A few years back my sister passed away, I’m now the only child my parents have left. They live a few hours away and have for as long as I have been with my partner (7 years).
My parents are planning on moving to the place we now live to be closer to me. This has my partner worried that they will be over often or I will be over at their house more often. Her parents are very far away so can only visit once a year.
My parents are not the kind of people to show up uninvited to anyone’s house. They likely will come over once a month for dinner and I will probably go over by myself once a week.
We are both pretty private people so not having anyone over is just how we are and this potential change of more visits has her concerned that our privacy will be gone.
I am also fine with them not coming over often, I like it being just me and her but I do want my parents close when they have medical emergencies.
How do I approach this as currently she is a bit annoyed but taking a more “see how this pans out” attitude?
I don’t exactly want to jump the gun and talk to my parents ahead of time to make sure they don’t come over often because I don’t think they will and it might sour their relationship to her if they think she doesn’t want them over ever, even if I also don’t want them over often.
I’m sorry but I just don’t understand where you are at. I feel you are adopting this “I’m a very private person” label as an armor to close yourself off from a closer relationship with your family. I’m very much an introvert with my own internal world, and yet I feel people are probably the point of life. Relationships are not always comfortable, but I feel that discomfort is part of the fun-- to approach it with curiosity to see what happens and as a growth opportunity to see how you’ll practice communicating with the other person with openness and vulnerability. To me that’s way more fun and interesting than shutting down yourself and others with a priori rules.
I’m not really adopting this label. I’ve always been this way. I would always call and plan when I went to people’s houses as a kid. As an adult I would always book at least a week in advance when I wanted to hang out with people. I don’t just pop by, I plan in advance. We don’t have kids, it is just us two humans and two dogs, we like it this way.
My parents and I talk by text every other day and talk around once a week by phone. I think the only difference will be that I will go by once a week instead of the phone call.
So why does that worry your partner? Visiting parents once a week seems a highly normal behaviour. It is not like suggesting you move in with them as a multigenerational family arrangement.