Help! Are my husband and I being unreasonable or are my in-laws expecting too much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, I think it's tacky to invite out of town guests to a party place b-day party without also inviting them to your home. It's like they're saying, drive all this way, drop off the present, and we may get a few minutes to speak with you in between wrangling kids and taking pictures.

That being said, now that I'm "old" I would almost surely make the drive to something like this. I would plan something fun (or just a nice lunch) in the area either before or after and invite MIL/FIL to join us in those plans. I might stay over night in a nice hotel the night before and explore the city. The older I get the more I appreciate seeing family members and getting together to celebrate (no matter what is being celebrated). Life is short and you never know how much time you have left with people.

I feel exactly the same way. This seems like immature behavior on the part of OP. But she sounds generally immature, so I'm guessing she's young and lacks perspective.

Nope. It is unrealistic, immature, and rude to expect someone to travel a distance for a child's party if you aren't willing to host them at your home and expect them only to go to some kid's venue and then high-tail it home. I don't see how OP is immature at all. I say all of this as an "old" person who loves spending time with family and totally agrees with the bolded statement from the first quoted PP. I would never ask our relatives that drive from a distance to do so for a few hours at a kids bday place and then send them packing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, I think it's tacky to invite out of town guests to a party place b-day party without also inviting them to your home. It's like they're saying, drive all this way, drop off the present, and we may get a few minutes to speak with you in between wrangling kids and taking pictures.

That being said, now that I'm "old" I would almost surely make the drive to something like this. I would plan something fun (or just a nice lunch) in the area either before or after and invite MIL/FIL to join us in those plans. I might stay over night in a nice hotel the night before and explore the city. The older I get the more I appreciate seeing family members and getting together to celebrate (no matter what is being celebrated). Life is short and you never know how much time you have left with people.

I feel exactly the same way. This seems like immature behavior on the part of OP. But she sounds generally immature, so I'm guessing she's young and lacks perspective.

Nope. It is unrealistic, immature, and rude to expect someone to travel a distance for a child's party if you aren't willing to host them at your home and expect them only to go to some kid's venue and then high-tail it home. I don't see how OP is immature at all. I say all of this as an "old" person who loves spending time with family and totally agrees with the bolded statement from the first quoted PP. I would never ask our relatives that drive from a distance to do so for a few hours at a kids bday place and then send them packing.

The older I get the less willing I am to drive long distances for things like a children's party. In my 20's I thought nothing of road tripping for any reason. Not any more. Don't get me wrong, I'll travel for something significant, a old friends baby shower, a surprise 40th birthday party, just the other day I drove six hours round trip to visit a friend who had a stoke for 30 minutes and I'm not sure she knew I was there. But a 2 hour jump party? Life is short, down time is precious and that kid doesn't care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Staying the weekend is not an option because they are moving in 2 weeks. Additionally, our dog's injury was very serious. the tennis ball that hit him straight in the eye was going about 50 miles per hour and had we not brought him directly in for care he could have lost his eyesight. We we're getting ready to leave for the wedding when this injury occurred. The wedding was 2 hours away. Sorry, I should have included that information in the original post. Thank you so much for all the wonderful advice!

Were you under the impression at the time that it would kill him? Is one of you unable to drive? Still completely unclear on why ONE of you didn't attend with apologies for the other missing.

You're a idiot. If our dog was seriously injured there's no way we would leave him to attend a wedding.

No, you're an idiot. I hope your dog is the only "child" you ever have, you unhinged crybaby.

[Anonymous]

Why didn't you lead with "we are the type of people who think animals are children" so we would know right off the bat you lacked common sense?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why didn't you lead with "we are the type of people who think animals are children" so we would know right off the bat you lacked common sense?

[Anonymous]

You were rude and one of you should have gone to the wedding. The family showed good manners when you talked to them. You had very bad manners and have not learned from your mistake.

You clearly do not want to attend the party so don't go. I would go and turn it in to a fun trip.

[Anonymous]

My inlaws are the "you go no matter what" types. My family is the "come if you'd like" type. It's cultural and very very different. It was an issue early in our marriage but after having two kids who were poor travelers, he came over to our way of thinking.

[Anonymous]

The best advice someone posted is to consider the impact to your future children if you think you may have them. I went out of my way many times to be in attendance at my IL's kids' events and now that I have kids who are considerably younger but love their cousins, they can't make a trip for them. For anything. Any season, any reason. Now that their kids are graduating from HS - 3 kids back to back - we won't go to any length to be there. Too bad! Had my SIL and BIL ever made any effort, I'd love to be there to support their kids. By never coming, they defined the relationship in a certain way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The best advice someone posted is to consider the impact to your future children if you think you may have them. I went out of my way many times to be in attendance at my IL's kids' events and now that I have kids who are considerably younger but love their cousins, they can't make a trip for them. For anything. Any season, any reason. Now that their kids are graduating from HS - 3 kids back to back - we won't go to any length to be there. Too bad! Had my SIL and BIL ever made any effort, I'd love to be there to support their kids. By never coming, they defined the relationship in a certain way.

Just like Jesus said!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The best advice someone posted is to consider the impact to your future children if you think you may have them. I went out of my way many times to be in attendance at my IL's kids' events and now that I have kids who are considerably younger but love their cousins, they can't make a trip for them. For anything. Any season, any reason. Now that their kids are graduating from HS - 3 kids back to back - we won't go to any length to be there. Too bad! Had my SIL and BIL ever made any effort, I'd love to be there to support their kids. By never coming, they defined the relationship in a certain way.

Well, it sounds like this PP attending events did not make any difference. If you end up having the youngest children in the family, people are already "kid event" fatigued (even the parents) and sometimes they don't want to bother and just want to rest. The best idea would be for people not to have these expectations and just roll with what happens and what you enjoy doing.

I think OP screwed up by not having one of them attend the wedding and one stay with the dog. Now, they are being made to "pay the price" to make up for that mistake. I would not think it was worth it to travel that far for a kids party held in a kids venue, but maybe one that was held at home with relatives/parents would be worth making the trip for. If OP is being severely guilted, they could decide just to make the trip. Then, the next time, they can say--we came last time and stayed for XX hours, and saw little Larla for 5 minutes before she passed out from exhaustion at the end of the party, so we'll pass on a kid-venue party, thanks.