Long Distance Family Expecting My Family of 5 to Always Drive to Them

Hi! I have 3 children, 10, 7 & 5-oldest a girl & 2 boys. I understand your situation! We live in Gahanna and are from Youngstown-a 3 hr drive. I have a sister that lives in the area so we vent to each other-she has 4 kids and the rest of our family lives "back home."
Fortunately my family & inlaws live within 15 minutes of each other, but our siblings sometimes haven't understood the difficulties of traveling with kids! Even though our siblings have children, they don't travel holidays, etc. with kids in tow every year. As my children have gotten older we knew we would go less frequently for visits because of school & activities. I thought it would be hard, but my husband and I think the road is not a one-way street and we have always welcomed relatives to visit. My Mother-in-law and Father-in-law have always visited the most of any of our relatives. I have come to accept everyone else's attitudes as they are the ones who are losing out & we can't force them to visit or understand our situation. I would discuss with your husband what is best for your family and stick by your decision. Let your family know what you have decided and keep the door open. I have the same problem with my family & inlaws not seeing eye-to-eye, but I keep my comments about each family to a minimum so it doesn't add fuel to the fire. Good luck! Debbie

Dear Nicole, I sympathize! My 2 families were never competitive that way. However, after a 6+ hour drive, they immediately asked how soon we were returning? Some of those 6 hour trips became 8 hour trips, so returning soon was not a happy thought. Thanksgiving and Christmas it was dark when we left the house at 4:30 PM, before DVD players, so it made it a LONG drive.

Since your family is unwilling to do a fair share of driving, just continue to invite them to the NJ relatives. If they refuse to drive, then they can FLY to your home to visit you. If they are unable to bother to do that, you have MORE THAN made a fair effort to get together. DO NOT feel guilty. They are banking on it. Cheerfully offer to meet them at a mall halfway NY/NJ for a few hours. If they cannot drive that far, remind them of YOUR local airport, where you will be happy to pick them up. Then cross the guilt off your list.

You owe first allegiance to your kids and DH, and if your family is unwilling or unable to understand that, then you may just have to live with their childish pouting anger. Sorry to be disrespectful to our family, but they do not seem to be making any fair effort on your behalf.

Good luck, stand firm, keep smiling, and invite them here. Don't be sucked into the guilt / blame trap, let it roll off you like water and a duck. Or,keep being a victim, and the stakes will get more outrageous.

Tough to do, but you owe it to YOURSELF not to be treated so unfairly.

Stand strong - you CAN refuse to be victimized!

C. W

N.,

It's nice of you to make sure that your children stay connected, but you are being taken advantage of. Stop putting your family through that torture. It's very selfish on their parts not to do any of the driving! If it's important to them, they will find a way. If not, then don't worry about visiting..at least not so often.

Stop trying to get everyone to be as generous as you. It's obvious they don't understand and won't be inconvenienced.

I know what you've been going through. My parents live about 4 hrs away by car, and his family lives 4-5 hr away by plane. Guess who hardly visits us and expects us to always come to their house? My folks, of course. And then there was the time when my mom told me she was upset because we were spending a week with his folks over the holidays (once a year), and we had only stayed with them for 2-3 days max. (but several times/yr).

I'd say just do what you're most comfortable with. If your family isn't up to the extra long drive to your family's house, then don't do it. That'll motivate them to come see you for a change--there's nothing wrong with that. My husband has both sets of grandparents 2 hrs away, and we used to spend weekends visiting them both, but that got too crazy. We decided to just spend the entire weekend visiting one side of the family at a time.

If you try to please everyone, you'll drive yourself crazy and wear yourself out. The needs of your family should come first, so don't be afraid of setting some limits.

We have somewhat of the same problem with my husbands brothers family. We have four children and they have two. We drive 26 hours to southern New Mexico, and then they can't drive 20 miles to see us-gas is too expensive! We even stay with my husbands dad and stepmom, who are also the dad and stepmom of my brother-in-law! We usually head their way to see friends and things anyway, so we go to them, or meet them for dinner sometimes, but our kids don't really know their kids as well as they could, or even as well as they know some of our friends kids in that area-our friends are willing to make the drive to my inlaws house. We figure we only have to deal with it once or twice a year, and just try to forget about it the rest of the year~because it doesn't really affect our lives in the long run.

I guess some people have different ideas about seeing family than others. It's sad for the ones who feel it's important and are willing to go to certian lengths to do so, but what can you do about the others?

Maybe 'live and let live' isn't very good advice, but it's the only thing I've been able to come up with :)

Good luck
~J.