Disgusting Relative... Or am I expecting too much...?

Hi folks,
Sorry for the long post.

I am person who treats the guests with great hospitality. There is this one distant cousin of mine who had come to US with her family very recently. Her husband is in work visa and she does not work. She lives far away from my place (around 500 miles).

Initially I was very excited to find a relative in this country. I used to call her often over the phone and try to give her moral support. I even invited her to my home. More than meeting my family she was very keen about what are the site seeing places near my place. I ignored that thinking that it is quite common among the new comers. One fine day she said she is planning a trip to my home. Her husband opted to work from home for a week so that he could work from our home. They planned to stay for a week.

She was very keen on going to the nearby mountains. Though we both were working, we took them to the mountains for the long weekend. We took care of the entire expenses including cabin rent, rents for all the activities we had, car, food everything. In fact we were really glad to entertain them. When we came back from the trip, they asked us how much of the expenses do they owe us. We refused to take the money and said it was our pleasure to do so. They stayed at our house for a week and left.

She bought me a small kettle as a gift for our new home. I did appreciate that and gifted a dress for her and her daughter. I was very happy to do all these and I did these out of my heart. I never expected any money or anything else from them.

Recently my mom had come to US. We were thinking of taking her to Niagara falls. I planned to drive to New York. I were planning to spend a night in New York downtown and go to Niagara. Since my cousin's house is very near to New York, we thought of visiting her so that she can meet my Mom. We were even thinking if we were too held up with our site seeing may be we can give a flying visit to her house or meet her somewhere else.

I was quite excited about the trip and called her to tell about it. I told her that we are yet to find a place to stay for the night. I told her that we are thinking of booking a hotel for a night. I was shocked to hear her response. All she said was in case you come to New York, make sure you come for either lunch or dinner and have at least a meal at our house.

We have lots of friends around US. No matter what whenever we visit their town, they just assume that we will stay in their place. We have never seen a single friend who wanted to avoid us from staying at their home. Even if they could not accommodate, they just let us know about their situation and we don't feel hurt at all.

More than the hurt feeling, I felt so disgusted about her behavior that we decided not to call her at all even if we go to New York. I was wondering whether she was thinking as if we are driving for 14 hours to have a meal at her place. As if we don't have anything to eat anywhere in this whole country.

After this incident, I stopped calling her. My mother was also very much disgusted with her. It is true that I genuinely help people without expecting anything. But I cannot justify how a person can do this after getting such a hospitality. All I expected was a word saying 'Don't you consider your cousin's place to stay for a night?' We never intended to stay at her place but I am deeply hurt by the way she treated us. Her husband never even bothered to call my mother and say hello.

Ok... All said and done. Folks now tell me ... Am I expecting too much?

Regards,
mss10

 

Sorry if I was not clear about our conversation. I did not want to be very elaborate about the cphone conversation in my previous post. But since you brought this up I had to mention this.

This was what happened....

1. First I called her and told her about our trip including our night stay @ New York.
2. She replied asking us to come her place and have a meal.
3. I was surprised about this and hung up.
4. My mom said that she was disappointed that she did not even invite us for the night stay.
5. After couple of days, we happened to talk again and my mom tried to tell her that we were looking for some place to stay even though my mom knew that we had planned otherwise.
6. My cousin did not utter a single word about that and she changed the topic.

 

Folks,
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. I definitely did not want to justify my side. But let me tell you this. I have been such a moral support for her. I even share our initial days in US how frugal we were and also I told her not to bother about furnishing the apartment because it is not worth the money if they are planning for a temporary stay. I used to share how we used to spend our vacations at our friends places when they had limited resources. In fact I invited her to my place first so that she and her husband feel very comfortable with my family.

During her stay at my place, I took her to my close friends' houses and she knew how informal we are. And also I shared my experiences of my intial days and told her that it is very normal. But that should not stop u feeling hestitant to entertain and have fun. I told her that we may be too busy in site seeing. If they had wanted to avoid spending for our trips (which we never expected) we never asked them to tag along with us and pay for us. From our schedule it was very clear that we may not even stay more than a night if at all they were soooo bothered about spending their money.

Other than this fact, if I were to be in her position at least I would repaid (by providing a place for the night) for the trip which we went to the mountains. Me and my husband were both working and we were actually very tired for the mountain trip. Because of her insisting we both drove all the way. And we did not take a penny from her.

Actually I feel very bad getting into such mean details because even during those frugal days we never considered getting anything for free from others. When someone does something like this, we made sure we give them back in some way or other (as a gift or some other favor). Again I don't mean to be defensive but it is just that I believe hospitality is one of the highlights of Indian culture and how come people are like this.