Reply to parents visiting for more than two weeks and we don't get along

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[quote=Anonymous]My parents and I are on good terms but I wouldn't say we enjoy each others company. My father likes to rant about politics and always look for things wrong with me or our house or something with our kids. The man just has it in for me. It's been this way for most of my life. I think he always thought his daughter would purchase a house down the block and cater to him, and it didn't work out that way. My mother and I have different personalities and if it weren't for the fact that she's my mother and I'm her daughter, we'd have nothing to do with each other.

Anyway, of course, they're nuts about their grandchildren and will do anything to see them. But our visits don't always go well. They like to stay for extended stretches, usually 2+ weeks, and they really don't want to do much other than park themselves on our sofa. We live in a nice city with a lot of activities, but alas, they prefer our sofa. The only good thing is they get a hotel room because we have a small apartment. Still, when they come over to see the kids, it's for hours on end. They bring two bags of groceries and hunker down with their pre-made sandwiches and diet cokes.

The last visit, which they promised would be for only a few days, went for a week and a half and ended with a big fight. DH tolerates them but has even said that they're visits hardly even feel special anymore because they go for so long. I mean, they go for so long that 5-year-old DS, who is usually really nice with them, starts mouthing off to them. I think he's even sick of seeing them every day for 2 weeks. We have so many points during our visits where things could just end on a high note, i.e. a nice dinner on the 6th day, but then they're here for another week, and it's all downhill with verbal spats and needing to push them out earlier and earlier just to have privacy. So, rather than agreeing that staying so long that we all start getting on each others nerves isn't a great idea, they push it more and stay nearly double the amount of time.

I've tried to tell them to cut it down. I wish I could just tell them that this isn't a way to make great memories. Quality over quality, you know? They come here with loads of presents-- even if it's one of our kid's birthdays, they buy two presents, then throughout the rest of their stay, bring more and more gifts as if every day is a birthday. By the end of the week, our livingroom is filled with forgotten and little-loved new gifts that will land at Goodwill. Just this morning they came by to play with our kids, and brought more children's books with them. I've asked them to please cut back on the books, but it falls on deaf ears.

I don't know how much longer I can tolerate this. I given them a lot of opportunity to hang out with our kids because I know that's why they're here. I don't know how to make this more pleasant other than to a) avoid my own house when they visit for so long and b) create a Goodwill bin to go along with every visit.

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