My House Becoming Transit Centre

You are living in America. Why are you bothered about long faces?

Are you worried she shall bad-mouth you if you don't help her?

Why can't you live for yourself and your near and dear ones?

What does this woman mean to you and why are you helping her?

 

Looks like there are 2 different issues here

1) OP's brother wasn't welcomed at her friend's house; thus her bro and mom are unhappy about it. They fueled the OP against hosting this friend in return. They believe, this friend hasn't done anything enough to receive any favor from OP.

2) OP has a problem in communication. She is unable to say NO without straining the relationship. Either she is hurt and feel guilt or her friend is hurt; thus the friendship is affected.
Fearing this, she says YES to everything. This is not easy. She has to put a lot of efforts beyond her limits to make sure her YES means YES.
Since she takes all these burdens for others, she naturally expects the same from them.
So, the problem is when someone fails to return the favor, she gets upset.

First of all, it is not wrong to say NO when you feel it is difficult. There is no kindness is doing something because you can't deny it.
It becomes more than a compromise, and it spoils your sanity.
Lets come to your bro's matter later.
Think, whether you are comfortable in hosting this friend and meeting her demands?
If it is uncomfortable to ask your H to take a day off, then say NO. Give her an alternate arrangement like Uber.
If it is difficult to get up early and do your chores at home before you meet her at 6.30am for the sight seeing, then say NO. Give her some excuse like headache, kid's special class or whatever.
But if you feel it is fun to join your friend for the sight seeing or to catch up old times, then join her with joy.
How come you do something you don't like? Isn't it uncomfortable?
If your friend is very dear to you, then you wouldn't have felt uncomfortable in helping her.

Coming to your bro's matter...
I can relate to your friend very much.
I am a professional, and I travel a lot and more so I have no issues with my H or in laws for men visiting me.
But I am a cleanliness freak. I feel bad if my house is messy. I do my best to keep it clean and tidy and presentable for the guests anytime.
But on times like "traveling out of the country" and "making all the arrangements handy at home before that", I go mad.
I could not keep up my schedules, as a result my house becomes a mess.
You know how it would be with 2 young kids, plus a few close relatives visiting me with their kiddos before I travel.
At this mess, I wouldn't feel comfortable to welcome a new person inside my home. If it is my own siblings or close relatives, then it is fine. But not others, not even my friends (except my close buddy).
So, I give excuses to meet them outside. Because meeting them inside my house when it is messy makes me uncomfortable.
I don't think it is bad. I don't think these buddies over think about it. As long as the purpose of the meeting was met, what is the big deal?
But I know there are many people who invite me to their messy house, dirty toilets, kitchens and even to their bedrooms too. They don't mind it.
I too don't judge them.
Just that we are different.

 

This was the point at which the problems started. If you were offended by her refusing to give you her address, you should have asked her for an explanation right then. Her answer would have helped you decide what to do next.

These days, carrying a parcel across international borders for someone else is a leap of faith. Not too many people will do it happily. Is it possible she doesn't want her family to know she's carrying something for you after refusing to carry a parcel for someone else?

At this point, much of this is a fait accompli. All you can do now, is offer her an out on the parcel. "It's not important. Leave it behind if your bags are full." If she takes you up on this, you won't owe her anything. And you can do whatever you're happy and willing to do for her.

More importantly, it's going to be very hard for you to insist that your DH say no to his visiting friends if you can't say no to yours. Asking him to ferry her back and forth will open the door wide for his buddies and their relatives to visit.

.​

 

yes. TRUE

 

I can understand OP's frustration.. I would be fine if a friend did that to me, but not to my brother or any close member of the family.. at the least she could have offered an explanation, or given the address and said, don't bother coming home, I can meet you closeby due to such and such reason.

Vedhavalli, based on the rest of your description, she seems to be quite open in asking you favors.. so wouldn't mind if you are unable to accompany her for sightseeing.. Do tell her in advance so she can plan a different itinerary according to her convenience..

I do love Peartree's way of thinking, makes life much simpler..unfortunately not all of us are wired that way, some of us overthinkers have a tough time navigating situations like this.. it's not about reciprocation of equal favors, its a basic gesture that shows you care.. if i have a friend, I would expect them to treat my family members with courtesy, just the way I would.. And in India sending away a person without inviting home isn't the norm, at least as far as I have seen..

 

OP- I came across a westerner vent on their so called host.

"Not this weekend, but a few back.

My wife and I had a long and busy Spring. So we decided to enjoy a nice weekend in a nearby city, catch a baseball game, eat out, stay in a swank hotel, sleep in, and drive the two hours back home.

That is, until an old friend of hers calls to catch up, as in a friend she had not seen in years. "No way. You'll be in town? Well, we won't let you stay in a hotel. You HAVE to stay with us. Yeah, yeah, we'll get tickets to the game, too. This will be so fun!"

I've only met this woman once, at a wedding shower 26 years ago. And I've never met her husband.

So my wife caves in because, hey, they were tight when the two were teenagers. We arrive at their house with hugs all around and chit chat. Then when we start getting close to game time, the woman says, "Well, we couldn't get tickets to the game. And then we realized that this friend of ours is throwing his wife a surprise birthday party. You don't mind, do you?"

What? I look at my wife who looks equally bewildered (She likes baseball even more than me, if possible). Finally, my wife says, "Okay," because otherwise, we're blowing off the people with whom we're staying that night. So much for our tickets.

Well, as it turns out, we need to hurry to get to this friend's house because her husband is bringing her back home at 7 pm, which means we miss dinner. We arrive at the house, and we get abandoned by our original hosts while they go off and socialize with everyone else. They didn't bother to introduce us to anyone. But we can't leave because we foolishly got in the car with our hosts. They insisted on driving because it was their town.

7 pm comes and goes. Then 7:30. Then 8 pm. The appetizers, which were scant to begin with, are dwindling down to nothing. 8:30. At this point, I'm contemplating Uber, but don't want to break into our hosts' house to retrieve our things. FINALLY, the husband and birthday girl show up, a full two hours behind schedule. The wife is pissed because her husband threw a surprise party. She locks herself in the bedroom and our hostess now needs to go in there and comfort her. The birthday girl finally emerges from the bedroom sometime around 9:30, apologizes to all the guests and then insists no one leave.

This is when the husband of the host has a major sinking spell because he is diabetic and hasn't eaten anything for hours besides pretzels. So he's beginning to faint while gobbling down Certs. So we finally leave about 10:30, go through a McDonald's drive-through and get back to their house around 11.

The next morning, we wake up at 8. We wander around the house. No one is there. They went to early church. Never told us. There's nothing to eat for breakfast. Practically an empty refrigerator.

At long last, they get home at 10 a.m. My wife and I are doing our level best to not be seriously pissed. But when we mentioned going out to get breakfast, on us even, we were flatly told, "We have lunch plans already. I guess it's time for you to go."

In short:

1) They hijacked our plans completely.
2) We gave up baseball tickets.
3) We didn't eat dinner or breakfast. Unless you count a quarter-pounder and fries.
4) We were dragged to a birthday party for someone we didn't even know.
5) And we were kicked out at 10 am.

The hell of it? My wife gets a call today from this woman, talking about what a great time they had with us and wanted to come to our town for a visit. My wife said something noncommittal and got off the phone.

Holy smokes. What in God's name happened here? "



You are too good of a host. Don't ask me why I pasted this in your post, I don't have an convincing answer. I feel bad for guest couple, but could not resist my laughter after reading above. It is hilarious