Reply to My girlfriend only wants to spend Christmas with her family. I think this is so selfish.

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Reply to "My girlfriend only wants to spend Christmas with her family. I think this is so selfish. "

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[quote=Anonymous]A few things:

(1) Is she talking about all Christmases forever or just like THIS Christmas? I would clarify with her. If she's really saying forever then yes, she is being selfish and also incredibly unrealistic. Unless you marry someone with no family at all, it's unlikely that you will never spend Christmas away from your parents. And if you have kids, that shifts things too. We do Christmas at home because we don't want to travel with our kids on Christmas, and our families won't travel to us so we don't see them. And it's more than fine -- we see them at other times during the year and I'm more focused on giving my kids a special Christmas and creating memories and traditions with them than trying to relive my own childhood with my parents.

(2) But also, if you live 11 hours from your family, how often do you currently see them? That's a lot of travel. My parents are about 7 hours away by plane, but it takes more like 13-15 hours of total travel time because there are no direct flights and with layovers and drives to and from the airport, it adds up. Before my DH I visited them twice a year, and after we married that became once a year because we also want to take family vacations just us, plus visit his family (who is closer, so we visit them twice a year). Pre-marriage, I devoted about half or even more than half of my vacation time to visiting my parents, now it's much less because I have more people in my life and that would not be reasonable. If you want to get married, these are things you should think about. Your parents are very important to you now but if you have a wife, they will become less important by comparison. I know people struggle with that but it's just how it is. When you have kids, the shift away from your parents is even bigger.

(3) If you get married, another thing to factor in is how much either set of parents will visit you guys. Especially once you have kids. One thing you will discover is that your relationships to parents will depend at least partially on the effort THEY are willing to put in. Regardless of distance, you eventually grow resentful of always being the ones to travel to them. Especially when they are retired and you have young kids. You will wonder "Why are we flying to Mom & Dad when they have nothing but time and we are juggling school schedules, limited vacation time, and have to entertain two kids under 6 on an airplane for 10 hours?" And your spouse will feel this even more strongly. I would talk to your families about this because a lot of parents of adult kids don't understand this give and take. They expect to be catered to and then are surprised when their kids stop visiting more frequently because they haven't put in reciprocal effort to maintain that relationship.[/quote]

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