Is it unreasonable to be completely fed up with mum and step dad?
I have two kids 3 and 6 years old. We live 300 miles away from my mum and step dad. I think it is fair to say our relationship is strained but I want my kids to have a relationship with their grandparents as they really love them. In the last 6 years my step dad has never visited. He is very open to expressing he doesn't want to have anything to do with me.
My mum frequently messages me and is very keen for me to send photos and videos etc of my kids. However, we only see each other 2-4 times a year (or we used too). I will travel to her with the kids 1-2 times per year, she comes to me about the same. It's not an easy journey with 2 young kids on my own but I am happy to make the effort. However, last year she kept cancelling the visits, both her visiting me and me visiting her. The reasons were bizarre and made little sense. Particularly upsetting was her cancelling my visit to her at Christmas. To be honest I was heartbroken. The reason given was another family member wanted to visit her instead (even though our arrangements had been in place for months). Worse still, my kids were heartbroken.
This Christmas I decided to make plans with other family instead. This is due to continued cancelled visits all year long. I really didn't want to risk the kids seeing no family this Christmas as well. I have only seen her once all year, all due to her cancelling over and over again. But she asked if she could visit just after Christmas. So I said yes. At 1am in the morning she was due to come I get the message: "Not coming, too worried the weather will be too bad in seven days time for the return journey home." She can leave any day, she is driving back and has no other commitments, doesn't work etc. So could just drive home any day that the weather is good.
Is it completely unreasonable to just have a break in contact for a while? I just find it all upsetting as I dont understand why my mum doesn't want to see me and my kids (they are really lovely kids). She travels loads, regularly going on holidays all over the world. Does frequent very long drives to see other family and go on holiday. So it's not the travel. The reasons for cancelling make no sense to me. Most often due to someone else making arrangements to see her or her going on a different holiday. She cancelled seeing my kids school play so she could go look at a new puppy. I don't push her into the arrangements at all. She is always the person asking to make arrangements. I don't want to let my kids down by not giving them every chance to see their nan. But at the same time I find it really hurtful.