Reply to Dealing with family living thousands of miles away and feeling resentful of infrequent visits

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Dealing with family living thousands of miles away and feeling resentful of infrequent visits"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My parents moved to Hawaii 8 years ago.  They moved because they wanted to live in a tropical paradise, but have no family there.  I'm an only child and while I was happy for them to move to their tropical paradise, it makes me feel very sad that I only see them once a year.  I work full-time and only get 10 days vacation a year, so I try to visit every other year.  Meanwhile, they are both retired and travel the world constantly, yet only visit me once a year.  They often complain why I don't visit them more often but don't seem to understand the constraints of only having 10 vacation days per year and how far away Hawaii is from here.  It's not like you can go to Hawaii for a few days.

Now DH and I are expecting our first child, and my parents have not expressed any interest in changing their once a year visiting behavior.  I haven't seen them in a year and a half, and they are not planning to visit at all before the baby is born, which makes me sad.  It would be nice to go nursery shopping with my mom or have them be a part in planning for the baby, but they are not interested, but instead have planned several other vacations.  They will come for a short visit after the baby is born, but I'm sure they won't come again for another year.  I feel resentful of the fact that they aren't interested in visiting us, despite the fact that they travel the world frequently, but can't seem to stop over here for a visit in between their many vacations.  They always say that I should be the one visiting them, and are upset that I'm not willing to bring a newborn to Hawaii to visit them right away, and don't understand that I don't want to bring a newborn on such a long flight until its older.  How can I better deal with my family dynamic?  I find myself feeling very resentful of their attitudes toward visiting, especially because they will not be involved very often in their grandchild's milestones.  They don't put a very high priority on family, and it really makes me sad.[/quote]

My parents are exactly like this!! I don't have any answers for you, but I agree that it's incredibly annoying and it hurts. They have so much disposable income, so much time (both retired) and travel all over the place, but they haven't been to visit me for about 2 years, and they have no plans to visit, either. If I want to see them, I have to fly across the country to the west coast to visit.  But, I know they aren't going to change and it's their loss that they won't see their grandchildren. [/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