Family and friends sending birthday cards to my parents.. anyone else??

[Hangryhelena]

This is going to sound a bit entitled I think but hopefully not…

My DS has just had his 11th birthday. For most of his life whenever he’s been sent birthday cards or Christmas cards from extended family (think older friends of the family and extended relatives) they have always come to my parents address. I have been with my husband for over 20 years and have lived in the same house for 12.

I have tried sending cards with my address at the bottom or contacting them directly with my address but they still come to my parents address.

For many reasons - which I won’t go too much into - the relationship between my parents and I is difficult, they both moan about the other to me seperately and claim they hate each other / should have got divorced 10 years ago but didn’t etc etc so I try and have very low contact with them.

Whenever my parents receive something for my DS in this way they absolutely insist on bringing it over and end up saying something inappropriate or revealing some family secret I didn’t want to know, and it’s getting on my nerves!

The situation has happened yet again, my parents have messaged saying they have received a card and asked if I want them to open it. I said yes and it was from a distant relative, they’ve now asked if they can come over, I’ve said no, please stop bringing it around but they think I’m being rude!

does anyone else have this odd situation?

Next time your parents get one and ask if you want them to open it, just say no. Tell them to re-address it and put it back in the post box.

Then write a letter to the relative concerned and tell them it was such a pity that the card was delayed in arriving because they'd put the wrong address on it. Tell them the correct address again.

The only thing with putting it back in the postbox won’t someone be charged for the postage? I didn’t want us to be charged for someone else’s error!

i said yes only because I thought it would stop them bringing it round, I could know who it was beforehand etc. I have messaged the person and asked if they need our address again as it went to my parents, they’ve read and not replied (not the first time!)

My parents are too polite to say anything (and refuse to) and just claim I’m ungrateful . It’s hard to know what’s right in this situation !!

I'd just call the relatives and discuss it if it presents such an issue. Tell them you have limited contact with your parents so DS won't receive anything they send unless it goes to your home address, thanks for thinking of him but equally you understand if they'd prefer not to in the future.

I feel like I’m making excuses here but the people sending them are either related to my parents or their best friends, they won’t understand why I’m low contact with them as they are very good at masking it to other people. I don’t want to have to explain it and have it argued back if you see what I mean. It’s difficult to explain

Just tell your parents to forward them on without opening. They can write to forward to X at address Y on the envelope. They will be forwarded at no cost. They don't need to bring them over. They don't even need to ring you.

Sometimes these behaviours can be about control and meddling. Your parents tell their friends/distant family to send to them because they want to have to bring it over. If you remove the benefit they might get from friends/family continuing to do this, they may actually them themselves.

I am NC with my family and me personally, I would either contact the friends/family myself and say please send direct to us as it's not convenient to send through parents. Or we just wouldn't accept the presents (because I don't see my family or even receive post from them - they don't actually know where we live, thankfully). It sounds a bit harsh, but you might need to be quite direct if you want to get out of this cycle.