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Sigh. I am feeling really down tonight. The reason?
Family.
I feel like I'm getting to the point where I need to either let out a very loud scream, start stirring things up and opening eyes, or just cutting some contact. I'm getting tired of trying to keep the peace. On top of my otherwise generally stressful life anyway, it all sucks.
It comes from all sides really. There's the in-laws who live two hours away. They don't 'get' special needs ('you're bigger and stronger than you are, you can make her do what you want') and who don't visit all that often or do anything special with their grandchildren. There's the sister-in-law and boyfriend who live only an hour away and yet have only visited once this year, and only once last year (they don't have children, slightly different lifestyles involved there). Then there's my parents, who live four hours away and who make an equally long trip to see my Grandma every 4 weeks, and manage to have at least 3 holidays a yea, but who haven't been to visit us for 5 months.
But what is really upsetting me at the moment is my own brother and his girlfriend. They live 3 hours away, and we last saw them when we went to visit (not stay, there's room but not room to stay which is a whole other story) them in May this year. The time we saw them before that was when we went to visit them in February this year. The last time they visited us was.... … errr.... before their last child was born. So 5 years ago. They have 3 children, but not one of them has special needs or a reason why they can't travel in a car.
I've asked repeatedly, if they can suggest times that we can go and visit again, and I tell them often that they are welcome here any time. We get the same old excuses though – generally that they're too busy. I know that they don't bother reading my blog, and from comments my brother has made, he believes he could 'train' my daughter – autism is bad parenting, right?
Their children are the only cousins my children have. They're all of similar ages and get on so well when they're together – you know that old way, where family just 'click' even though they don't see each other? I have 13 cousins and although I no longer manage to see any of them regularly due to living far apart, we still have a fab time together when we do meet up. My brother's girlfriend has a sister who lives only an hour and a half away from them, and that sister has two girls. They all manage to meet up fairly regularly – the downside of it being my brother and not a sister to me, I guess. I understand that blokes just aren't that good at keeping in touch and organising things, but honestly, I've tried. I'm at breaking point. And it makes me so sad.
What would you do?