To want my family to visit me sometimes

[FierceGrace85]

I moved away from the town I grew up in, in my early 20s and am now almost 40. The rest of my family, parents, siblings etc all remained in our hometown and all live within a 10 minute drive from each other. I live about 250 miles away from them in the outer suburbs of a much bigger city. It takes about 6 hours to drive or 5 on a good day but it’s about 4 hours in total on the train.

I think when i first moved about 17 years ago, my family thought it was just a bit of an ‘adventure’ and that I would move ‘home’ after a couple of years/ when I wanted to settle down etc. Anyway, I have chosen to continue living in the place I moved to because I prefer it here to the town I grew up in as there’s much more going on and it’s a more open minded and cosmopolitan type of place. I’ve gradually built a life here, made friends, built a career, bought a house and started a family. My whole life is here now and this is my home.

I’ve always made the effort to go back to see family on a regular basis and feel that it’s my responsibility to make the journey because I’m the one who moved away. Over the years, we’ve all settled down and got our own homes, started families etc, so travelling is clearly not as straightforward. My family still expect me to make the effort to visit our hometown frequently but when I suggest any of them coming to visit me they go on about what a long journey it is and how difficult it is for them because of their kids/ pets yet I’m expected to travel with my kids and make arrangements for my pet as though it’s no big deal for me. They seem to have the attitude that it’s my fault for moving away (almost 20 years ago) so if I want a relationship with them, I should have to visit them. AIBU to think that they should make the effort to come and see us sometimes, rather than the onus always being on me?

I find myself feeling jealous of people whose families are more spread out and who are willing to travel to spend quality time together. I find myself thinking about hat my family are very insular and live in such a tiny bubble. Life is short and it seems silly to feel obligated to stay living in the town you grew up in, especially if you don’t really like it! I’d just be interested to hear others’ thoughts on this!

YANBU, but I don’t have a solution. It’s exactly the same for me.

I have the same with my relatives too (aunts/uncles/cousins, my parents are deceased); they make no effort to visit me (3.5 hours by car) and if I don’t do the travelling then we don’t see each other. It’s now been 9 years since I saw many of them as I gave up after spending years of visiting them every few months. I feel sad that I mean so little to them and embarrassed that I spent so much time visiting them when they probably really didn’t care if they saw me or not.

Sadly, many people do have the attitude of ‘you moved away so it’s your fault we don’t see each more often, and why should I waste my time visiting you.’

I suppose they think that as they all live close to each other it's easier for you to travel and visit them all. You did move away which was your choice and it's their choice not to visit you, though it is sad.

You do sounds a bit judgemental that they are happy staying in their home town - perhaps they feel you look down on them all a bit as the more adventurous person in the family?

No advice but I have the same situation. Not quite as big a distance as yours but not far off. DPs and one sibling are very close to each other and the other sibling is max an hour away so we’re the outliers. I know if we visited less they would not visit us more so I just have to do 90% of the visits if I want my kids to have a relationship with their extended family. It’s become much more complicated since one of my siblings had children as my DPs now have grandchildren just down the road.

I also find it frustrating, especially as I have to take annual leave for any visit but my siblings can’t possibly be expected to take leave or adjust their plans when we visit. We consult on dates before visits, obviously (we stay with the DGPs), but if they get invites to do other stuff we’re very much the second choice to be fitted in around the stuff they actually want to do. It means we miss significant chunks of school holidays at home (and have to turn down invites ourselves but somehow that’s different).

Being honest, it’s really made me rethink my relationships with them all and question how important we are to them. I don’t expect to be a priority all of the time
but it would be nice to be a priority some of the time.

I wouldn’t judge others’ choices, though. I live a very different life in some ways from my family but we have all made our own choices and those choices have different benefits. One of my siblings has structured their entire life around being physically near both sets of grandparents and has hugely benefited from free childcare. But they have to maintain those relationships and will likely end up picking up more of a care burden as the grandparents age.

We made different choices and have done our best to maintain relationships from more of a distance: we have to manage most situations ourselves but equally don’t have to spend time placating tricky in-laws….

A lot of this sounds very familiar, especially the bit about when you visit they just carry on with their everyday lives! Same happens to me.

Yeah, I hear you on this. I can see my siblings are happy where they live, which is great, it just wouldn’t be for me.

Yeah the same for me. In the early days I had some visits, as I live near London, so lots going on. Now I have no visitors and am always the one to visit. I don’t go as much due to various issues. I am however planning to move back north next year when my youngest goes to uni. I will have one child still down south so doubt the journeys are over for good, but looking forward to having most family close and old school pals