Hi Brooke,

We have a family vacation coming up. My husband and I, my daughter and her family, and my brother. My daughter and I are both in SCS and are working at changing our thoughts about vacation. We both know we can not control anyone else, and that our happiness is our responsibility. We both re-listened to some pod casts to reinforce these concepts.

We have been taking family vacations together for 17 years and it always is the same. Both of our husbands act bored and only participate in activities because they have to. Neither of them seem to be enjoying themselves, and my husband often complains. We have asked for their input for every trip, and the answer is always he same, “I don’t care.” When asked where they would like to take a vacation, the answer is the same, “I don’t care.” So my daughter and I plan the vacations and they just tag along.

This year we are going to a cabin on a lake and there are all sorts of fun activities. We are even renting a pontoon boat. What’s different this year is that the kids are getting older and want their grandpa and dad to participate. My one granddaughter asked why they never have fun. She asked her Dad if he was looking forward to the trip and he said “no”. She asked us why he never has fun. She called them “lumps”. And, honestly thats what they are.

In the past what we have done is just try to ignore them and go about having fun. But over the years it gets harder and harder because they have this negative, unhappy energy just lurking and it spills into the environment and is nearly impossible to ignore. We really want this family vacation to be different, but we are at a loss. We had a practice day recently. We had a day long family event and my daughter and I thought we would try to use the new sills we’ve learned in SCS. It was better, but still not good. We took responsibility for our own happiness, didn’t expect them to be anything other then themselves, and we let them be responsible for their own happiness. It was very hard not to let their negativity effect us. The energy was difficult to overcome. Plus the kids are very aware of it now that they are older and it is really effecting our fun.

I suggested to my daughter we stop planning family vacations and just go with the kids alone. But they want to go and would feel left out, and for us to go without just seems mean.

Any suggestions.