Longing for perfect visit to family homestead
Question: I live across the country from my parents. They still live in the house I grew up in, which they built by themselves as a small farm and homestead. Three years ago, my older sister moved back into the house with her three children after a divorce and bankruptcy. My older sister and I have always had a rocky relationship.
Question:
I live across the country from my parents. They still live in the house I grew up in, which they built by themselves as a small farm and homestead. Three years ago, my older sister moved back into the house with her three children after a divorce and bankruptcy. My older sister and I have always had a rocky relationship.
As a new parent myself, I have missed the presence of my parents more than ever. My family has never been sentimental, but I long to establish a solid relationship between my kids (1 and 3) and their grandparents. However, my sister won't ask any of her kids to share a room for a week or consider having her kids at their dad's, so I have to stay in the tiny guest room with my entire family.
My mother and two other sisters have suggested I stay elsewhere, like a rental or another sibling's house. However, I love the natural farm setting and want my kids to experience the farm lifestyle. My mother says it's my sister's house, too, and I have to coordinate with her.
I don't think it's fair that I can't enjoy going home with my children because of my sister's insensitivity and possessiveness of the space. I really resent how my family is not willing to go out of their way to make sure I can visit and see everyone and bring my new family back home.
Answer: But you can visit and see everyone and bring your new family back home. The only thing that's stopping you is you.
Specifically what's stopping you is your insistence on being there on your terms and only your terms: staying at your family's farm, in bedrooms vacated by your sister's kids.
You suggest you can't "enjoy going home" except on these terms, and that may be true, but that's not your sister's or your mother's problem to solve. They've made their decisions on what is theirs to control: The guest room is yours, if you want the farm experience. If you want more space, stay with one of your other sisters. "Take it or leave it" implied.
It might seem that cramped quarters or petty sisters or weak mothers or second-choice housing are the true enemies of contentment - but they're not. They're just the facts you've been given. The enemy of contentment is the refusal to accept your facts as facts, and to keep hoping someone will hand you different ones.
Even if you're "right" in the purest sense - that your sister is acting out of spite, and your mom is a pushover, and staying elsewhere kills the experience, and even if everyone reading this agrees you're asking only for reasonable accommodation - that has no bearing on the outcome. It doesn't trigger a "better-person" exception or an I-deserve-it do-over.
So stop driving yourself crazy waiting for one. Either don't go at all, or pick the lodging you prefer, guest room or off-site, focus your attention on your parents, make an (I'm guessing overdue) effort to get along with your troublesome sib, and leave pointed sighing at home.
Chat with Carolyn Hax online at noon Fridays at www.washingtonpost.com.