My daughter is nearly 3 so me and my husband have to think about what we are going to do for her birthday and if we should just make it for the 3 of us or invite family too and what we should do in general.
Here is the thing. Nobody goes out of their way for us but we are EXPECTED to go out of our way for them for their birthdays and even my husbands family, they won’t come to us but when they do, it’s never to “see” my daughter, it’s when they want to drop something off for my husband.
My husband has 4 aunties and uncles and each has 2 children except for one has just an only child. None of them bother with my husband for his birthday, scalling or sending him sms just to get news, or even just inviting us over their place to see our daughter or their nephew/cousins, we only see them at gatherings 4-5 times a year depending and they barely acknowledge my husband and daughter and only bothered twice with my daughter because “they had too”.
With my husbands immediate family, one of his sister’s never bothers with my daughter or my husband and my husband said that he always has to call her to give news about his life AND to always call her to get news on her life. Only has come to our place 2, when we moved, to see our new apartments respectively.
My husbands father has only bothered to see my daughter 3-4 times in 7 months and when he comes to our place, it is either really late, an excuse to leave as he has to have dinner, or when he comes during the day (day/night it’s rare anyway) he leaves after like 2-5 minutes and barely acknowledges my daughter like an excuse to bolt out the door.
His youngest sister and his mother, do make the most efforts but even they are the same. They only come to “see/give” their son/brother something and that is it but they do stay a little longer than 5 minutes. But them to visit is not often at all, maybe once a month. They don’t really pay attention to our daughter when they are at our house but they do if there is other “family” around to boast about how loving they are.
We used to go to their house regularly but we stopped going now, unless a birthday or something really necessary, because I said I wanted to see how much they would bother with my daughter now that we don’t go over there and guess what, they barely bother. They only bother with our daughter if we come to them at their house and when all of the extended family is together at gatherings at different places, they act like my daughter is the most precious thing in their life.
My husband said once it’s because we don’t have any grass and another time he has said it’s because they feel like they are not wanted in our home and that is not true because I told him that I wanted them to make efforts to come to us but I feel like they don’t come to us because my husband can be dead company (boring) and I don’t really talk to them much because I have nothing to say to them and vice versa. We both think family gatherings are boring but we make efforts. We don’t attend all the gatherings anymore, only if that person has ever bothered with us.
We are expected to go to and waste our money on petrol for people who don’t bother with us and now they are not to happy because we rarely see them now. They are very scabby at xmas and for birthdays and they never call for my daughter, it’s always for their son. They will only buy things when my husband asks for something. When we asked for them to babysit or for them to come with us somewhere, they were “busy” or had to “study” and they don’t want to babysit at our place, we don’t let them take our daughter to their place because of incidences with their dogs but they asked to babysit/come to them somewhere like the beach etc when we are “busy” they get offended when we don’t come, it’s like we are expected to drop everything for them but with nothing in return.
I’ll be honest and say that I get along with his family for the sake of my husband/family but I feel like they only care about our daughter when it’s on their terms, I’ll be nice to them and vice versa but I feel like they don’t like my daughter because I am her mother or something else. I expect my daughter to start learning and asking questions about her “family” when she starts kindergarten. My family across the other side of the world bothers more with my husband and kid and they hate my husband! His family know how I feel.
How do you handle family like this one? Would you bother? I want to leave it up to my husband to deal with this one because everything I say always gets blown out of proportion.