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?

I've never got to see my grandchildren yet I have seen on Facebook her family with the children.

are you really saying that you never went to meet the eldest when they were born 6 years ago? No wonder they don't want to come to you. They must have been very offended. You sent a clear message that you didn't give a fuck about their first born baby

..............and I don't dislike her, she grew up near the sea and dh took no interest in the sea before they met..............

OMG do you know how childish and batshit that sounds?

Like any conditions, there are different severities to all illnesses, please don't judge one persons abilities or disabilities to another...one may be able to do whilst another cannot.

You have never seen the grandchildren ? yet they are 6 years old and under.

so in 6 years neither you nor your husband have driven the 150 miles to visit them ?

btw you say ' but this is still our son's home ' - no it isn't, it is his childhood home. his home is with his wife and children.

Im a grandma with disabilities, whilst able, id travel to the end of the earth to see my grandkids. My daughters only lives 5 mile away but they are super busy and have a lot on and rarely visit, maybe once a year , i visit them every week, i would if they were 5 hrs away...but..it would only be say 4x year as id use train. Ive no animosity about them not visiting, i raised my DD to be able to survive without me, and thats what shes doing. Be proud that you raised kids who arent co dependant with you.
If your husband wont drive, can you get someone else to take you? Please swallow your pride and visit, you will regret it...

Your Grandchildren don't even know you and have a relationship with their other grandparents.
They will not be missing you and your son does not want to trouble himself to come and see you, however you came to arrive at this mess here you are.
If you were a terrible person like many posters believe then surely you wouldn't have the support of your other children and family but as you do I would continue to build that relationship because I think the one with your son and his children who you're not in contact with that ship has sailed.
You say you still exchange cards and I think thats as far as this will go.
I don't think you're entirely at fault here but for your own sake put it to bed.
Going round in circles as you put it sounds like more harm than good.

Its 150 mile away? Surely thats only tops around 2;hrs in a car? I have been to visit family 150 miles away on train and that takes me around 3.5 hr...i struggle but i do it...none of them visit me but cest la vie, if we all lived by 'well they don't come to me' ..family as we know it would collapse. Couple times a year OP, visit them...i would be inconsolable if i hadnt seen my grandkids, ever. Your grandkids dont know you, whilst they are young, start making effort.

Like my mil, couldn’t make to effort to visit us, but expected to visited, moaning to family that she was lonely. Managed a trip to Egypt though and Cornwall.

After one awful visit that took 5 hours to get home because of traffic, I made the decision that I would not visit her again unless she came to us -once - it took her about 2 years. 2 years that she missed out on.

She also doesn't want to trouble herself to go and see him and neither does his father.

My mum is older than you, also doesn't drive and also has health conditions.

When my baby was born she got 2 trains and 2 buses, taking over 2 hours, just to come to the hospital to meet her grandchild. She did this several times in the first few months as she appreciated I wasn't up to travelling with a newborn. Now our baby is older, we do most of the travelling.

You burned your bridges when their first child was born, that was the time YOU needed to make the effort. I'm honestly not surprised they won't come and visit you.

@changinghairstyle ‘I miss my son terribly and the grandchildren.’

You’ve never even met your grandkids. You’re a complete stranger to them. You can’t miss what you don’t even know.

I can’t believe you were expecting a new mother, in postpartum, with her first newborn, to travel 3.5 hours to you instead of you going to them.

You can still make this right by going to them now. They’re still inviting you, despite everything. If you don’t, they may just stop bothering entirely. What’s more important, your pride or your grandchildren?

If this were a situation where OP was too unwell to travel and had been for years, I could see being upset. That isn’t what OP wrote. She wrote that she would travel to them if they would house her. Unless I missed it, she didn’t offer to sleep on the couch or even tell us the size of the son’s house. He may legitimately not have room to house her. She may not be willing to sleep on the couch or an air mattress. If OP is on the heavier side, a children’s bed won’t be able to accommodate her. There’s so much missing information. If her disabilities are keeping her from traveling, then why the insistence they house her?

On the other side, OP doesn’t know the grandkids to even say it will be easier on them to come to her. Do son and DIL have a vehicle that will fit three car seats, a portable crib (will the baby even sleep in one), a portable high chair, stroller, and all the other stuff you need to travel with three kids. How childproof is OP’s house? Do the kids get car sick? What activities are available in OP’s area for them to do with the kids? Are the rest of the relatives as inflexible as OP is coming across? Are the other relatives going to give son and DIL a hard time? Do son and DIL even want to visit all of the other relatives? OP can insist they are family, but to the children, they are strangers and OP and the relatives have at least half the blame for that.

Giving OP the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she doesn’t realize how she comes across. People are pointing out her wording about DIL, them choosing to live away, time they spend with DIL’s family, etc…. It’s probable that son and DIL have picked up on these bad vibes from OP, so they don’t want to bring their DC for a potentially drama filled and hostile visit. Plus, son is matching OP’s current efforts with maintaining the relationship. This is on OP to fix, if she wants a relationship with them. At some point, son is going to rescind the invite. OP needs to decide what she wants the most, a relationship with son, DIL and grandkids or victimhood, gossiping and complaining.

That's true. However in the bleakest of senses, it sounds like the OP's health is only going one way. Is she truly resigned to never again holiday anywhere or travelling anywhere again even in the UK? Is she planning on being confined to her large family home until she departs this life? If not, then she can grit her teeth and go see her DS & his family.

You are being unreasonable. You have effectively alienated your son and his family because of some odd idea you have about them visiting you. Yes they could visit you, but if you haven't turned up for the birth of any of their children I'm not surprised they don't visit. I wouldn't. You should get in your car at the earliest opportunity, go down there and beg forgiveness. And if your husband won't drive you get a cab.

Eh ?
The nearest seaside for Brummies is Weston Super Mud.
I've just checked with Google Maps, and it is 99.4 miles from my postcode (which is on the W-S-M side of the City, so further from most parts of Birmingham.

Sorry for derail. It just seemed an odd thing to read.

"I've never got to see my grandchildren"

Because you've never made the effort to. Putting your relationship with your son aside, you need to accept that seeing them means swallowing your pride, putting away your excuses and getting your perfectly able husband to drive the two of you there. It is in your hands whether you see them or not.

If you aren't willing to make that effort for your grandchildren, perhaps it is no big loss them missing out on a relationship with you.

Just go to see them! It’s irrelevant why and where they moved. Train and bus transport is easiest, at least you’re not packing up a whole families kit and driving exhausted on no sleep.

This is so appalling it beggars belief, your poor poor son and DIL. How could you and your husband not visit when they had their first baby? How utterly heartbreaking for them. And you have never visited to meet the next two grandchildren either. It also reads as your other children and families do not get to see them either?

I am utterly disgusted by this on behalf of your son. His entire family have basically abandoned him and never even met his children. Just because he moved away!

As I said before I am low contact with most of my family for over a decade and have been no contact with nearly all of them for a few years now. Nonetheless I have met all my full nieces and nephews and may only be allowed to see them once every couple of years for an hour but I have tried my hardest for the children to know I exist and that I love them all dearly. But I have still put myself mentally in a not great environment for my mental health (I get severe anxiety and panic attacks) and travelled over 10hours each way to see them. We also send cards and presents for birthdays, Christmas and easter and letters to the children in between.

My childhood was not good, therapist made me realise it was neglectful I’d just never admit that to myself. So my parents are not anywhere close to be going to be winning any awards for their parental skills towards me BUT they absolutely loved my child and as he grew up were excellent grandparents towards him.

I just cannot fathom IF your son was brought up in a loving close family unit how you cannot all be excited to meet the new babies as they arrive, get to know their little characters etc etc etc over the years.

I am just trying to explain that my family is not a safe environment for me and yet I have done all that I can to see the children as them knowing I love them matters more than my discomfort. How have you never done this for your three grandchildren?

The thing is it doesn't change anything whether they're being unreasonable or not because they're not going to change. So your choice is to go and visit them or not see your Grandkids. We traveled further than that to see in-laws, have since first was 6 months old and did it even when we had 3 kids under 4. I don't think the length of trip is a big issue, but it's not really a long journey where we live. Sometimes In-laws come to us, sometimes we go to them. I think that's reasonable. But it doesn't matter what I think or what anyone else thinks. They're not willing to travel so your choice is to visit or not see your Grandkids. I have bad health too, but I would travel to see them if that was my only option.

Up to me being 6 years old our family lived about 30 mins from my Mum's parents in the Midlands and about 3 hours to Dad's Mum in SE. We then moved to NW for Dad's work and Mum's parents moved to SW by the coast. We (Mum, Dad, younger sister and myself) went to stay with them every summer for 2 weeks, they came up to us for Christmas for 2-3 weeks or so and we stayed with Dad's Mum at Easter, another 2 weeks. Bearing in mind the roads were nowhere near as good as they are now and the M5 was only just under construction it took considerably longer than 3 hours (at least 8 or 9). We did this for many years as a family so we could spend time together. We didn't go on other holidays eg abroad as we wanted to spend time together. When my Grandad got older and his driving got worse my Dad would drive to pick them up and bring them up to us and when I started driving I did the same. We had 4 bedrooms which meant a spare/guest room which was great till Dad's Mum stayed for a few years (came for a fortnight and stayed for 3 years) and had the spare room and my now widowed Grandad came for Christmas (or a few months or so) so I was turfed out of my room for him and I spent those months on a sun-lounger (not even a camp bed) in the dining room wedged between the table and sideboard. At this time I was 19 or 20 and wouldn't have dreamed of complaining or making a fuss, they were my Grandparents who I loved and wanted to spend time with. We certainly wouldn't have expected them to stay in a hotel or B&B If you want to do something, a few hours driving is hardly a barrier. As the younger ones I would have thought the Son's family would make more of an effort.

Sorry you’re in this situation, OP. Sad that they can’t make room for you for the couple/few nights you’d be visiting, by making A room available.

I remember that when my gparents would visit, my siblings and I would share a room so that they could stay with us. My parents would have never imagined asking them to stay at a different location, but we are in different times I suppose.

Have you thought about moving closer? Of course there’s no guarantee you’d see your grandchildren then, either…

I would have been devastated if my parents hadn't come to meet my newborns as soon as they arrived in the world, and my parents had their own challenges but still managed to make it. To not do so is pretty unforgiveable.

Absolutely you go to them when baby is a newborn. You started this, I wouldn't travel 3.5 hours for someone who couldn't be bothered visiting my newborn. This isn't your DIL being controlling, this is you expecting everybody to do things the way you want or they get cut off. You've even turned the rest of the family against your son and grandkids. That's completely unreasonable that other's can't visit because you won't. They're getting punished and pushed out of the family because they're not doing things the way you want.

Honestly, I think everyone needs to remove the chips from their shoulders in this situation, and come up with better solutions. If you want to see them, find a way to do it, instead of sitting at home, seething with resentment. As your husband is your son's father, I don't see why you aren't both driving down there. It's a Mexican stand-off now, and you will end up with no relationship with your son, and grandchildren. Work out what is most important to you.

"I'd be more inclined to visit if we could stay at their house*
So what is it? You'd visit if you could stay at the house or you can't because of your health? Unless you were very sick when first was a newborn why didn't you visit then? I don't know any grandparents that would behave the way you did. I would be really hurt if parents/in-laws lived that close and didn't visit my newborn.