Do the fiancee's parents not care?

Question

My fiancée and I live in Philadelphia, we have been here for 2 years, before that we were in NC for school for 4 years. His parents live in Seattle. He rarely seems them, last time he saw his Dad was Dec 2006 and his mom was May 2007. We are seeing them this Sept (we are going to the family beach house in MA), after that he won’t see them again till our wedding in May 2009. It is not that we don’t want to see them, but we just can’t afford to fly to Seattle, and for some reason, they just won’t visit us. We have suggested on numerous occasions that they come East for a visit seeing as their parents and brothers and sisters all live in either MD, NC or SC. His mom was even in MD from Jan 07-June 07 and never once came up and visited although we went down 3-4 times.

His parents have never been to Philly and we were hoping they would come in early so we could show them around town. Our wedding is on a Sunday. They just made their reservations for the hotel and they are checking in Friday and checking out Monday.

My fiancée is very hurt but hasn’t said anything to them yet. He is planning to but I wanted to see if anyone else finds it out that after not seeing their son for that long and rarely seeing them him in between, they wouldn’t want to stay longer.

He assures me they like me although I can’t tell, so I don’t think that is the reason. They seem happy we are getting married. Anyone have any insight as to why a parent would go so long without making any effort to see their child or to spend more time with them the week they are getting married???

P.S. His dad (at 56 years old) is retiring this year but already works from home, his mom is a stay at home, my fiancee and his sister are done college and his family has a very nice home. They can absolutly afford to fly here and take the days off of work.

Answer 1

Well, it's sad that he doesn't have a wonderful bond with his family.

However, usually it's the children who make most of the effort to see and keep in contact with their parents - simply because they want to.

Answer 2

It seems like there's not much of a bond between your fiance's family.  Some people have different views about family and this is an example.  

My mom lives in TX and when we got married in May, we were in Lousiana (all of our family is there except my mom).   She flew in Saturday morning and flew out Sunday morning.  She didn't even come to the rehearsal dinner.  I'm not sure what the deal was but the important thing about that weekend is that I finally married the love of my life.  Don't let other people's oddities ruin your day!!!

Answer 3

Some people just have issues and cant handle being in social situations. My parents and my sister and her family rarely visit me and i live in the same city. However, I don't take it personally because know that both my dad and my sister have major social gathering problems - even with immediate family situations. Some people just have ideas about how they want things to be and they are stuck in their ways. If it were me, I would tell my parents how I feel in a way that didn't sound like I was attacking/accusing them. Just to let them know or really ask them why. They may have reasons that seem perfectly fine to them. Communication is important and you never really know what someone else is thinking or why they do what they do unless you talk to them. Often times things are misunderstood or blown out of proportion and can be cleared up or at least not seem so bad with communication.

Answer 4

It seems very strange. But some people are funny like that. I have a daughter who lives In Arizona with her husband and MY three grand kids, If I could afford to see the every month I would. I'm sorry that they don't make an effort to see their son, because time is to short. All you can do is be there for him, you are his Family now.