Not even there yet and stressed about visit home!

[Duplohouse]

So, that's it really. Going home next month for three weeks after our first year in the USA. Planned it all - visits to where we used to live, my parents, DH's parents and then a quick trip to France with DBIL and DSIL - ILs will look after DC.

So - I thought we'd done pretty well. Friends and family covered, we get a bit of a break ourselves after traipsing around the country for two of the three weeks (not that I begrudge that, it's just not the most relaxing way to spend a holiday, up and down the M6 and the M1).

Cue a call to my DM to tell her where we'll be/when as requested so she could 'plan' and she's pissed off that we're not spending more time with her. It's not enough that we'll have taken an eight hour flight and them driven five hours in a hire car to see her. It's not enough that we'll have to fork out for a hotel whilst we're there anyway as she's downsized in the extreme (despite actually being pretty wealthy) so there's nowhere for us to stay at hers. And despite trying to liaise with her re dates for a month before we booked flights, she's now annoyed that our timescales don't suit her.

I can't win! There's a bit of me that's tempted to miss her off the itinerary altogether! Obviously we wouldn't (though it's tempting!) but grrr! Has anyone else had this?

I also can't seem to convey that this is pretty much all of DH's holiday allowance for the year and so if he wants to spend time with his family, then who am I to argue, particularly since they're a lot easier to spend time with than my folks?

I'd appreciate any tips you've got! Thanks for reading.

This seems to go with the territory, the expectation that you'll be one running yourself ragged. You'll just have to be blunt and tell her these are the plans and you can't change them now. Much as you'd like to. :o

I found the most understanding attitudes came from those who'd actually flown from Australia, and had some appreciation of the fact that it was expensive and knackering.

Oh, and the reverse of you staying in hotels is that when you are the visited, you put up all and sundry, AND act as tour guide.

It's tough. My parents are pretty laid back, but I still run myself ragged trying to make it "fair" between DPs and DPIL. Then I start getting stressed that I am taking the piss asking my mum to babysit too much, but worrying that if I ask MIL instead, then DM will be put out. Wish I was psychic!

We learned that it was easier, and financially comparable to rent a place and have people come to us.

This sounds familiar. I am sick of people whingeing they are disappointed I didn't spend enough time with them on visits home. No, I travelled for 36 hours, and you couldn't be bothered to drive for 10 minutes. So there!

It's hard and it doesn't get easier and you feel more resentful everytime because you don't get your family holiday, that you, dh and dc really need. My pil live about 300 miles from my dm and our home town and friends. So basically dh goes with ds to pils, I live it up with my dm and friends, then dh arrives with ds, and then dh lives it up with his friends. Tbh it does get easier as dc get older and can travel by themselves in the long summer vacation.
But yes tell everyone where on what day and leave them to it, you will never please anyone someone. Dh has a spreadsheet with flight details car hire etc on a day by day basis for everyone to see and book in ;-) its not ideal but it's the best we can do.
Good luck and breathe.

We are teachers, so have 2 months off in the summer to go home. Parents still complain they dont get to see us as much as they would like to. Admittedly my parents and IL's live in different countries, but we try to make it fair.

After many years of OH being guilt tripped by MIL we stayed nearby, Travel Inn, spitting distance to them, after having had an actual holiday in the UK. We saw them for dinner out the night before we flew home and 40 mins for coffee the morning of our flight. This was what OH wanted, not me insisting or anything like that. and she still hasn't learned

Just take a deep breath and remember that you need a holiday and you are making time to visit your DM, it's not like you're sneaking across the Atlantic for a secret holiday and then going home without seeing her. This doesn't have to become your problem, just decide not to take rellies wounded comments on board.

I hope enjoy seeing friends and family and get time to relax.

I live overseas and have similar issues. I do think its important to be fair and spend equal time with both sets of parents, if you don't want to upset or offend them. I don't think the fact your husband works means his family should be any more important than yours. Good luck

My mum told me before we visited last summer (first time in several years) that she and my dad were going to be on their best behaviour as she didn't want to waste the time we had together. They would not row in front of us and they would not row with us.

and she held true - and it made me behave better in their company than I might have done. And it was really helpful all round.

Can you tweak your plans just a day to placate your mum and make some kind of similar agreement? (without offending her, obviously).

Hee hee hee, I've just put the finishing planning touches to our first UK visit in June since moving to the US, 2 years ago. I've had to co-ordinate 4 places to visit dotted around the UK, based on divorced parents and far flung siblings, spread over 2 weeks. And I still want it to seem like a holiday for the kids, rather than just an endless trudge around people's houses having the same dull, grown-up conversations.

My dad/SM are being enormously obliging, and are perfectly happy to drive quite some distance to join us at a holiday camp for a 4-day seaside break in the middle (separate caravans!). It's startlingly cheap outside of UK school holidays, and I've got high hopes of it being easier for the grandparents/kids to bond over swimming, sandcastles and mini golf, than over a cup of tea in their living room.

SIL, on the other hand, is being all moody about the fact that we shan't be staying with her, but have instead booked a self-catering apartment a few miles away: it'll be the first few days in the UK when we'll be jet lagged to hell and keeping strange hours, and she has 3 kids under 6 whereas mine are much older, and there's a cat to whom I'm allergic, and these trips involve so much camping uncomfortably in other people's houses that whatever I can do to minimise it, the better!