This is about as mundane and pointless as it comes.
My family is visiting me. I’m an adult living four hours away. I just moved from somewhere that was a 20 hour drive from “home.”
In the nearly ten years I lived on the East Coast my parents NEVER came to visit me. I was annoyed. As an adult, I convinced myself that this was fine…if I wanted a good relationship with them it was up to me to make all the effort and expense in order to do so. Fine.
But now that they’re driving to my neck of the woods, I’m expected to be grateful. I’m really not.
My husband smokes. They will complain about the smell of cigarette smoke. My mother will gasp and choke. They will demand that we eat at places that a) aren’t good for anyone, and b) are especially bad for me post-weight-loss-surgery. I’ll be given a choice between not eating or throwing up. No matter how many times I thank them for whatever they bring, I will still be told I’m ungrateful.
It’s weird because in general I like their company but I’m so annoyed that they never make any effort that I’m more bitter and put out that they’re coming than excited to see them. I mean, they are invited…so I should NOT feel this way.
One person where I work lied to her relatives and claimed she needed to stay late at work, and then basically hung out with the evening crew until 10pm or so.
So basically you’re complaining that your parents never came to visit, and now that they are, you’re complaining that they’re coming?
Yes, that’s about the size of it. But even more, I guess my complaint is that after 10 years they’re making an effort and they are making it very clear that I should be VERY grateful that they’re coming and that this is a really big deal for them. To drive four hours. To see their daughter.
I’m GLAD they’re coming, I’m just not as overwhelmed by their generousity as they think I should be. I had dangerous surgery and no one came. I had seizures and no one came.
In addition, when I go to their place I just go with the flow and deal with their day-to-day habits and lifestyle. I think they could do the same for me (I’m 38 years old).
Sigh, but they’re my parents. In the end I love them and will be glad to see them. It’s just one of those “putting up with family quirks” things.
That sucks, I really like it when my folks come and visit, its only a 3 day drive(they fly). We have fun, go to the bar, cook some good food, they come to the shop with me and my dad helps me make money and my mom does some yard work and cleans the bathrooms.
Wasn’t always like that, until I was about 30 my Dad was always on my ass. We got along well, but I could never do anything right. I was back home and we were tailgating and one of the soft sided coolers blew away, I went and got it, it had some dirt on it and I just threw it in the back of the truck, and he just went off about how irresponsible I was and how I didn’t care about shit blah blah blah because I didn’t wipe the dirt off a $7 cooler that he said he was going to throw away anyways.
I snapped, I went off and said a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have, stood up for myself though. I think what got him was I told him he sounded like his mother(she’s wised up in the past few years also, I wonder if they had the same talk?). The friends with us calmed me down, my dad got me a beer, bought me dinner, and the next morning as we were leaving the hotel, he looked at me and said “we OK?” Never another word spoken about it, nobody ever told Mom.
I think he just needed to realize that I wasn’t a kid anymore. Its been a great relationship since. I know I’m doing things he always wanted to(starting a succesful business) and when he did try, it went belly up and I was afraid of him being pissy at me, but he’s been great, he even loaned me 22k last month for some new equipment when the credit thing was going down. No questions asked.
I really have no advice, relationships with parents are so different, enjoy them while they are still around.
Makes perfect sense to me. Their attitude belittles in retrospect, your (considerable) efforts to visit them again and again over the years.
Besides, there’s what I would call the psychological entree effect. If you go too long without food, your sense of hunger gets dulled. But eating just a bit of entree (appetizer) makes your appetite flare up with a vengeance, and you suddenly realize you have been so damned hungry all the time. And if the appetizer is too small, it leaves you more hungry then when you started eating. So a little effor on their behalf can make you paradoxically more angry then if they had continued the old way.
However, are you sure they expect you to be grateful? Some folks just really hate travelling, hate being out of their hometown. Maybe they are perfectly willing to go to any other length of trouble to see their daughter, like arranging time and lodgings, special food, etc.
And perhaps travelling is their achilles heel, and they just want a bit of recognition for their effort. “Oh sure, KnitWit has travelled hours every time to see us. But she really is the admirable adventurous type and doesn’t mind travelling. Little old me, I’d get car sick/scared/homesick!”.
You might have planted that idea, when you, to stop them from feeling guilty, put on an act everytime they asked about your trip, along the lines of: “No mom, it’s okay form me to drive over here. Music on the radio, al little uninterrupted me time, watching the landscape, I enjoy the trip, really”.
You: You realize how unhealthy they are and how bad eating has reaked havoc on your body and how you have turned that ship around. YAY!
Possible Solution: Eat something before you leave for El Clogged Artery or stick to salads.
Other Solution: Nuke your parents from outer space.
It is hard to deal with people who haven’t seen the light about the evils of crappy food ( or in my case good books and good yarn*) You have become a food snob of sorts and they are, as they have always been, Joe Dirt. Could be worse, they could be like my inlaws and eat most German cooking. They’ve been here for 35 years, at this point, and had never had a burrito or egg roll until I had it at my house one night. That means they were in their late 50’s before knowing the joys of Mexican and Chinese food. 58 years burrito-less. My mind still boggles.
*Yet, I drink Cheapie McCheappants Lite Beer The Horrors!
Interesting comments about having an appetizer. That is, indeed, the way I feel. Like it sort of “rubbed in” the lack of effort they’ve made on my behalf.
My parents are in their early 60s and live on a farm, so if I didn’t know better I would think they were good candidates to simply be the type who hate to travel. However, this past year (while I was having some trouble that left me literally BEGGING them to come) my dad went fishing in Canada three times. They drove to Florida (3 days in the car for them) twice. They love to travel.
Not only that, but I lived in Boston, which is a really fun place to visit. They take numerous vacations and short weekends away every year. They just don’t waste any of them on me.
My mom is like that. She always tells me that she’s too old to fly and that’s why she’s only visited me in California twice in over 20 years. Her inability to fly hasn’t stopped her from taking over a dozen trips to Ireland to visit my sister and some fancy cruise vacation at least once a year. It hurts my feelings even though I don’t really want to spend time with her any more than she wants to spend time with me, so I don’t know why it bugs me. I’d rather go there and let her play matriarch in her own house instead of her wanting to be the queen in mine. She’s over 80 now so I let her get away with anything without complaining. Some day I might be a somewhat senile bitch too.
That’s just shitty then, and you’ve got every reason to feel angry or hurt.
Isn’t it infuriating how people, (your parents) when they’ve been in the wrong for a long lime, start belittling that very same wrong, because it would harm their positive self image otherwise?
Set the furnace at something outrageously cold or too hot and when one of them mentions it, or even better makes a move toward it, read them the “this is MY house and when you’ve got your own house then you get to change the thermostat, buster!” riot act. Or incessantly follow them around turning off lights, because “electricity doesn’t grow on trees, y’know!” Serve them stuff they’d hate for dinner and rant about the starving children in Wherever that would be happy for those boiled lima beans.
Haha! That’s hilarious! I actually survived very well since they couldn’t stay long. It was all very harmless. As I expected, I was glad to see them and that overwhelmed my annoyance. I didn’t fall all over myself gushing about how nice it was of them to come. But I said it was good to see them, ordered a salad when we went out, and that was that.
And if it annoys my mom a little that I weigh less than 130 pounds and didn’t eat french fries, then all the better.
