Reply to Vent: “gift” of a trip that I don’t want and requires me to spend lots of money and time

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Reply to "Vent: “gift” of a trip that I don’t want and requires me to spend lots of money and time"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It amazes me that people on DCUM have such rich families they are disappointed the parents don't offer to pay for flights in addition to accomodations. I can't even imagine. [/quote]

It amazes me you don't get it. It's not like this a trip OP wants to go on to a wonderful place and she gets the bonus of some parts paid for. It's a [b]manipulative[/b] "gift" where she is still forced to pay a chunk of money and take off from work.

If your spouse is on board, you politely decline. These days Covid is a great excuse. Give a nice gift with heartwarming card and be done. Let the chips/drama fall where it may.[/quote]

[b]It is no more manipulative than a wedding invite.  In fact, that is the perfect analogy.  [/b]These people want to celebrate an important life milestone and they want to do so with their family.  They are shelling out the cost of the specific event, but others will have to pay to get there and other incidentals.  It is also disruptive to their lives and might not be where they would choose to go on their own at the time they would go.

Sure, people get annoyed about weddings, and sometimes for good reason.  But that is all this is.  Same thing.[/quote]

It really isn't, but you tried.

You can really tell who has experienced this in their family and who hasn't. Twisting themselves into the usual DCUM pretzels to defend / do their devil's advocate game. [/quote]

Pretty much agree. A wedding usually runs over the course of the weekend. The trips often discussed here are usually a week, maybe more. Fine if coordinated in advance, but def not if it is just being announced with no discussions. I was always lucky to have a lot of leave time stored up and a relatively flexible schedule, but it really is hard for folks who are not in that situation. FWIW, I think the OP either needs to go this time or arrange with DH that she will go for just a long weekend then return to her job to store up time. Then going forward they need to come up with a plan.

And, as with anything, there may need to be compromise. DH and I came up with a system where events were ranked. He wants me to go to his HS reunion and I had tentative plans that weekend - then he needs to rank it from 1-10 to the latter being the most important event ever in his life. (That's a hypothetical but you get my drift.) We did it only a few times, then pretty quickly realized we were able to figure it out. The system simply helped us better understand what was truly important to each other. [/quote]

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