Follow-ups on Various Pre-Guest Frets

Laura Lou had the good idea to follow up on some of my guest-related concerns: specifically, how to figure out what they expected, and how to deal with the religion/church issue. I’d also been concerned that there might be hard feelings over Paul and his sister not having a funeral for their dad (his aunt’s brother), and I’d been concerned that his aunt would boss me (those two issues are both mentioned in the church-issue post as well).

1. Figuring out their expectations. For this one, his aunt gave me an opening: she emailed chatting about a fun day they’d had doing various things—things that had equivalents around here. So I emailed back, saying oh, if you like those things, I wonder if you would like to do those things on your visit here? And she emailed back saying that although those things did sound like fun, what they’d prefer to do is just spend time with our family. I would have found this a little puzzling (I consider “doing things together” to be “spending time with family”), except for the context and also Paul’s translation: he says for his family, “spending time with family” means “at the house, chatting.” And that really is what we did: we sat and chatted. I was pretty wrung out afterward from the intensity of that kind of social contact (seriously: 10.5 hours where the only time I wasn’t in a conversation was when I was in the bathroom), but it was also fun: because his aunt and uncle are relatively new to me, I could ask TONS of the fun/easy-to-talk-about questions, like about how they met, whether their kids got along, all about their grandchildren, etc. And I could tell all MY fun/easy stories, too.

2. The church issue. I used Judith’s suggestion of giving them a strong hint framed as an offer to find out information: “Would you like us to get service times / recommendations for churches in the area? We’re not part of a congregation, but we’ve heard good things about Church X and Church Y.” I put it in the same email as the questions about activities. They responded that they would indeed attend church on Sunday but that they would find one themselves. They didn’t question us specifically, but we didn’t pray before meals, and one of our children asked what a hymn was, so it seems like things must have been fairly clear. Paul’s aunt asked a number of questions (“So your dad was a minister?” “So how did you come to attend [Christian college]?”) that told me she would really like to know more, but at least on this trip she didn’t ask directly. (Though I would have been okay if she had: my main concern was that there would be an awkward question that was only awkward because it assumed we were religious, and was hard to answer without first addressing that point.) I think that on this topic, my history leads to very misleading conversations: I’ve had the same trouble with my wine-and-appetizers friends, where I keep telling stories about my minister dad or my Christian schools, and then realizing that might be why people are saying “sorry” to me when they swear.

3. The no-funeral issue. Did not come up.

4. His aunt might try to boss me. It seemed to me that she is Quite Bossy by nature, but that she is self-aware enough to attempt to reign herself in—unlike my late mother-in-law, who would just LET FLY with anything she felt like bossing me about, with the strongly-felt implication that there was The Right Way and The Dumb Way. I think Paul’s aunt ITCHES to tell people The Right Way, but that she is aware that it’s not necessarily The Dumb Way if they want to do it differently; or that even if it IS The Dumb Way, that’s not her concern. Also, she is aware that people don’t necessarily LIKE to be bossed. So for two days, she did well. But by the end of the second day she was starting to Make Suggestions in a way that told me that if I were her daughter-in-law, or if she were staying longer than two days, we would start to have Issues. As neither of those were the case, we got along beautifully and I liked her very much. If Paul and I ever do the road trip we’d like to do someday, I’d want to deliberately route it so that we could stop and see his aunt and uncle.

14 thoughts on “Follow-ups on Various Pre-Guest Frets

  1. Shawna

    I find it interesting that you just say “boss”, whereas here the expression is “boss around” or “boss [someone] around”.

    I have no real point, and am certainly not saying either way is the “right” way – I am just always intrigued by regional differences in speech patterns.

    Reply
  2. Shawna

    Oh, and I’m guessing the food went over well? Or at least well enough?

    I used to make fancy(ish) food when my husband’s sister’s family came to stay, and no one ever really appreciated it. So one time I made a big pot of chili and served it with roasted potatoes and sour cream, and they’ve requested it for subsequent visits. Done!

    Reply
    1. Swistle Post author

      Yes! In fact, it turned out that by coincidence we made pizza on the night of the week they always eat pizza at home!

      Reply
  3. Lawyerish

    I love, LOVE these kinds of detailed follow-up posts. They are so DEEPLY satisfying for people like me who desperately seek closure in all things. Thumbs up all around for the great visit AND for sharing all the details with us!

    Reply
  4. Lisa

    Oh, man, just sitting around “visitin'” drives me absolute bonkers. I would’ve been a raving maniac after 10.5 hours. KUDOS TO YOU.

    I’m ashamed to admit that I am also a Paul’s Aunt. I also have a Right Way and a Less-Right Way BUT IN MY HEAD, and it takes all my self-control to not assert my right way on other people’s less-right way. I stayed with my brother and SIL for four days in Xmas and by the time we left I had a migraine because their art/pictures were hung too high on their walls. :)

    Reply
  5. Idena

    I’m so glad you updated us with these details! I’ve been spending way too much time wondering how Swistle handled having house guests.
    And after reading this I was inspired: I invited a relative’s family over for dinner (they recently moved to an area close to us). I hope it goes as well as yours did!

    Reply
  6. Jenny

    In my family, we describe the alternatives as “doing something” or “sitting around with our faces hanging out.” Sometimes we want to do one, and sometimes the other. Depends on the day.

    Reply
  7. Alice

    Thank you for this! I really love the detailed follow ups. (And I’m glad that the visit itself went well, and that the timing seems to have hit the sweet spot – you can see where annoyance might lurk ahead, but you didn’t experience it directly.

    Reply
  8. Jane

    Okay, you are a queen – A QUEEN – for enduring that much chatting time. As an introvert, just you writing it made me clench up. My respect for you (which was already high) has just gone through the roof!!

    Reply
  9. Elisabeth

    I’m so glad the visit went well! My mother-in-law was just visiting here, and had similar chatting expectations, and it definitely took a day or two after she left to not feel exhausted by the whole thing anymore.

    Reply
  10. Devan

    I’m glad it went well!! It sounds like 2 days is the optimum length for a visit. I find the same with my MIL. ;)

    Reply

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