Not to be expected to travel 150 miles to see grandchildren

[changinghairstyle]

My son and his wife moved 3 and half hours away and then had children, the move wasn't for work or house prices it was simply to live by the sea.

Both son and his wife drive but I've had to stop driving due to age related health conditions.

My son and his wife are not prepared to come and visit because they say it's too far and they work and have children but they have said if I wanted to see them and the children I can come and see them even though they know I can't drive, they also don't have a room at their house so I will have to stay in alternative accommodation.
I have 3 empty bedrooms.
I have declined an invitation and instead invited them to come and stay but now my son is saying I obviously don't want to visit so don't bother then and declined my invitation.
I miss my son terribly and the grandchildren.

Aibu to think they shouldn't expect me to travel all that way with no car and book myself into a hotel when they could just drive down and visit me and I have the room?

Ooh you sound suspiciously like my in-laws. They're also currently moaning that they never see their Grandchild.
We don't live by the sea mind.

They did visit us. Twice. In the first week the baby was born. They've not come since.
And we too see a lot of my parents. Who live much further away, but come and visit for a week at a time, and, pay for accommodation as we also really can't host. (We don't have enough room for ourselves, let alone visitors). And we visit them, because they make the effort with us.

Also, God forbid, if something happened to your son or one of his children, would you not even go to the hospital/funeral? Or would you actually make an effort if they were dead/dying. When it's too late to matter.

Same here. It's only now that my youngest is nearly 2½ that I can bring him half an hour/an hour in the car confidently.
And it still needs to be both DH and I for longer journeys which still involve my younger child screaming so much in his car seat we're worried he'll be sick everywhere.

I personally find the journeys extremely stressful, both as they happen, but also preparing for them and knowing we have the return journey to make. And he's a lot more chilled in the car than he used to be!!

Her loss.

They didn't move to leave you, they moved to give their kids a fantastic life by the sea, and what a lovely place to visit I imagine

With respect you go sound a bit sulky. Remember when your kids were young , They must be exhausted working full time with such a young brood. Keep the fun going by sorting yourself out with a gadget to FaceTime with the kids. Then suggest meeting half way at the weekend to visit an attraction of some sort. Do they have a sofa bed? Offer to babysit and stay over.

Why didn’t you switch on voting? I think it’s because you know you are unreasonable.

You’ve made it perfectly clear that you’ve no intention of visiting them and if I’m honest I wonder whether your health is only one of the reasons given everything else that you’ve said.

You’re making massively emotive statements about how distressed you are but you’re literally doing nothing to address the situation, it feels very manipulative to be honest and I wonder if this is impacting on their decisions not to come up to you. If you’re that bothered, make an effort to see them. It’s been years, there are no excuses.

Yea this. You sound worse and worse with every update.

This is a classic example of "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes".

This is 100% within your gift to resolve, you are choosing not to and then complaining about the consequences.

One of us has a parent we don't visit often. I think they might blame the partner for this but actually they are difficult and it's not fun to visit for anyone.

They've been to our home twice.

They don't realise they are difficult I don't think and don't recognise the impact they have on others. I can absolutely imagine them starting a thread like this.

She said up post they won't see him until he visits their mum.
It sounds like they are on their mums side and are showing a united front out of loyalty for their narcissistic mum.
Stinks of toxic conditioning. I wonder who the black sheep is?

Or they're just a very narrow minded, parochial family that aren't used to people moving around and see it as the DS/DIL choosing not to be a part of the family.

Or they're all under the thumb of their toxic parents and don't want to rock the boat.

Or they have bought into the weird stand off between the OP and her son when she refused to go and visit him with his newborn.

Who knows?!

We make a journey from Manchester to South Wales several times a year, almost exactly 150 miles, Google maps puts it at just over 3 hours, but in reality, when we travel, almost always on weekends and bank holidays, we've never done it in less than 3.5, not even factoring in service stations. So a 150 mile journey taking that long doesn't surprise me.

Also, good for all the posters here having travelled to Timbuktu in a Trabant with 7 children and having a jolly good time. It doesn't sound remotely like that is what would be in store for OP's son and his wife.

I'm getting very strong narcissistic vibes... From the OP...

Plays victim, won't take accountability for own behaviour, triangulates other family members, other child (DD) is the golden child ... Hmmmmmmmm

That sounds amazing. We did lots of travelling across Europe and it has instilled wander lust as well as an interest in natural history and archaeology in my children. My eldest is now 47! I was very fortunate to be involved in a dig in Pompeii when he was a baby, he was strapped to my back as I painstakingly extracted tesserae from the ash.

Tagging lions in the Serengeti - wow. With a radio collar I presume. How absolutely wonderful.

I think your friends and family are telling you what you want to hear. You can see from this thread that it's really not obvious that you're in the right.

Sounds like a bit of a suffocating family dynamic - with the rest of the family “all agreeing” that your son is in the wrong. So the rest of you all live close to each other, and feel that the son who moved somewhere else is in the wrong for doing so?

Sounds like he didn’t just move “to be by the sea” but to where his wife is from? Generally it’s the Mum who needs to be near her support network rather than the dad.

I’m sorry you have health conditions, but it doesn’t sound like you can’t sit in the car for a few hours whilst your husband - your son’s dad - drives you down to see grandkids.

My DM is older than you, has the health conditions you have plus more and she still travels down the country to go and see my sister and niece.

I genuinely can't believe you've never met your grandchildren.

The more I read here, the more I think the logistics of OP getting to her son V. Her son and his family getting to her is entirely irrelevant.

The problem is that OP's son and daughter-in-law don't want to see OP and I don't blame them. Even without her son's side of the story, she comes across as bullying, self-pitying and narcissistic. Who wants to share a roof with that?

The inconvenience of travelling would be nothing if she was a nice and loving mother/grandmother. But she isn't so they don't.

Neither do they want her staying in their home, even though OP admits they could make room for her, if they wanted to.

I suspect OP's husband knows she isn't welcome in their son's house and that's why he refuses to drive there.

OP has only got herself to blame.

OP, it shouldn't come down to a battle of wills, or a battle of being in the right. Or any sort of battle. Keep it simple. Do you want to see them? Do you have the time to spare? Can you pay the fares and a simple B&B? If so, visit1

I'd go. Have a lovely time. Spoil the grandchildren, babysit for the son and partner. Make your presence so warm and inviting and easy that they are delighted to have seen you. Then remind them you have a big house with two spare rooms, so if they ever fancy a long weekend... Suggest some lovely local activities that would appeal to the children.

Bear in mind that it is harder for them to get time off work simultaneously, and to pack small children into a car. Ours used to get very car sick, then their sleep was disrupted in a new place. It was exhausting. Far easier for one adult to move around the country than a whole working family.

You only have two choices here - go and see them, or don't and accept that you will not have contact. You can't make them do anything and I suspect that getting others in your family to essentially boycott them isn't helping, at all.

Not visiting isn't working out good for you - you said it's making you unhappy and you miss them. So you either accept that's how it is and move on with your life, or go and visit them. I know travelling isn't easy with health conditions but you have options. If you do visit though, you need to let go of all the feelings of being hard done by, otherwise I don't think the visit will go well. Only you can decide which route you want.

I agree that none of it has anything to do with the logistics of the journey. It doesn't take much to see what's going on here.

I'm sorry, OP, but you it does sound like you've made it into a your way or the highway type of situation. You say you desperately want to see your son and grandchildren...but insist it has to be on your terms. Your son doesn't want to drive to you and stay with you (and with 3 young kids, frankly, I understand the reluctance here); and your husband doesn't want to drive to see his son, so you've failed to EVER see 3 grandchildren?? I'm afraid it doesn't sound like you're that desperate to see them.

How do you propose to get past this stalemate? Your son has made clear he's never driving to you. If you want to see him and his children, you'll actually have to make an effort. If there's another reason you don't want to go (like you can't stand the area and resent paying for a hotel), then come up with an alternative, like a long weekend away together somewhere completely different. If you can't be bothered to make an effort, then the only option is to accept you won't have a relationship with your grandchildren and your relationship with your son will probably deteriorate. And please don't blame his wife. Your son is an adult who makes his own choices.

I think the OP came out of the same mould as my mother. Sits in her home waiting to be attended like the Queen and moaning to all and sundry that her kids never bother visit and how she's missing out on her beloved grandkids. Grandkids she's never met as she won't get on a bus to make the effort. My mother is yet to meet my DS. He's 11 years old now.

You'll be very lonely OP if you keep this up.

OP I'm a bit unclear on the facts here.

Are you saying you might be able to make the journey if your DH drove or that it would be impossible for you to visit at all ?

It just seems very vague and you can't insist on staying in someone's house if it's likely to be cramped. Surely with a health condition it would be more comfortable to have somewhere quiet to retreat to rather than being with three young DCs 24/7?

Do you travel at all for anything else ? Would your DH do it if you asked him to ? I just think if at least you tried once, you'd know exactly how things were, plus you'd get to see your DGC.