I have recently moved 2 hours away from where my husband and I grew up and where both sides of our family still lives. It’s been about 6 months since we moved. We frequently visit and come for birthday parties and bbqs about once a month I’d say.
A problem has since come up with my mother and we have gotten into at least 3 arguments over the amount of time I spend with my family vs my husbands family when we visit.
The latest argument is that she wants us to commit to spending the weekend before Christmas together even though we will be spending Christmas Day with her. We are meeting the weekend before Christmas (the 17th) to do a kids activity with her, my dad, my family and my brothers family. It’s about 2.5 hours away from where they live and 1 hour and 20 minutes from where I live. She is annoyed that I said I wanted to go home that night and not stay at a hotel near by and then do another activity with the kids on Sunday.
I told her it’s the week before Christmas and right now it’s August. I have to make time for my husbands family (his parents are divorced so it’s 3 different Christmas) and we may be doing something that Sunday and I can’t commit to the whole weekend right now. I said I can do the 17th (the reason we’re discussing this in august is because the activity we’re doing sells out months in advance so we needed to buy tickets)
Well this sets her off and she launches into how she wants a whole weekend because no one makes time for her and how I make time for my husbands family but not her. This is simply not true and we see her and my dad wayyy more than my husbands family. For example we spent 2 whole days with her last weekend while visiting and spent 2 hours getting dinner with my father in law. I told her this.
She is so petty and constantly keeping tally about who I’m spending time with in my husbands family vs time with her. She lays on the guilt and no matter how much time we spend with her it’s never enough.
I could go on but I’m at my wits end with this. Any advice is appreciated.
TDLR: my mom guilts me about spending time with my husbands family and not her because she thinks we see them more than her.
1 comment
>She is so petty and constantly keeping tally about who I’m spending time with in my husbands family vs time with her. She lays ongp the guilt and no matter how much time we spend with her it’s never enough.
So stop trying to play her game? It doesn’t really matter what tally she comes up with does it?! If you are giving all the time you can give, that’s going to have to be enough. You can present her with two choices: accept the time you get, or you don’t get any at all.