As some of you know, my extended family relations are strained.
One thing I struggle with is how to manage holidays and special days. Coming up are a parent’s birthday and Midsummer’s Eve (a day of general celebration here).
Since the parent doesn’t host anything for their birthday it’s up to me to acknowledge the date in some way. It’s the weekend and I’ll be working, so there’s not much I can do but make a phone call and deliver a gift some other day (they live 2 hours away). But I still dread this date and have for years.
The days before Midsummer, the kids will be staying with their grandparents. Kids say they want to spend the holiday there too. I dread this day, intensely. Parents say the kids and I are welcome when I asked on behalf of the kids, but there’s no invitation. I know that means it’s on me to arrange some kind of celebration at their house. It needs to suit their chaotic yet very specific requirements and not test their non-existing planning skills. The celebration also needs to include an open invitation to adult siblings (siblings have been taught to come unannounced whenever they feel like it). This is the ‘freedom to do as one pleases’ that my family of origin cherishes above all else. It doesn’t mean freedom for me.
I seem to have two options. Either I go there with the responsibility of having invited the four of us myself, and try to be generous and energetic but not overcompensate or have negative emotions, since that would ruin everybody’s day. And if I do have any negative emotions (since I’m hypersensitive after decades of trying to do this kind of hosting with all responsibility and no power), I need to not make a fuss but immediately drive the two hours home, alone.
Or I could spend the holiday alone at home.
Dear other partners and children of passive and rigid neurodiversity who’ve broken yourselves trying. What do you do?
Comments
exhausting
I’m so sorry; that sounds utterly exhausting. It also sounds like my ex’s family.
It always seems to be the one carrying the most who’s then expected to do more. It’s deeply unfair and negotiation certainly seems to be impossible.
I am so sorry.
Is there a third option? You do something else with friends? Or with kids? Or with friends and kids? Are there social groups you could join who’d give you some of what you crave and not expect you to carry all the executive load?
where I live, for eg, there are women’s groups meet for outdoor activities like wild swimming, hiking, trial running. Could you just take yourself out of the equation and go swim in a waterfall (or whatever nature offers you round there) instead ?