Family Matters
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: how often should you see your in-laws? need your opinions!!
I agree that your visits sound pretty excessive. Why does your H feel sorry for them? Do they not have other things to do with their time? Is he an only child?
In-laws are retired. DH is an only child. In-laws don't have any friends, probably because MIL drives everyone away. She's the most self-centered person I've ever met. She's egocentric times a thousand. They have no hobbies. Even their families won't hang out with them unless it's christmas or other big occasion.
My DH and I live in Fl...our families live in PA....we see them 2-3 times a year. Usually 2 long weekends and a 10 day period over Christmas.
8-12 times a year is crazy.
oh, man I could NEVER deal with that...lol
My ILs live a 2.5 hour drive and we see them about once a month.....sometimes a day trip and sometimes overnight. We do most of the traveling and honestly at times it feels like too much.
My parents are close and my parents stop by maybe weekly, for maybe a 15-30 minute visit though.
NO WAY would I do what you're doing. I'd make that trip maybe 1-2 times a YEAR (and that's *if* we could afford it).
We live 20 minutes from my ILs and we maybe see MIL 8 times a year and that's only a few hours at a time! FIL helps DH fix up our house so we see them more. The amount you see your inlaws since they are such long visits is insane.
We live an hour flight away and about a 5 1/2 hour car ride away. We see my inlaws twice a year. We go down there for a 3 day weekend in the summer and they usually come up here for a 3 day weekend at some other time. There might be another 3 day weekend thrown in there but it's usually 2 to 3 times a year we see them.
I don't know how you do it seeing them 8 - 12 times a year for the length of time you do. That would be alot if it were my best friend, much less my in laws.
What I want to know is why you JUST want to know how often you see your INLAWS? Why not your own parents? Because his family is as important/has equal 'rights' to your nuclear family dynamic as your family.
With that being said, I live in Europe. We have seen my InLaws once since we have been here and my family 3 times.
That is because my family (parents once and sis once) has taken the time to come to Germany to visit us, whereas his family won't. We have even offered to pay for my MIL's ticket to have her join us.
I will always try to facilitate equal visitation to both sides for my children; ie ensure that OUR trips home are a fair distributation of time.
But I will not stop people from coming to see us to make it equal, especially while we are in Europe.
i didn't ask about my parents because there is no conflict about how much we see each other. They live much closer than my in-laws do so we see them more often than we see DH's parents, but it's not a problem because they don't want to see us all the time because they have a life, and DH is OK with seeing them however many times we end up seeing them, plus I'm ok with visiting them on my own, whereas he refuses to do that with his parents.
there's all kinds of conflict when it comes to his parents because they want to see us so often, and they're always inviting themselves to NYC to visit us, and then they pressure us to come visit them more since they come visit us so much. That reasoning makes no sense to me because it makes me want to visit them LESS because they're always here, not MORE.
My in-laws live 10 minutes away, and we see them once or twice a week, on average. It just depends on what's going on with us and with them. Sometimes it's just dinner or breakfast out; sometimes it's a whole day together doing some activity or hanging out at their house or ours.
My parents live about 8-10 hours away by car. We see one or both of them about every six weeks, but they come to see us more than we go to see them. Their visits last 2-4 days on average. I usually go see them on one of my school breaks and once during the summer.
With neither set, though, is it ever a chore to visit or to host. We enjoy their company; we like spending time with each other; it works out. If we didn't like it and were doing it out of obligation, we'd cut back.
My Inlaws are a 4 hour plane ride away. I visited for 10 days last month. I wanted to kill myself by day 4. I've been married since 2002, in the beginning I visited a lot. Being young, it took me awhile to realize they had absolutely no interest in me, despite my efforts.
I have not visited their home since 2003 or 2004. I don't even remember. My husband can go and does go on his own.
I don't want to waste my vacation time on them. They visited us once, somewhere between 2005-2008, that was also super not fun.
I am very, very, very, very polite, but detached.
Inlaws suck. Mine do, my husband's do.
It's an unnatural relationship in my opinion - forced intimacy without the effort, the years or the interest.
I haven't seen my ILs together since my wedding. I saw my FIL about a year ago. I wish we lived closer. Alas Alaska and Washington State have Canada in between them. My H sees my parents quite a bit but they only live 2.5 hours away and my family is very close-nit whereas his isn't.
Whatever works for you and your H is what you should do though. There is no normal per se.
I agree with the people who say there is no "normal." I think it all depends on how often you WANT to see them, being able to afford air fare, how busy you are with other things, etc.
My IL's (that would be sibling ILs and their families; MIL and FIL are both deceased) live 10 minutes away from us but we really only see them for holidays and birthdays (which there are a LOT of birthdays between kids and adult milestones, as he has a huge family). That's H's choice; he loves his family very much but doesn't want to see them all the time.
8-12 times per year? ?Wow.
Hm. ?We live a few states away and we see them probably three or four times per year for a period of maybe 1-2 days each time. ?
I live in Ohio. My ILs live a 3 hour car drive away and my family lives in Boston (14 hours by car, though I prefer to fly). We see DH's family every 3-6 weeks depending on the work schedule and go back for everyone's birthday and all major holidays, sometimes for a week (or more) at a time. In the almost 3 years we've been together, we've seen my family 3 times: in June 2009 for my younger brother's graduation, July 2010 for a bridal shower, and August 2010 for our wedding.
I hate seeing his family so much because they drive me absolutely crazy and have no problem telling me how I and DH are doing things wrong. I wish we could see my family more but DH doesn't like to fly an driving takes 2 days each way, so it always seems a little ridiculous to take a week off work to see them for 3 days. Plus, he doesn't like them (for good reason, but I won't get into that) and fights having to see them tooth and nail -- obviously he usually wins those fights.
Etsy shop
We live in NYC and both sets of parents live outside of Seattle. I'm an only child so my parents (Dad, mostly) want us to visit as much as possible and come out to NYC to visit as often as he can.
SO's parents have 2 other children at home so they are happy to see us whenever we plan to see my parents.
We visit 4 to 6 times a year at most. My dad comes out twice a year to visit and hang out in the city, he loves it here.
I agree that there is no "normal" but the fact that even you find it excessive I would talk to your H and his family and establish boundaries about visiting.