What side do you agree with on this debate?

My dad died a few years ago, but his second wife is still with us, probably because she’s only a few years older than me! Anyway, the problem is: For almost six weeks my husband’s 86-year-old father has been in the hospital in a town that’s 200 miles away, and he’s not getting any better. He’s actually getting worse day by day. My husband has been up there for virtually almost all of that time. He’s made three trips home, the longest he’s stayed is two nights. I’ve seen him for a total of five days in the last month and a half.

Well, I was talking to my Dad’s wife, telling her about some of the situation. The subject of my husband coming home for Christmas came up. Well….he missed Thanksgiving here, and as things have gotten worse, it’s becoming apparent that he probably isn’t going to make it home for Christmas (we really can’t afford the $60 it takes in gas for each round trip, and he’d just come back last Friday, picked me up to take me to his Dad’s town, then back again on Sunday, day before yesterday….) So, for a variety of reasons (the most important, of course, is being with his Dad because we don’t know what could happen from day to day,) it looks like he won’t make it home for Christmas. My Dad’s wife is saying, “Oh! But he HAS to be home for Christmas!” Me…I’m thinking…“He does? Why?” (Is that the ‘wrong’ way to feel?)

Here’s the disagreement. My dad’s wife is saying that I need show my husband how much support him, and especially how much I love him, and to that end she thinks I should tell him that I miss him so much, and I’d really like it if he could be home for Christmas if at all possible. I, however, feel like telling him that that would be putting emotional pressure, a guilt trip, on him to come home when we know we can’t afford it, plus we don’t know what’s going to happen to his dad day by day. I feel like he feels my support more by the less I comment on how his being gone has affected us.

What do you think? I mean, he knows I miss him because I tell him, and he misses us and home because he tells me…..do you think I should express how much I’d like for him to be home at Christmas, or just let be what has to be?

I had to edit to let folks know my dad’s wife and I are not close. She lives 2000 miles away, I see her only very rarely. She really has no idea what the inner workings of my family are….those were just her generic thoughts on relationships…