For Married Couples....Seeing Parents

crazyforinfo

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How often do you see your parents?
DH's mother whines that she doesnt' see us enough. We just moved in with my mom this past weekend and her whining is getting worst.

We see his father once every 3 months. We would see my mother about the same. His mother we saw close to once a month.

Do you have weekly family dinners?
DH mentioned this last night but the only days we could do this is Saturday.
Sunday-Friday he is in bed by 9pm and doesn't like to go out.
When am I supposed to spend time with my husband and if he only goes out once a week, how do we spend time with all 3 sets of parents???

How do you make them all happy?
 

icklemiss21

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Being so far away I never get to see my family, but when I was home they have a weekly lunch on Sundays that I would try to get to at least every second/third week, when I was at school and 2 hours away, depending on my work load. I also met my mum for dinner after work on the day I worked in London so seen her every week

His parents, we see on holidays
 

liza24

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we see my parents once a week or every other week. my grandparents once a week, cause there at that age where it can happen anytime.

his parents, they live 15 minutes away. they are kinda cold ppl , so dont see them that often. they invite us over for card games, play two games, and are ready for bed:p
 

muttigreemom

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I'm not really sure how to vote in this poll because I'm not sure if you mean the two of us together seeing them or just one of us seeing them or... well this is how it works...

DH sees his parents almost every day because their house is close to his job so he goes there for lunch (saves a ton of money that way
) I see his parents on holidays and maybe once every few weeks I'll head over there.

My mom lives 1200 miles from us, so we only see her on a planned trip. Since I moved to FL I think I've seen her... maybe 5 times in 3 years? Something like that.
 

jenny82

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We only live 20 minutes from our parents (our parents live 1 minute away from each other
) so they (especially his parents) want to see us every week. It is definitely too much at times!
 

lionessrampant

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We're not married YET, but his parents live in the northwest burbs and mine live in the southwest burbs, so we see them often, but somewhat erratically. His parents live about 40 minutes away and mine around an hour away.

I see my dad several times a week since we both work downtown and we'll go and get lunch together.
 

oscarsmommy

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We see my parents and Trav's dad and stepmom at least once a week. We see his mom and stepdad sometimes only at Christmas as they live in SC.
 

wesley's mom

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DH parents live next door so we see them a lot and my mom, we see her about once a week maybe twice a week. My dad is not around, so I haven't seen him in many years.
 
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crazyforinfo

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Originally Posted by MuttigreeMom

I'm not really sure how to vote in this poll because I'm not sure if you mean the two of us together seeing them or just one of us seeing them or... well this is how it works...
I don't know how it all works but you got what I meant.

Originally Posted by Jenny82

We only live 20 minutes from our parents (our parents live 1 minute away from each other
) so they (especially his parents) want to see us every week. It is definitely too much at times!
I just can't take the complaining from the mother's about seeing them so much. Maybe we are being selfish but I just can't figure out where to find the time.

Thankfully I am not working anymore. When I did, I worked Saturdays also. His mother likes to invite us for dinner at 2pm on Sundays for a 4pm dinner. Sorry but Sunday is our lazy day and when I worked, it was the only time the laundry room was available.

His father is the only one that doesn't complain and he is 2 hours away.

I would be happy with once a month but then that would leave us with 1 Saturday as a couple.

Why does life have to be so complicated!
 

littleraven7726

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We live 6 hours from my parents and 4 hours from Mike's parents. Normally we see them once ever 6 months or so. But we had 2 trips this spring and saw both sets. We won't be seeing them for a while unless they visit us.

It was definitely harder when we lived closer. Especially with holidays. Now we stay home for the holidays, and visit the family a couple times a year if we can swing it. We are definitely learning to say no. We just finally got to go camping for the first time in 3 years. The last few years all of our "vacation" was spent visiting family. We definitely want some vacation time for just ourselves.
 

mybabyphx

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I don't know if I qualify for your question since I'm NOT married. I have been dating my boyfriend for over 3.5 years though.
So I'm going to answer you anyway.


My family:

My mom lives in Iowa and I haven't seen her since I lived there (1 year ago). When I did live there we saw her at least once a week. She would come to our house, or we would go to hers. She actually cooked us dinner and we watched movies with her and my brothers like once a month. My mom loves my boyfriend, considers him family!

My dad lives in Arizona about 20 minutes from me. I don't really see him that much since I'm always busy working, and he is as well. I see him around every 2 weeks. About once a month we all go down to Mexico or to the mountains in Flagstaff. When I say 'everyone' I meant my dad, my little sister, my boyfriend, our room mate, and me! Whenever I go see my dad, my boyfriend goes with as well. They got along really well!

His family:

His family all lives in Iowa. We live in Arizona now and haven't seen his family since we lived in Iowa. His father calls him at least once a week to talk to him though. When we did live in Iowa, we went over there for supper whenever we didn't have food in the house.
His dad's girlfriend makes AWESOME food! We always knew we were welcome for food! We probably went over there at least once a month to go see them, and eat dinner of course! They treat me as family, so I went over there by myself sometimes as well!
 

jenny82

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Originally Posted by Crazyforinfo

I just can't take the complaining from the mother's about seeing them so much. Maybe we are being selfish but I just can't figure out where to find the time.

Thankfully I am not working anymore. When I did, I worked Saturdays also. His mother likes to invite us for dinner at 2pm on Sundays for a 4pm dinner. Sorry but Sunday is our lazy day and when I worked, it was the only time the laundry room was available.

His father is the only one that doesn't complain and he is 2 hours away.

I would be happy with once a month but then that would leave us with 1 Saturday as a couple.

Why does life have to be so complicated!
I know exactly how you feel. I do not think (and you probably don't either) that you are being selfish! When you are married, your marriage and the two of you have to be the #1 priority. And you definitely need a day to relax! Parents definitely make it complicated sometimes.
Maybe you two could sit down with them and work out a kind of schedule (doesn't have to be in stone) for seeing everyone? Hopefully if you explain everything that you have going on in your lives, they won't complain so much.
 

tnkittymom

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Well, my husband and I, see his mom several times a week, because she works about 10mins from our house. With my parents, it's a different story. We usually see them once every couple of weeks, but we talk to them several times a week. Since we had our daughter, we see them more frequently, especially since she is the only grandchild on both sides. Talk about spoiled rotten!
 

emrldsky

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Nuh uh...might give me away!
It's hard to answer this because lately we've seen his parents about once a month, but before it was every 3-6 months. In the fall, we see my parents a lot more because they come down for Purdue Football games (we're season ticket holders).

I dread when we have kids because I have the feeling we'll never be able to visit with the parents as much as they want.

My only peeve with my MIL is that whenever we visit with DH's parents, she still cries when DH leaves.
We're only 2 hours away. I mean, come on...
 

adymarie

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My parents moved away to be nearer my sister. My sister sees them pretty much daily (my mom watches her girls). If I am lucky I see my parents every 2 to 3 weeks. Sometimes its closer to a month. I have asked them to come around more now that my MIL has passed as my kids need a connection with their grandparents. They leave slightly over 1 hour away. I talk to her on the phone every 3 to 4 days.

We live a 7 minute drive from my FIL (and MIL when she was alive). We call him at least daily (and her when she was alive I talked to every day). I really miss my MIL - I saw her at least once a week while she was alive. We try to keep up that tradition with my FIL, but he is really irritating the poop out of my DH.
 

mybabyphx

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I've noticed with parents (my mom specifically) that after you move out, they cause problems.I know that sounds mean, but they try to control your every move!

I'm almost 22 and have been living on my own for awhile. I pay my own bills, but yet parents still try telling me what I need to be doing? I feel like if I want to find a new job, new house, new car, etc I have to get it OK'ed with the parents? Why? Because if I don't, they get upset! My mom used to get mad that I didn't see her enough. I guess she forgot that I work full time and have a life.

So, whatever the situation- I have come to realize that with parents. It's a lose\\lose situation! They will constantly feel like they don't get to spend enough time with you, no matter how much time to spend with them already. I completely understand their point, since we are their children though.
 

tnkittymom

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Originally Posted by mybabyphx

I've noticed with parents (my mom specifically) that after you move out, they cause problems.I know that sounds mean, but they try to control your every move!

I'm almost 22 and have been living on my own for awhile. I pay my own bills, but yet parents still try telling me what I need to be doing? I feel like if I want to find a new job, new house, new car, etc I have to get it OK'ed with the parents? Why? Because if I don't, they get upset! My mom used to get mad that I didn't see her enough. I guess she forgot that I work full time and have a life.

So, whatever the situation- I have come to realize that with parents. It's a lose\\lose situation! They will constantly feel like they don't get to spend enough time with you, no matter how much time to spend with them already. I completely understand their point, since we are their children though.
I hate to tell you this, but if your parents are anything like mine, it doesn't get any better. I moved out of my parents' home right before I turned 21 and even though I am now almost 31, have my own home, am married, and am a mother, they STILL try to control what I do. They complain about our animals. They keep telling us that we should do this and do that. It's so frustrating! I can definitely relate.
I do understand that they worry and they want what's best, but they need to understand that we are doing the best we can and that we do have our own life.
 

catloverin_ks

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Well lets see here, my mom lives in same town as we do, and I speak on phone with her every day, but I see her probly every other day.....


His parents, they live about 20 min from here and so we dont see them very often.....

When my dad was alive, we were ALWAYS having cookouts every weekend, or Sunday dinners.....something for us kids and my parents.
 

crouchingcheese

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Ok, my fiance's parents (my fiance and I live together) live about an hour away. Both of my sets of parents (mom, and then dad and stepmom) live about twenty minutes away (they're around the corner from eachother).

You would think, given the fact that my parents are only a third of the distance as his, that we would see my family more often.

Nope.

There hasn't been a weekend in the last two and a half months when we haven't seen his parents. We usually see them on the weekends, because they do live pretty far away. Even still, his mom drunk calls us all the time and complains how we never see them.

We see my parents, maybe once a month. That's once a month each, for my dad's house and my mom's house. It's probably closer to once every six weeks. I'm not that attached to my family, but at least they don't bother me all the time with the "You never see us!" bullcrap.

I've told my fiance I want a break from his family, and our beloved Medieval Faire (that we go to every weekend, all day) is coming up soon, so we'll actually have an excuse and have something else to do. I don't mind his dad, but his mom......well......she's crazy.
 
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