Brit-in-Texas

Hi everyone, hope you're all doing well.
I have a question that I'd really like some feedback on from those of you that have moved away from your family (parents, siblings etc) to live overseas for whatever reason.

Does anyone else have a small family (just parents and one sibling, plus very young nephews) who refuse to visit you in your new country/home?

It's been a constant battle for me to try and save the thousands of dollars it costs for hubby and me to fly to the UK every 18 months to visit my family, and now that our savings are gone and we have jobs that won't allow us the luxury of taking weeks at a time off to go on a visit, I'm left facing the fact that I probably won't ever see my family again unless I visit them.
I guess you could say we're 'close', but worrying about it is causing me so much stress, anxiety and (mainly) guilt for living over here that's it's starting to make me ill.
I know my parents (both in their early 60s) love me dearly and miss me terribly, yet they won't make the effort for me. Especially my father who is so set in his ways that the furthest he's ever traveled from the Midlands of England, is Wales!! And even that took a week's planning.
My Mother's first ever overseas trip was a year ago to visit her first grandchild born in Cyprus. My father refused to go.

How do you handle this situation? Is it wrong of me to expect them to make the effort to visit me (I've offered to pay for their flights) or should I accept that since I made the decision to move over here, that I should suck it up and continue to visit even though it's becoming more and more difficult?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

S

moneypenny20

Just an interloper from Aus here but I'm not sure there's any magic answer. We've been here six years now and no one shows any interest in visiting us. It costs mega bucks to get back to the UK from here so three of us managed a two week visit four years ago but no way in hell can we go back unless we will Lotto.

The husband isn't bothered, neither are the girls really but it irritates me. Sometimes it upsets me but I'm kind of over it. We did have one visit from my nephew and his girlfriend a year after we'd moved. They were in Aus for a month and managed a two hour visit. We found out a couple of years later that they'd just been out again, staying for three weeks in a tourist place half an hour up the coast. Not a call, nothing. That seriously upset me, we're relatively close. That event hardened my heart to be honest. My sister was planning on coming over one christmas, collecting her daughter who lived in Sri Lanka at the time, on her way. She went to New York instead.

Many family seem to think that you were the one to move, you should be the one to spend the time and money going back. It may be a subconscious thought but it's there none the less.

No words of comfort other than to say you're not alone and only you can work out the coping mechanism. Sometimes families suck big time.

Brit-in-Texas

You're right there. Neither of my parents have ever said as such, but I just KNOW that's their mindset. I'm sorry your family have treated you with such disregard.. if I found out members of my family had been within even 500 miles of Texas and didn't visit me, I'd be heartbroken.

I think I am scared - afraid of the future, of regrets and what-ifs. I don't want there to ever be a day when I regret not having made the effort, but at the same time, in the 4+ years I've lived here, I've not been able to set down roots because I'm forever saving every penny on trips back home.
It hurts. It really, really hurts.

Michael

There has been several threads recently on similar topics. Here is one of them.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=743750

Brit-in-Texas

Thanks Michael, although I did search for threads prior to posting my question and like the one you pasted the link to, they were more about how it felt visiting your home once you'd moved.
My question is about whether anyone else has family back home that simply won't visit them in the country they've moved to.
Sorry if that's been answered elsewhere but I really couldn't find anything similar.

Michael

Yes, but in that thread as well as other threads, people complained that they wouldn't even visit them when they originally lived 100 miles away.

However, I'm sure you will get responses to your thread and find that there are quite a few on BE that have a similar problem.

moneypenny20

When I lived in the UK, all family were in a 15 mile radius and we were in physical contact weekly almost. Always in and out of each others houses. Strangely enough though, since we moved, no one over there seems to see each other from one month to the next. If I phone up and ask how xxx is I generally get the answer 'no idea not seen them for ages'. Maybe I was the glue and didn't realise it.

Brit-in-Texas

My parents have never moved from the village that they grew up in and it was pretty much the same for my sister and me. That is until I moved to Texas in 2007! I know it devastated my Mom and Dad, especially when my sister married into the Royal Air Force and ended up moving to Cyprus for 2 years and having her baby there. My parents felt 'abandoned'.
I figured that now is the time for me to be living my life - both parents are in relatively decent health, but again, the ugly issue of them not wanting to visit me constantly raises its head.
Is it because they don't love me anywhere near as much as they've always bleated on and on about, or am I not fully understanding their fear of 'change'?
I could go insane thinking about it.
I'd just love to hear other peoples' ways of coping with such a dilemma and how they deal with the guilt (and anxiety and depression!) that can come from being so far from an unwilling family!

SMSH

Brit-in-Texas, I'm sorry you are dealing with this. My family did visit my husband and I when we were in Texas, but my father had been making business trips to the US for years and my mother was happy just to see us. However, I wonder if it is possible that your parents are scared to travel so far since you say they haven't traveled much. Also, though it may not be relevant with your parents, my parents who are in their mid to early 70s have to consider health insurance. Last time it cost them over 400 PS, to get health insurance when traveling in the U.S., which was a considerable amount for them.

Brit-in-Texas

SMSH, I know that my parents ARE scared of traveling so far, but is it naive of me to think that if you love someone, (especially your kids no matter how old we are!) you'll do anything for them?
I've offered to pay for them to come over, all inclusive, but they still just change the subject or make excuse after excuse.
They also know how hard it is for me to travel that distance as often as we have been (once every 15-18 mths), but I do it anyway or I wouldn't see them.
Part of me is so angry about it, another part of me is hurt beyond words that seeing their daughter isn't incentive enough to put aside their fears and take the plunge.

Brit-in-Texas

Oh, and that's something else my Mother does when I bring up the subject of finances and taking time off work to visit. "Well don't do it just for us, we don't want you coming over just to please us". (All this said in a sad, woe-is-me kind of way that is riddled with a guilt trip aimed at me!)

Poppy girl

My mother not for love or money will get on a plane and come out here, she is 80 years old but physically fit and still charges about....its not the cost factor just will not come out here ....So I have to, I say have to but in reality its the guilt factor from my end the what if I don't go and ........
So I fly back every 6 months

Mummy in the foothills

In all my years here, my mother and her Dh were the only ones to visit me. Dh's has more family in UK than I do they never came either. They go to Spain, New York, all over, but not to see us. Sod 'em.
We will be moving back in the next year or so, we are doing it for us, our kids and my Mum, not the rest of them, although we will see them all no doubt. We all live with in 5 minutes of each other.

AmerLisa

Gosh, I understand that one sentence so very well... I'm American and my husband is British and I have a daughter in the UK. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't really care, but it seems like there forever is a trip in the planning. Either for her to come (with her kids now) or us to go....

Bob

Family not visiting....sounds good to me....