Reply to I don’t want to travel with my parents.

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "I don’t want to travel with my parents. "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I need help.

I’ve come to the realization that my mother doesn’t love my father, at least not in the way one is supposed to love their spouse. They don’t enjoy each other’s company. They have no shared interests. They just exist in the same house together.

The thing is, my mother thinks she wants to travel, and she’s attempting to glom on to my nuclear family vacations to make it happen. Only, the last time (probably three times, but for sure the last time) we traveled with her joining us, we vowed never again. She’s just not a good traveler, I don’t think she actually enjoys herself, she just clings to the idea that she will. She’s slow, which in an of itself isn’t a problem, but her attitude towards walking/being tired/being hot aren’t fair when it was her choice/suggestion to do the thing that is making her tired/hot. She doesn’t accept her limitations and it makes the trip miserable for everyone else.

My DH and I already struggle to make family vacations happen with jobs and teens. We are happy if we get a week off together, and cruel as it sounds, I don’t want to spend it catering to my mother who refuses to accept that she can’t do the things she used to do—she has a heart condition and arthritis she refuses to treat.

Also, selfishly, I only have a couple more guaranteed summers with my kids. I also do realize I only have a limited number of years with my mom, but I don’t want to spend them doing things that end up being miserable for everyone, just because it was something we used to enjoy.

She’s planting seeds that she wants to travel with us again soon. Today she told me it’s her “fantasy” to take a trip together. What flashes before my eyes is my 16yo, and how we only have two guaranteed summer vacations with her, if that. It makes me sad to think that, to please my mom, I might give up one of them.

FWIW, we traveled with my parents frequently before we had kids and while they were elementary aged. It was fun and enjoyable. But then something shifted, and even though we’ve tried three more times post-shift, it seems this is the way they are now.

How do I break it to my mom that it’s likely not going to happen?[/quote]

They both sound too old and set in their ways to travel now.

To go from all traveling together great before kids and during elementary aged kids, to trying again three times and it “not going well” (whatever that means) sounds like one ore more big things changed with them. In the last 3-5 years.

What changed? Besides your kids now being teens and likely wanting active trips or trips with friends or screens. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics