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I survived the families! / How do you do it?
Wow. So we arrived back in DC on Tuesday and lets just say I have been useless ever since. Apparently I needed about that much sleep.
It was a nice trip, and we definitely saw everyone. But even two well intentioned families for 18 days is about 12 days too many. Our families live around Cincinnati and Detroit so we get roped into these giant 2 week ordeals because the families are "so close together." In reality, they are pretty close together, but seeing them both for extended periods of time is just way to hard on us. After a while it started to effect DH & I's own communication patterns and we caught ourselves bickering a few times! Yuck!
Fortunately, I think we've decided that this is going to be the last of this. We're thinking that we're going to have to draw a line and visit one family at a time. I'm also considering making it more strict like "We are visiting A family this year, and extending an invitation for B family to visit." (Although even this is hard when you realize that one family has significantly more financial means than another) Even still, I have no idea where this would lead for our own vacation time.
So how do you guys do it? How do you split vacation time between seeing families and yourselves? How often do you see each? Did your "visitation" policy change when you had babies? If so, how? And how did your families react? Any tips for well meaning but overzealous families?
Also, sorry I've been absent. But now that I've emerged from my coma, I can't wait to read what you ladies have been up to!
Re: I survived the families! / How do you do it?
Welcome back! I can def understand trying to fit it all in... esp w/ int'l travel.
I've only been back to see my family (sister) once since we've been gone (abt 2.5yrs). Haven't seen my parents/brother in abt 3yrs. We talk and email regularly though. My H has been home to see his parents once and also returned for a funeral. I didn't go on either trip (not b/c I don't like them/support him, just crappy timing w/ work).
We have been lucky to have tons of friends and family visit us over here though, so that's kind of cool (2 of H's siblings, 2 of his niece/nephew, my nephew, 2 sets of cousins, etc).
We're only overseas for a relatively short time 3-5yrs, so I've been more inclined to travel w/ our vacation time/$ than go visit family. I know, I know, I'm a bad person.
When we go home, I imagine, we'll go back to visiting family 2/yr. Luckily both sets of parents live w/in a couple hours of each other and are laid back and don't pressure us to see them (my mom does a little, but it's not extreme). The other thing that's nice is both sets understand and don't take offense to a solo trip (ie H goes to H's, I go to mine). We'll do solos for little visits, but we wouldn't do it for major holidays (e.g. it's important to me that we spend Xmas as a "family"--together). We don't have kids, I imagine the solo thing would be harder that way.
After more than 25 years of nagivating a set of divorced parents, I added DH's set of divorced parents in the mix. Our honeymoon was the only vacation in 10 years we have ever taken by ourselves. We have the holidays figured out most of the time, but vacations are still a sticky situation especially since two sets of parents live in Alabama, one in NH and one in Israel. It sucks. Now we're adding a kid in the mix and I just can't wrap my head around that one yet.
My Israel Blog!
It's only my family that lives in the States so if we go back it's mostly to visit them. The problem is though that EVERYONE wants to see us, including family in Detroit (my family is in Pittsburgh). This was an 'eh' problem before and we just sort of went with the flow and visited, however now, with a kid, and soon to be another, we just can't.
Next time I go home my Mom offered to host an open house day and anyone who wants to come visit can and those that don't then oh well. I am not spending my vacation time running around seeing everyone any more. It's gotten ridiculous.
My FIL lives in Lebanon, but we haven't seen him in almost two years due to outside problems like money, passport renewals, Leo's bday, me now being pg. But, also because of him never coming to see us so we don't go out of our way to visit him.
Our families are about 4 hours away from each other in the states. The last time we went back was the first time we brought our son, first grandson on both sides. Between seeing parents, grandparents and my h's work obligations, we were in a different bed every 3 nights. It was too much. On top of that we were slightly guilt-tripped for not spending enough time with some of the people, and then we were upset that some people didn't take time off for our visit (and then they preceded to give us a guilt trip about not spending enough time with them). Also, we only got to really spend about 2 days visiting with friends. Ugh.
So, we decided several things. The big thing is that I don't have much interest in visiting our parents where they live. I love being at my parents house, but they have dogs I'm allergic to. So, what we are going to do in the future is to remain stationary, in a location of our choice, for the amount of vacation... say 1 or 2 weeks. Then, people can come to us. Then the amount of time we spend together is more dependent on the amount of time they make for it, instead of how we juggle it all.
The best thing (at least for us) is we get to see more of the states instead of going back to places that don't have much interest to us, and we don't have to spend so much time/money driving everywhere. This probably won't work every time we go back to the states, but if it works every other time I'm ok with that. Otherwise, we'll probably split time between each of our parents, but on the same trip. There's no way I can go to the states and not see my parents. I wouldn't mind adding some hotel nights in there, so let's say we stay with each of our parents a few nights, and then stay at a hotel near our parents a few nights. I don't think the parents will go for it, but it's the only way I can think of an extended visit with the ILs without going crazy.
Our families live 45 minutes from each other. No chance of seeing one and not the other. In one regard that was nice for living overseas because we didn't have to make separate flights to see them after flighing halfway around the world. On the other side it was difficult because they wanted every second of our time.
We had already learned the hard way a couple lessons.
Don't switch houses every day because of their schedules. We did that once and were absolutely exhausted physically and emotionally. We were the only ones travelling and then had to make the trip between the houses. Both sets did the "oh, stay another moment" and then the "when are you getting here".
Take a day for ourselves. We love the area around there, lived there, and have a ton of things we like to do there. Taking an overnight and day for ourselves was awesome. No problem getting grandparents to watch BabyD for that.
What I learned last time, make sure there is appropriate space. At one point I had to put my foot down and let them know that the LO and I needed enclosed space. Not the living room, not the loft, especially not with the 3-5 other people there each night. I just had to let them know that if it wasn't going to work out then fine, please let me know so I could get a hotel room. As our family grows we may need to stay at a hotel rather than with them if it just isn't good for all of us.
I feel your pain. We have divorced families, and my grandparents raised me for a large portion of my life - so we have 5 sets of families to see - all live in the same city. Going there is like a familial onslaught.
With the kids it has now been even more stressful, because everyone is vying for equal amounts of quality time with them while we were home.
What we did / do to ease it is to have a get together the night we arrive at someone's house for all of the parents / grandparents. Seeing everyone all in one go is much easier with alcohol and hors d'oeuvres!
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
2) Our families are in Cincinnati and DC, so about as easy to get between as Cincinnati and Detroit (not very at all). Our policy is that we see who we see based upon our plans. There have been times when we have gone to the US, spent a couple days visiting our siblings in DC, and then went off to do whatever without going to Cincinnati at all. This next trip back will be to Cincinnati because we have a wedding to attend there and then we will probably head off on our own somewhere for a week or so. We won't be going to DC.
The thing to remember is that visitation is a two way street. They can just as easily come to you as you can go to them. If you have already flown half way around the world, it's not too much to either a) just go visit family in the other city over a weekend or b) ask them to come to you.
3)18 days?!?! I love my family and I love Cincinnati but I would go crazy if I was just sitting on my rear there visiting family for over two weeks. I do not envy that at all.
It definitely has changed now that we have kids. We simply can't afford to go visit the family we aren't living near as often. We were visiting my family in the US when we lived in the UK pretty regularly. But now we have two kids and the exchange rates are against us and flights are even more expensive and we haven't been to Ireland in almost two years. It actually sucks. DH's family comes to visit once or twice a year but its not enough for any of our liking.
We have started to place some limits on how often we see my family, they are a 2-3 hour drive away in CT. We were going down a LOT when we first moved back over here but its just too much for the kids and it takes up our whole weekend. We can't go down for every little thing. It's not like my siblings or parents will come up here at the drop of a hat so I think they're starting to get that we're a family with our own schedule, too.
As for the length of time we actually do see the family we live away from for 10-14 days at a time. It can be hard, yes, but its really the only way to make the expense worth it and it maximizes the amount of time we all get to spend together. It uses up a big chunk of DH's vacation time but its worth it since we see them so infrequently.