Hopefully this will not get too long-I tend to ramble.
I have a very newly divorced friend who has moved back into the area after living in the mid-west for two years with her parents and children after separating from her husband of 20+ years. We have always been good friends and our daughters practically grew up together. We always relied on each other a lot as we both moved into a small close knit town where getting into the local friend groups were hard as the locals literally have the same friends they had since kindergarden.
I invited my friend and her children ages 17 and 20 to come along to mexico with us in February. I booked two one bedroom units that each sleep four adults. They would sleep six but the children are supposed to be under 12 for the sleep six situation to happen. They do offer a per person fee for extra quests. The rooms are not all that big to begin with. The bedrooms are all set up different, some having one bed some two. There is a pull down Murphy bed in the living area. No guarantee of what kind of set up or even if the rooms will be in the same building.
The resorts has conditions that anyone under 21 must be in the room with an adult. I invited them to come along with us thinking that my friend and her 17 year old son would share our room and have the use of the Murphy bed and the couch in the living area.
Her daughter who is a Junior in College would have use of the other room along with my daughter (Senior in college) and her boyfriend of three years. Friends daughter was originally bringing her boyfriend but that fell through as he plays baseball at a local college and is now going to "camp" during their spring break. Our daughters hang out together with their "others" in all kinds of situations, at their age traveling in packs is the norm and not uncomfortable for them. One is always over at the others college apts. spending the weekends and free time. Needless to say my daughter and her boyfriend are looking forward to "sharing a room" and are even paying for the extra room so they can be away from the uncomfortableness of sleeping on the couch in Mom and Dads unit. They have been a couple for three years and live in different cities so are looking to have a nice vacation. I feel lucky that they even want to spend their free time with us. They want daughters friend in their room as she is the same age group etc.,, can go to the same places, do the same things.
Now here comes the sticky part. I thought everything is all worked out and my friend calls me on the phone and asks if her son can bring a friend so he won't be lonely. In the past she has waffled between the idea of bringing her son at all because his father (her new ex) keeps saying he wants to spend time with his son and the fact that last year her son went on a cruise with a bunch of his friends and she went nowhere.
I listened, said I would see what could work out, that for one thing the room only slept four adults and I just couldn't see my husband giving up the bedroom on his vacation and would look into it further. At this point I had not even discussed the additional teenager who we don't even know joining our trip with my husband. He knows my friend and her children very well and feels they are like family, so there was never any problem with them. I did say I would consider it and did say I would see what could be worked out, never did I give a resounding OK go with it. Before I know it she calls me back and says that Son has invited a friend and its OK with his parents. I was kind of blown away and taken aback. I could tell by my husbands sullen silence that he was not all on board with this newest development. So I try to talk to him and he literally won't say yes and won't say no. After being married to the man for 30 years I know this is his way of saying that he is not for this newest development and is leaving it up to me. So now I am in the middle of having my husband blaming me for whatever could go wrong on this trip and my friend who has made all these plans mad at me.
My hubby brought up some good points, minor in the country without a parent staying in our unit. 17year olds can and do have access to alcohol in Mexico, can go to the clubs, basically do the Spring Break thing. He does not want the added responsibility of an unknown teenager to stress out about. He is a teacher in a HS and has enough teen angst he deals with. What if something should happen and there is not a parent there? My friend says she will take responsibility but we have had things happen before and if the guests weren't mature they could have really been bad situations. (One of party had plane cancelled due to weather and almost got stuck in airport for several days). She was in her 20's and capable of handling herself, luckily I got her out on another plane but it could have been a bad situation.
Now my friend is saying she isn't going at all and I am being too uptight about the extra person who throws us over our occupancy limit or puts me in the situation of putting the boys in with my daughter and her boyfriend who will surely have cases of beer etc., in their room and just to put it bluntly shacking up together.
In past years, if my son who is also in the same college age bracket posed such a demand I just left him at home with his grandpa. I can't see making everybody else jump through hoops to accomodate. Am I being Anal or what? My friend is laying a guilt trip on me saying she finally got together the means for this vacation and was really looking forward to it and can't understand my reluctance in not wanting the extra unknown teenager along. Isn't this my trip, and isn't she the invited guest? Do other guests invite playmates for their children? The son has gone on trips with us before and has always been one of the gang, we all play volleyball, take trips, do the dumb pool activities and generally just enjoy ourselves as a group. He is only about four years in age difference from the rest of the young-uns and has always been included and seemed to have fun.
Am I missing something in choosing my husbands concerns and possible entire vacation spent in silent sullinity, over my friends wishes? Somebody is not going to be happy with me, I don't have a boatload of good fiends and I sure hate to loose one but I've got a good kind husband and don't want to cross him either. Sorry to ramble on here but this is causing me much anxiety, and it did give me a place to vent.
I apologize profusely for this long, long post.
Lee
I have a very newly divorced friend who has moved back into the area after living in the mid-west for two years with her parents and children after separating from her husband of 20+ years. We have always been good friends and our daughters practically grew up together. We always relied on each other a lot as we both moved into a small close knit town where getting into the local friend groups were hard as the locals literally have the same friends they had since kindergarden.
I invited my friend and her children ages 17 and 20 to come along to mexico with us in February. I booked two one bedroom units that each sleep four adults. They would sleep six but the children are supposed to be under 12 for the sleep six situation to happen. They do offer a per person fee for extra quests. The rooms are not all that big to begin with. The bedrooms are all set up different, some having one bed some two. There is a pull down Murphy bed in the living area. No guarantee of what kind of set up or even if the rooms will be in the same building.
The resorts has conditions that anyone under 21 must be in the room with an adult. I invited them to come along with us thinking that my friend and her 17 year old son would share our room and have the use of the Murphy bed and the couch in the living area.
Her daughter who is a Junior in College would have use of the other room along with my daughter (Senior in college) and her boyfriend of three years. Friends daughter was originally bringing her boyfriend but that fell through as he plays baseball at a local college and is now going to "camp" during their spring break. Our daughters hang out together with their "others" in all kinds of situations, at their age traveling in packs is the norm and not uncomfortable for them. One is always over at the others college apts. spending the weekends and free time. Needless to say my daughter and her boyfriend are looking forward to "sharing a room" and are even paying for the extra room so they can be away from the uncomfortableness of sleeping on the couch in Mom and Dads unit. They have been a couple for three years and live in different cities so are looking to have a nice vacation. I feel lucky that they even want to spend their free time with us. They want daughters friend in their room as she is the same age group etc.,, can go to the same places, do the same things.
Now here comes the sticky part. I thought everything is all worked out and my friend calls me on the phone and asks if her son can bring a friend so he won't be lonely. In the past she has waffled between the idea of bringing her son at all because his father (her new ex) keeps saying he wants to spend time with his son and the fact that last year her son went on a cruise with a bunch of his friends and she went nowhere.
I listened, said I would see what could work out, that for one thing the room only slept four adults and I just couldn't see my husband giving up the bedroom on his vacation and would look into it further. At this point I had not even discussed the additional teenager who we don't even know joining our trip with my husband. He knows my friend and her children very well and feels they are like family, so there was never any problem with them. I did say I would consider it and did say I would see what could be worked out, never did I give a resounding OK go with it. Before I know it she calls me back and says that Son has invited a friend and its OK with his parents. I was kind of blown away and taken aback. I could tell by my husbands sullen silence that he was not all on board with this newest development. So I try to talk to him and he literally won't say yes and won't say no. After being married to the man for 30 years I know this is his way of saying that he is not for this newest development and is leaving it up to me. So now I am in the middle of having my husband blaming me for whatever could go wrong on this trip and my friend who has made all these plans mad at me.
My hubby brought up some good points, minor in the country without a parent staying in our unit. 17year olds can and do have access to alcohol in Mexico, can go to the clubs, basically do the Spring Break thing. He does not want the added responsibility of an unknown teenager to stress out about. He is a teacher in a HS and has enough teen angst he deals with. What if something should happen and there is not a parent there? My friend says she will take responsibility but we have had things happen before and if the guests weren't mature they could have really been bad situations. (One of party had plane cancelled due to weather and almost got stuck in airport for several days). She was in her 20's and capable of handling herself, luckily I got her out on another plane but it could have been a bad situation.
Now my friend is saying she isn't going at all and I am being too uptight about the extra person who throws us over our occupancy limit or puts me in the situation of putting the boys in with my daughter and her boyfriend who will surely have cases of beer etc., in their room and just to put it bluntly shacking up together.
In past years, if my son who is also in the same college age bracket posed such a demand I just left him at home with his grandpa. I can't see making everybody else jump through hoops to accomodate. Am I being Anal or what? My friend is laying a guilt trip on me saying she finally got together the means for this vacation and was really looking forward to it and can't understand my reluctance in not wanting the extra unknown teenager along. Isn't this my trip, and isn't she the invited guest? Do other guests invite playmates for their children? The son has gone on trips with us before and has always been one of the gang, we all play volleyball, take trips, do the dumb pool activities and generally just enjoy ourselves as a group. He is only about four years in age difference from the rest of the young-uns and has always been included and seemed to have fun.
Am I missing something in choosing my husbands concerns and possible entire vacation spent in silent sullinity, over my friends wishes? Somebody is not going to be happy with me, I don't have a boatload of good fiends and I sure hate to loose one but I've got a good kind husband and don't want to cross him either. Sorry to ramble on here but this is causing me much anxiety, and it did give me a place to vent.
I apologize profusely for this long, long post.
Lee
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