Smotherly Love

I am very close to my family. Some people may call that the ethnic in me, but I hold the relationship with my parents and siblings high on my priority list. Most times this benefits me. I feel I've grown a lot and am stronger for my close ties to them. I've even rubbed off on my husband, who is getting a reputation for being the thoughtful one of his brothers. I think how someone treats their family, the good and the bad of them, reflects a lot on how they will treat their spouse and even more on who they fundamentally are as a person. This extends to extended family and close friends as well.

However....

I'm beginning to feel a bit smothered. Is it just me or was there more opportunity to check out of family obligations prior to the "I do"? I don't begrudge every event, family get together, or family crisis, but lately I feel like dough that has been rolled out too thin. I can't remember the last weekend the husband and I have had to ourselves. This puts life into great perspective when I think of how bored I was as a kid when my parents didn't want to do anything "fun" over the weekends. Gosh, they must have been exhausted!

I feel like I am being run around in circles, between work and obligations, I am pretty sure I only see my husband in bed or when one or both of us is too sick to make other plans. I would like to spend weekends on just us, but inevitably,  someone will expect us over and we'll feel guilty if we put ourselves first.

Add to this my sister has been living with us, which is great and helpful, but sometimes suffocating. She has a tendency to run the house as if it were her own... Literally reprimanding me for whatever I do that doesn't meet her liking. I mean, its still my home right?

And my mom is already planning our anniversary? Not like a party, but like a family vacation. And its weird. Because, in my mind, I feel our anniversary should be a private time about us as a couple, not a big public event. I feel like I'm selfish if I want to just do something nice with the husband and I, but I also feel annoyed that we don't even get THIS day for ourselves.

Of course, one of the things I am super jealous of is not having a day for myself, I figured our anniversary can be this. My birthday is Christmas Eve, which invariably sucks because it typically means I am forgotten or that everyone is too busy to make me more than an afterthought. I figured our anniversary could be about what Hubs and I want, and we get the feel special. And while I would love a family vacation, one on our anniversary isn't about us much, is it?


The cherry on top, if you remember my taxes post, is that we want to get a house. I need my own space, and I don't want to settle for a place that doesn't fit us. So added to my brother's advice of getting a place in a less nice area is my in-laws advice and sales pitch of buying a house in the mountains (3-4 hours from work) that we can use sometimes on the weekends and the rest of the family can use when we're not.... Did I hear that right? Because this is like asking us to buy a vacation home for the family rather than-- yet again-- taking care of us.

I know what a chicken with its head cut off feels like.  So how do you learn to say no? How do you reconcile your needs with wanting to be nice and accommodating? This is my current journey.

Step 1, I am making 100 days about myself. In the next 100 days, I am going to focus on my husband and my wants and needs as a priority.  Its already a daunting task because neither of us like to disappoint anyone. So why do we keep allowing us to disregard ourselves?