Dear Eric: Our family will celebrate our mother’s hundredth anniversary this fall. We planned to have an open house to include the neighbors of my mother, family and community of my mother to pay tribute to a 100 -year legacy that does not happen for everyone.
My niece’s son proposed to his girlfriend in February and decided to set a wedding date the same weekend as our mother’s birthday. We are all very annoying that they chose that particular weekend. We feel that when the calendar went out to choose a date, my niece (his mother) should have taken that weekend out of the table and told them that he was reserved.
My niece suggests that we have the 100th birthday party on Sunday, the day after the wedding. We believe it is excessive for a weekend and would shade each event that should have its own special time.
In addition to others, I live out of state. I’m 10 hours away. Therefore, Plan B would be to hold the mother the previous weekend, which means traveling 40 hours if I want to be there on the two weekends for my mother’s real birthday.
I called my niece to see if there could be one more weekend for them and he told me that he did not want to interfere. We feel that the mother and our plans (who knew) have been unpleasant. How can we navigate this situation? I think it will be a tense and unhappy event for everyone.
– discredited
Dear Disrupted: Your mileage may vary (literally), but take a 10 -hour trip for the party, and, for example, a few weeks later, make the same ten -hour trip for the wedding, if it had been reprogrammed, it seems much more inconvenient than the plan of having an event on Saturday and the other Sunday while everyone is in the city.
When you start traveling through the branches of a family tree, the calendar is complicated. Frankly, it can be difficult to set up in a quote compatible with the people of the house. To plan his wedding, his niece’s son is negotiating with the needs of his immediate family, the extensive family and his girlfriend’s family. Not to mention the availability of places and the smallest of things: what the real partner wants. We give them a break.
The wedding will not steal the thunder of your mother’s remarkable milestone. These events have slightly overlapping lists and different purposes, both wonderful. I do not see the contempt here; I see pragmatism. Adopting the weekend as a double celebration of the past and the future of your family, you will create more significant memories than if you approach resentment.
Dear Eric: My husband and I are at the age of 70. He works full -time, look at a lot of sports, is very much on his computer and he makes a turn. I work part -time, clean house, cook, clothes and work in the garden.
I know my husband loves me, but he does not seem to consider my feelings.
I love my kitchen but my husband thought he needed a lot of important changes. I said I liked it as it was. These projects started months ago. The kitchen is now a disaster and it is always too tired to work. There are other projects, adults and children, which are never achieved.
Either I will lose it or run away from home.
– Perplexed on projects
Dear perplexed: Both of you are doing a lot, even the thinking of a hard conversation about this mess of the kitchen is surely exhausting. Only the thought of a half-remodeled kitchen is enough to send me directly to bed. You have my sympathy.
It may not be needed, but see if you can find out a rest for yourself. Are there friends or family you can visit? Take some time out of the construction site and tell your husband why – it will help you breathe more easily.
Although your husband might have had the best intentions, the intention is not equal to the impact. And it will help you both if you are kind, but of course with how it impacts you. Someone may be achieved to help set the kitchen, right? Ask -you do it and give you a realistic calendar for when it happens. You can see the kitchen as another item on the task list, but this affects your life every day. Share -with him and ask -if he understands it. It should not be a heated talk, but it should be targeted.
If the goal of repairing the kitchen is not something that can make a clear plan, you can enter option B: A discussion about how the family budget can be restructured to allow the dam every day.
(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas to Eric@askingic.com or PO Box 22474, Philadelphia, Pa 19110. Follow it on Instagram and register -in his weekly newsletter at Rerithomas.com.)
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