...My Mom is 67 and runs marathons, travels in her Mustang convertible all over the place. mows her own lawn etc etc...

I could go on and on regarding this subject..can you tell this has touched a nerve??? :p So, let me shut up.

Cindy
Mama to 3 boys...19, 4 & 22mos:love-retry::love-retry::love-retry:

[KrisM]

Yep. DH's parents came to our wedding in 2002. One of his sisters came out later that year on their way to CA. Otherwise, noone on his side has visited us since 2002. No one. We have been to Boston/NH about a dozen times since then and we go most years since having kids. We'll go again this year for his mother's birthday in November.

I've given up thinking someone will come out here. They just won't. I hate using a week of vacation time every year to visit though.

I have no advice for you, other than just stay home!

[niccig]

So, I'm not the only one. It's a number of things that I'm done with.
1. Travel is exhausting, and I have to do all the prep
2. Never get family time of just us. Though this year we did take our first vacation just the three of us.
3. It's expensive, we have no family close by, so it's plane tickets, and not cheap ones to Australia. Then it's shuttle van to airport or pay for parking, pet sitter for our dog, and then often a rental car. This year we managed to use airline miles, but that's rare.
4. And no one else is making the effort - the only one I give a pass to is SIL as they can't afford to travel, but everyone else can and does to other places.

I just emailed DH telling him to invite his aunt/uncle/cousin to have Thanksgiving with us. We're going to my parents for Christmas and then I'm staying home. I'll go to MI to see MIL, but everyone else needs to start making an effort as we can't keep doing this...

[trales]

Yes, we are always flying across country and we are "expected" to come for every holiday, every vacation and a week in the summer.

They never come to us.

It pisses me off, yet I still do it. It is very expensive. I do make them pay a few times a year.

[KrisM]

We were going to skip this year to NH, but didn't. MIL is 80 this year and does not want to travel and I can understand that, so it's hard not to visit her. But, everyone else can. I hope you do better than we do at not giving in.

The worse - SIL from RI drove with her family to National Parks in MI and was about 15 miles from our house on the Interstate. We didn't even have dinner with them!

[sste]

We were in the exact same boat but dh and I have decided it is stopping this year (also related to some negative family dynamics when we visit). Anyway, we were doing four-plus trips in a plane to see my family per year and then one trip to the other coast for DH's family. My sister has come out once since DS was born and that was under direct threat from me. Our annual family visiting costs were 6-8k per year not to mention most of dh's vacation time. It really hit me when DS was 2.5 and we were making up stories about airplanes and his story was, "We went taxicab to airport. And the flight was cancelled."

Anyway, in our case the family stuff got so bad that we realized we couldn't expose DS anymore to that and so we currently have no trips planned for t-day or xmas. And it is so liberating and wonderful! I can't describe the lightness I feel knowing I won't be dragging a three year old and newborn through major hubs on the busiest travel days of the year. DH and I are starting to think about trips WE want to go on. Probably once a year we will go to see my family but the emphasis will be on a fun trip in their area and then tagging on 1-2 days to see them. And, it came out after 10 years that DH was extremely relieved and had dreaded these trips but didn't want to make me feel bad. So, I feel like it has even been good for our marriage. :)

[mousemom]

Yes! It seems like we are always the ones travelling. It's so frustrating. In our family though, I'm the one who wants to continue and DH is putting his foot down due to expenses and wanting to be able to take a fun family vacation for ourselves. I will say though that the argument I use to him is that I don't really care if no one else makes the effort to come see us. I can't control what other people in the family do or don't do. I can only control what we do and it is important to me that I visit/continue the relationship with various members of my family. Our happy medium this year was to suggest a family vacation where we can get together with several members of the extended family at the same time. Hopefully, planning that won't drive me crazy.

[niccig]

We were going to skip this year to NH, but didn't. MIL is 80 this year and does not want to travel and I can understand that, so it's hard not to visit her. But, everyone else can. I hope you do better than we do at not giving in.

The worse - SIL from RI drove with her family to National Parks in MI and was about 15 miles from our house on the Interstate. We didn't even have dinner with them!

I would go too for an 80th birthday...can't miss that one. Maybe next year you can take a break. And as for your SIL, I would not be going out of my way to see her, when she can't drive FIFTEEN miles to see you?!?!?!?

DH agrees that we're always doing the traveling and we can no longer do that both financially or time/energy wise. He's going to invite his Aunt/Uncle to visit us for Thanksgiving this year. I know he misses his uncle, but he agrees that it's their turn to visit. We've already agreed that we are not visiting Australia next year, we'll go the following Summer. I think DH will handle scaling back as we will not scale back visits to his mother. She goes out of her way for us, and I'll go visit her anytime. We'll see if the rest of the family starts to visit more...

[MamaKath]

I am DONE DONE DONE with being the one always at the airport.

So, any advice to make my case to DH...MIL is not included in this rant as she actually visits us.
I could have written this minus the flying (we are 4-6 hours from pretty much all of our relatives). MIL is actually on the train now to come for a visit! :cheerleader1: She has survived breaking her neck last year and still comes! My mom did come last week for the first time in quite a long time for a few days. She does come for short visits during the school year, but teaches also so it is hard. She also meets me anytime I have appt. for dc in Baltimore (takes the train from her area to meet us) to lend a helping hand which is awesome! So they are the exception.

I go up to visit family periodically, but we rarely have anyone else come down. When we go up, we spend our entire visit with family (he is 1 of 4, I am one of 2 plus 4 step-sibs, all live in the nyc tri-state area) and rarely see friends. Meanwhile cousins, aunts and uncles will come to our area or near my dad when we are there and don't even bother to call or invite us to do whatever, yet expect us to visit them. It sucks!

DH is working this Christmas so we won't be going up there (or if I take the kids up it means they miss seeing their daddy), we have tried to give major warning. I am freaking a little bit because it will mean we actually have to create some traditions and things on our own since we ALWAYS go home for the holidays (we don't even decorate the house we live in). And my one s-sis is freaking because we are close/our kids are close but we probably won't get to see each other until next summer for a real visit, unless they come down. We keep telling my dad and his wife we hope they'll visit us- they go all over the world, they just won't head to DC area. It's nuts!

So I don't know how to fix it. I do everything I can to keep my kids involved with their 3 sets of grandparents, to visit their great-grandparents (who I give a break to now, but when I was little they never would travel the 1.5 hours to see us, I swear they were allergic to crossing the river), to have some relationship with their cousins, aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles, etc. But it is mostly on us. DH has started making a huge deal of it whenever he sees anyone, I am thinking this is only going to scare them away and it will be even more on us.

So you are not alone if you made it this far!!!!! :hug: Can't wait to see if anyone has any good suggestions!!!:grouphug:

[niccig]

Yes! It seems like we are always the ones travelling. It's so frustrating. In our family though, I'm the one who wants to continue and DH is putting his foot down due to expenses and wanting to be able to take a fun family vacation for ourselves. I will say though that the argument I use to him is that I don't really care if no one else makes the effort to come see us. I can't control what other people in the family do or don't do. I can only control what we do and it is important to me that I visit/continue the relationship with various members of my family. Our happy medium this year was to suggest a family vacation where we can get together with several members of the extended family at the same time. Hopefully, planning that won't drive me crazy.


If we're always visiting, they have no reason to come see us. My parents were supposed to come in August and Mum said "we'll you're coming in December, so we'll just wait until then." Aaah, no you have the money and you complain you don't see him much, so get on a plane. You can't complain you miss him, when you never visit. I do wonder if they even care, as their actions show visiting us isn't high on their list.

We will still visit, it's not like we never will go again, but I'm setting up boundaries.

It's too much for us - our trips are to Australia, UK, MI, CO and WA. We're flying all over the place, and I wish the cost was only 6-8K a year. If I didn't get air miles to Australia this year, it would have been 6K for 3 tickets. Add in all the extras like airport parking/shuttle/checked baggage fees/pet sitter, sometimes rental car. We can't go on this way. DH had a substantial pay cut this last 18 months and we have a college fund that DS needs too. If family would work with us and alternate visits we could still see each other just as often, but the entire burden wouldn't be on us. So that's what I'm going to suggest to my mother - if they visit us Summer 2011, we can go see my sisters in the UK in Summer 2011 and then Australia Summer 2012. Christmas will also be at our house, DS's birthday is on Christmas Day and he's 6 this year and only celebrated his birthday in his house ONCE. This year is the last year of traveling at Christmas for some time, so we can have our family traditions. Anyone who wants to visit is more than welcome.

[rkold]

Yes, I feel like we're always traveling to see the in laws. Since getting married in 1995, my in laws have purposely come out to visit us 3x maybe (2000, 2007, and last year) and almost every year it is us schlepping from the East Coast to either CO, AZ or UT. This summer my in-laws flew to Boston to see my SiL and expected us to schlep to Boston if we wanted to see them. (we ended up having to drive 3 hours round trip to JFK when their connection to Boston got canceled and had to pick them up so they had a place to stay and then schlep them BACK!) I'm pregnant with their first and possibly only grandchild and that was the first time they've seen us during my pregnancy. ~.~ I know it's not a financial issue since my MiL did an Impressionist tour in France in May. MiL is retired, FiL has been working part-time now for fun, both are in their 60's but are in terrific shape... It's just they always expect us to have to travel to them.

It's really frustrating. We stopped pretty much trying to see them for Christmas because of all the religious tensions. In-laws are Christian and we are Jewish and we always spend Thanksgiving with my family as it is a big family time for my family (and DH's parents don't cook at all vs. me and my family do!) They once came to spend Passover with us, but that was a mess since they didn't get the religious observance at all, despite repeated explanations. I've not even suggested Rosh Hashanah because I don't know what they would do while we were at services.

I feel like between the Jewish holidays and going out to see DH's family we never get to take actual fun vacations anymore together.

[doberbrat]

absolutely. in 20 years, my IL have NEVER come to see us. EVER. they attended our wedding and thats it.

my family is a bit better. my mother visits. I have a cousin who visits and on occasion, (like every 5 years or so) my aunt and uncle visit and thats it. part of it fo rmy family is we have a 2br so they cant stay w/us and they cant afford to stay in a hotel but come on people.

my inlaws travel quite a bit. take cruises all over the world they cant drive 4h to see us? it hurts.

[Moneypenny]

What we have settled into is that we travel for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Any other time anyone wants to see us, they need to come to us. In fact, the next three weekends we have various family coming to visit (which I'm not real thrilled about, but I'm sure not going to complain out loud about it, lol!). Our traveling all involves long car trips, and with a both a kid and dog who get carsick, I'm just not going to do it more than is necessary.

[daisymommy]

Oh yeah. This was totally our story. I finally put my foot down and said enough is enough. I wanted my kids to wake up in their own beds on Christmas morning and come down to their gifts under their tree, to our own family traditions. Thanksgiving isn't as big of a deal, but it's still the traveling and cost that entails.
We were basically shunned from the family every single year for months when we said we weren't coming there again, but they were more than welcome to come to our home for the holidays. But in the last 4 years, no one ever has! I guess that's how important we really are to them. Important enough that they beg for us to come because they miss us so bad, but not so bad that they want to travel here. Humph!