Attending family events with/without your FI (or DH)

emyinpink

For those who live in different states (or even cities) from your family, are you and FI/DH always a combined unit when attending events, or do you divide and conquer? 

In the next two months, we have FI's brother's college graduation, then my brother's college graduation, his dad's 50th birthday, and his sister's high school graduation (the final three are in 3 consecutive weekends). We live in Seattle, and all of the events are in southern Cali, so while it's a quick flight, it's not just an easy drive.

We want to support our fams, but it's not cheap, and we don't really have the vacation right now to take a full week off in between (although I'm looking at working remotely for one of the week from so cal). 

ootmother2

You're young and your relatives should understand that money can sometimes be tight.

If you can stand it, seperate to cove the events.  Long term, it makes more time for you two to be together

RebeccaB88

Either divide and conquer, so one of you represents you both at each event, or pick the most important event(s) and express your sorrow that you have to decline the others.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

Yes, but our families are across the country. When we go, we go together, but I likely wouldn't go for a graduation. Then again, I didn't travel for my own college graduation.

polichik

We just moved from Chicago to San Francisco, and both of our families are in the midwest. They understand that we'll only be able to afford to come out to visit once or twice a year, so we just come out when we can and be sure to call and send cards when we have to miss events.

That said, I am attending a friend's wedding near my hometown soon. DH would have loved to have come, but he's not close with these friends and wanted to save the $$ to come out this summer for a more mutual friend's wedding. So, I'm going alone. I think it's perfectly fine to go alone if it's a matter of finances or getting off work. If they're close enough to you for you to want to travel far to see them, they should understand.

tenofcups4me

We're a two-hour drive from most of our family and we don't do all family events together. Sometimes one or the other of us has to work; sometimes it just doesn't work out because of other timing. This weekend was a case in point: Sunday was a family party with my dad's side of the family that DH didn't attend because he had a crazy work day Saturday (7am-2am) and needed to recuperate on Sunday. I took the train in on Saturday morning by myself. DH drove in on Monday to be with my family for Passover and we drove back together.

lyndausvi

We generally travel together because we make a vacation out of it (although it never actually feels like a vacation - family is exhausting), but we have been known to divide and concur also.

In your case I would more than likely attend my brother's graduation by myself and then attend FIL b-day together. 

AdeleDazeem

We travel together or separately.  It really depends on the circumstances.  If money was tight or one person simply wasn't interested, the other would go alone.  You have to do what works best for you guys.

specialk84

While we enjoy spending time with each other, we sometimes use family obligations (particularly those involving expensive travel) to get some quality time apart.  That makes me sound like I'm trying to ditch FI, but I'm not.  

My extended family lives in Colorado, and he's only been out there once.  I've been out a few other times, but he's had to work, or we couldn't afford to both go.  For the big things, we'll both go.

He does attend my parents' birthday dinners, as well as my brother's, and I go with him to take his mom out on her birthday.  My child birthday party attendance has skyrocketed, too.  He has lots of nieces and nephews, so we probably go to nine or ten a year.

baystateapple

H's family lives a state away from us, so we have always done family events together (it made less sense for one of us to stay behind, we would just make a weekend of it).  But if you can't afford to do it together, your families should understand that.

waitingformay

For important family things, I like him to come because he is part of the family. For things like friends' weddings, sometimes I'll travel alone to save some money.

emilyinchile

We usually try to go to things together, but for a friend's wedding in CA a while ago I went alone - it was too expensive for both of us to go. I don't think it's a bad thing at all if you can't both always make the trip, as long as you're ok with it.

Calypso1977

we try to go together, btu sometimes its impossible with H's job.  he's a police officer, so he is often working weekends when everyone else is off and plans parties.

[Deleted User]

We also live out of state and far away from our families. When we go home, we usually go home for something specific or just to visit. I don't really think we have had that many birthday parties or graduations since we moved away though.

But that is one of the reasons why we are moving back. Family is really important to us and they never are able to visit us. We always have to go there and I know once we have kids it is going to get old real fast.

hlq2011

We live in Maryland, and my family is in Massachusetts.  We try to go together, but it depends on the event. 

A couple of years ago, I went home for a funeral for a family friend by myself; FI didn't want to take the time off, and he didn't know her, and I was going with family. 

I've gone home to do wedding-related stuff by myself a couple of times, including one shower (I went home for the weekend) but he's coming with me for my next shower, because he hasn't seen anyone since Christmas.  And at Christmas, I went home a couple of days early, and then he came later, because he had a basketball game he wanted to go to.

My family is pretty understanding about it when he doesn't come.

bczican77

We go to mostly everything together. The only time we haven't gone together is last year. There was a surprise 60th birthday party for one of his uncles in Chicago in the middle of the week. I wasn't able to get away because my son was 7 at the time and had school.  So I opted not to go.  But in most instances, we plan to go together, no matter how tolling it ends up being on us! LOL

kitkat610

We tend to go together, but we usually mix a dr's appointment for him into at least two of the fmaily visits per year. Other than major holidays though, we divide and conquer mixed in with declining the stuff that we have to. We have to connect at least once to get home, both time and money are tight.