How often do you see your extended family?

[eggtime]

We - DH, DD (2) and I - live in the same town as my husband's brother and his wife. My husband and his brother aren't very close, but there's no bad blood at all, they're just both busy people and terrible at keeping in touch.

We have a family group chat for DH's side, and I'm usually the one to suggest meet-ups. I do it mostly because I think it's important to see family, and I want DD to have a relationship with her uncle and aunt.

The problem is, they NEVER seem particularly keen to see us, and never ask after DD. They don't have children of their own and don't plan to, but before you say some people just don't like children, they do talk about their friends' children and my sister-in-law's nephews and nieces.

I mean, this all points to them not liking us. And yet, when we do see them (maybe 3x a year), they're friendly and comment on how lovely DD is. What are we doing wrong? Who's behaving badly here? How can we improve this situation? Please help me understand this.

They're the ones behaving badly if they're not reciprocating. Do you have other family or friends who can fulfill the auntie/uncle role? My own extended family lived a while for me but my parents had a good group of other families we were close towho I called auntie/uncle.

Thank you for the reply - we do have close friends who see DD a lot more than her actual uncle and aunt see her. However, they have their own children and own nephews/nieces, so I don't expect them to treat DD any more than the child of a close friend.

What a shame

Anyone else got a perspective?

We vary, some we see every week others less frequently.
Speak to the bil and if sil doesn't want to play ball then she doesn't have to come.
You can't make them want to be a bigger part of your life though.
I have an auntie like this, no bad blood, falling out etc, she just isn't or never has been into my family.

We don’t have any family who live in the same town, but MIL lives 1.5 hours away (sees us and dc maybe 5 times a year). BIL lives further and we see him probably 3x a year. If we lived in the same town, I don’t think we’d see each other more than every other month (and we’re actually quite close). We’re all so busy and weekends are precious. It’s very hard to coordinate everyone. Maybe they are just busy and have other people to see? I think just because you’re family doesn’t mean you need to see each other all the time.