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In your family, who keeps in touch with family best?

I have always been an old fashion letter writer, complete with fountain pen and carefully selected paper. My in laws love it and tell me often that if I didn't write, they would never know what is going on. :rolleyes:

My friend did the same in her first marriage, till her husband got thru med school and dumped her. She vowed "NEVER AGAIN" so she never contacts her husband's family for birthdays, holidays etc.

What gives...Why don't folks keep in touch with their family? I love my Mother in law but she is one of the worst offenders...Haven't heard from her for weeks and I worry...Her son, however says..."Oh, yeah, Guess I should call her, huh?"

I talk to my Mom on the phone once a week at least...

How do you keep in touch?

cook dinner nightly,.... etc.

Now 'Grandpa' comes to our house and sits in the good chair. We're delighted to have such a wonderful guy with us.

I stay in touch with my family (cards, gifts, thank you notes, phone calls), and he stays in touch with his.

We live near his family, but there's no intimacy between me and his family. It's kind of weird. Like, my mother-in-law (a truly fabulous woman in every way imaginable) has never played the piano in my presence. She rarely articulates a position on anything, so it's hard to have an interesting discussion beyond the weather.

Oh, well. After about 20 years of this, I guess we'll both keep tip-toeing on eggshells.

apple, we have family all over the country. In fact, I didn't move away, my parents did!

My folks are a 9-10 hour drive, the other grand parents in the Chicagoland area....a plane ride.

Before my husband and I split up, I had an odd relationship with my in-laws. His step-mom is practically Martha Stewart (without the jail time) and hosts parties all the time - she's a great hostess. Whenever I was in their home, I felt like an intruder - like I was barely welcomed (my FIL was a different story - we got along great, though he's the strong silent type). If we wanted to go visit them (they very rarely came to see us - I think they saw our Toronto place once in the 4 years we lived there) it was a huge deal. We had to call and give possible dates, she would give us the ones that worked for them, we had to arrive at a certain time and leave at a certain time. My parents are "Come whenever you can, stay as long as you want" types, so this was a huge switch for me.

She was also very passive-aggressive. Case in point - I didn't take my husbands name when we married. Anything she sent to our house, no matter who it was for, she sent it marked "Mrs. Sharon A'Hern" (my husband's last name). It drove me nuts, but I never said anything.

I talk to my mum all the time, so getting married and realizing that sons just don't talk to their folks as much (a generalization, I know) was a huge shock. My son better not do that to me!

Mine,too!

But I have the opposite problem. The inlaws confide in me....Makes it very awkward when I know and help with the health issues Mom or Dad are dealing with and they are, well...not my Mom or Dad!...

Not to mention hearing all the complaints about how their kids (there is daughter, too!) never call :p

I have gotten real good at the "uh huh", "oh, really!" "hmmm" sort of responses..

My wife talks to my mother more than I do. We take turns taking her grocery shopping every other week. On my wifes side, there is no family anymore which is kinda sad. She's the end of her family tree. Both her parents were single children of parents who were single children. No aunts, uncles or anything.

My parents are both in heaven, so I no longer have to pay long distance rates to talk with them! I just look up and speak to my hearts content. My father visits me in my dreams from time to time.

My in laws are close by, about an hour away, so we see them frequently. My mother-in-law calls twice a week in the evening usually and I let hubby answer the phone. But occasionally she calls me during the daytime, and that means she wants to pick my brain about something. She is a lovely woman with a very big heart, but she forgets boundaries sometimes. She is in her mid 70s now so I try to be kind as well as vague in my answers.

I reconnected with my birth mother about 20 years ago. We are only about an hour apart as well, so we chat on the phone every few weeks. Talking with her is more like talking with a sister because we are only 15 years apart. She is a free spirit, so we have a lot in common and our conversations usually last about an hour. We laugh and laugh. We try to get together once or twice a year if possible.

The rest of my relatives are in other states, so we keep in touch via email and snail mail as much as possible.

We both keep in touch with our respective family members... parents, siblings, the whole lot.

I am always sort of surprised (OK, completely blown over) when I hear of people who haven't spoken to their (mom/dad/brother/sister) in years. I always think, "You're allowed to do that?"

These are not situations where people were abused or some other hideous dysfunction, but someone just got on someone else's nerves. I know one woman who hasn't spoken to her mom in two years because she's waiting for an apology about a lemon meringue pie. Puleeeez!!

In those cases, I think the phrase "get a life" is actually, literally true!

Forget eggshells....not worth it.

Done that.


jf