katracy

How can they make you feel so guilty? Told them months ago we were thinking of moving to NZ, fine with it. Now its getting close, they are making me feel so guilty!! Help!!

Am Loolah

Read Littletoes blog kind of sums up alot of parent issues!!

Maz

Where's her blog? Can't find a link to it.

katracy, I can fully commiserate, only with me it's my MIL... and she lives with us even! My parents are 4,000 miles away and far more accepting. Go figure!

Littletoe

My blog or my post?? Have you read my blog? Its so BOOOOOORING!

beaudixon

Katracy, you're not alone!!!
My parents we told of our plans Jan 06, obviously weren't happy but no hassle. BUT they didn't want to know anything, until end of Sept they didn't know we had bought a section, signed up with builder or purchased a car, they new the dates we were flying but not til August. we moved early October and they were never interested and made me feel very guilty. On the day we left my dad said it was the last time i would see him as he had no intentio of coming out to see us!! How guilty did i feel for going and taking his grand children!!
I speak to them every week but nothings really said if you know what i mean! They ask questions but dont really care for the answer, i'm not homesick, miss some friends but not family!
Life is so good here i dont care about the hassle we went through now, it's worth it for the better life!!
Once your on the plane you forget the guilt and look forward, with so much to do and sort out there's no time to feel guilty and anyway its them who will miss out not you.
Hopefully you'll get through it cos its something you really want and have been planning for so long.
I think my parents thought i wouldn't go if they gave me greif - didn't work made me more determined to go!!
Sorry, I'll stop waffling now, Judy

kwprwn

my parents were fine about it, they have known for years that it would happen one day, the case of when was more the question, so when we finally told them they were fine about it

My mum started to get upset in the last few weeks sometimes, but she never said not to go. So when the move finally happened, she kept saying 'when can we come out' and I have said its up to you, so they have booked their flights for March now so not long till they come, the flights have been booked since about last sept/oct ish, and my mum has been on countdown since xmas, and keeps telling me how many weeks till she comes whenever I speak to her...however I did feel so guilty in the run up to leaving and awful at the airport, but the feelings pass

it is your life and only you can live it, they dont want you to leave as you are their little girl and you are moving all the way over the other side of the world. it will be fine

kwprwn

thats sad really, but it does sound like they were trying to stop you going. but you have to make decisions for yourself and if you listened to everything everybody tried to stop you doing then you would never even step out of your parents house as a child let alone move to the other side of the world, so I do admire your determination when they laid the guilt factor so heavily on you

I think if my Dad had said that was the last time I was going to see him, I would have balled my eyes out more than I already did.

It does worry me that i may never see my Grandmother again as she is 92 and has cancer (diagnosed after we left) that makes me upset even to think about it, so i try not to really.

I actually do miss my family but only have bouts of homesickness priodically, usually after to many glasses of wine

kiwiblossom

I well remember when I told my mother I was leaving New Zealand...she promptly gave me a cat!

mazi

My mum didn't make me feel guilty at all - she's always been the type of person to say I should do what I want with my life. However, I must say that what she says and the way she acts are sometimes two very different things.

Boyfriend's parents, on the other hand, are masters at the guilt trip (well his father in particular). When we said we were leaving NZ to return to Europe he got in the most almighty strop and blamed me (BF had been living in Europe for 6 years already when I met him and we only stayed in NZ for three years because of me accepting a job offer so I can hardly be blamed for it), saying "How can you take him away from his family, don't you think we might want him here?". Boyfriend responded to that "How can you suggest I keep her away from her family, don't you think her mum might want her in Europe?" (BF is one of 4 and from a large family by the way, I am an only child and from a very small extended family so at least his parents have 3 kids in NZ plus numerous other animals). He also pointed out that he would return for holidays, as he always has done approximately every year to 18 months so it would be no different to when he left the first time. Bf's father replied, "Well I'm not coming to visit you". I asked what he'd do if we ever have kids and he replied "Well I guess they'll never see their grandfather then, will they?". Nice (but that suits me just fine).

This went on for several months and I have to give him credit for being consistent - when the parents drove us to the airport (at the mother's insistance), the father didn't say one word all the way there and looked away if we spoke to him. Guess how often BF speaks to his father now? Hmmm, not that often (though he is too nice to ignore him completely).

And all that from a man who left the Netherlands at the age of 18 to return only when his father died.

Nice people.

Littletoe

Oh my god, WEEEEEEEEIRD! That's almost identical to my in-laws! When we left NZ, his Mun didn't utter a single word to us. She was furious that I could take her 'baby' away from her. But my in-laws are a little different in that they are the spawn of satan, so their treatment wasn't a complete shock to me. Now as it stands, we rarely communicate with them and my girls don't know they exist. When we go back, it might be 'assumed' that they'll be able to establish a relationship with them, but in the fight of good vs evil, I think we'll know who'll win.

mazi

Poor you - we have something in common! Their treatment wasn't a complete shock to me either - they spent three years spreading blatant lies about me around the family (correction, about 2 years - they did actually stop after BF went totally apesh*t at them, at least we think they stopped, it may just be that they threatened other family members if they continued to tell me about the lies). When I say 'they', I must be fair and say it was mostly the father - the mother actually softened a lot towards me as time went on.

The father did once say something nice about me - he told a family member that I was great with BF's sister's kids after I had babysat them once. But here's the funny bit - I LOATHE kids! (However I'm not nasty to them by any means, I just choose not to spend time with them if I can help it.)

Littletoe

Aww mazi, I do feel for you. Its the other way around for me MIL is the bitch from hell, FIL isn't too bad, at times. She LOVED the ex, so she liked to keep bringing her into our marriage and causing some trouble. Her other son is 30, never had a job, lives at home and she still picks out his clothes and washes and irons them. She wanted Steve to be the same. But he wasn't, and when he met me, we wanted to travel the world and do our own thing. MIL was just awful to us, and when I tried to build bridges after having our first daughter, she threw it back in my face. It was testing times with them. I always wanted a MIL that would bake cookies for me and treat me like the daughter she never had. In the end I got the founder of the Church of Satan, who tried to kill me with her badly cooked chicken. Ah well, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right?

mazi

Let's hope it makes us stronger! Talking of chicken, when I first arrived in NZ I was a vegetarian and had been for 10 years (not now although I don't eat much meat) and the mother said at our first dinner at her house "I hear you're a vegetarian so I've cooked chicken"!!!!!!! They also had some brown bread on the table and asked if I wanted white. I replied "oh no, that's ok, thank you, I prefer the brown anyway" and they then told the enitre family I had slagged off their bread!

Like you, I wanted a MIL figure who would take me under her wing a bit - and would probably have got just that with any of the mothers of previous boyfriends, all of whom I got on very well with. In fact, I am still in touch with my first real boyfriend's parents (he is, very sadly, dead now).

Anyway I should stop this as I wouldn't want to upset Bf if he read this and his parents are not here to defend themselves so it's not entirely fair.

I hope you establish some kind of good relationship with your MIL for your children when you get to NZ.

katracy

Thanks everyone for your replies.
I try not to talk about it too much in front of them but it's very hard
They think that we are not moving for at least another 12 months, but i will probable be in six I'm not telling them that until the time comes

Batty

katracy - it's very hard to do this anyway and you've got to only try to think about you and your immediate family. It's very unfair of parents to do this and I cant find any way to justify it. I've got a son who wants to travel the world and has made a fair stab at it already - I don't understand why any parent would try to stop their kids having an adventure except just for selfish reasons.

And Mazi and Littletoe - are you both MAD??????? Would you really want a mother in law who is involved in every aspect of your life and bakes cookies for you? The very thought is enough to send me into a decline for a month