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Hello all, Hair and ecurbh here with an ethical dilemma we've put off far too long.

As a wedding gift from ecurbh's family, we were given a gift certificate and promise for paid lodging for this: FamilyLife Conferences: Weekend to Remember (R).

Click up and read through it, and tell me if you can picture either me or ecurbh in one of these sessions: Conference Schedule.

Honestly, I dread it. I know that many of you are this churchy, but we just simply aren't. It sounds dreadful to me, and I think to ecurbh too. There is an element of guilt about feeling that way, it's not because we don't want to spend the time together bettering our relationship, it's that we'd be so much better almost anywhere else.

They paid the registration already. They will pay lodging if we go. We just feel it is such a waste. It is so much work for us to arrange animal care for a weekend we can't see wasting our one trip we'll muster in a year this way. If they were to pay for a weekend trip for us, we'd rather accept a trip down there to see them again than this. Or a weekend riding at some great horse hotel with trails.

For us, and our lives and who we are, it's a really back-handed present. ecurbh said "Why couldn't they have gotten us a normal present, like a power tool or a kitchen appliance, instead of some elaborate ruse to bring us back into the fold?"

They would probably refund the money to his parents.... but this is a mine field in terms of our relationship to his parents. ecurbh will ~never~ outright tell them we don't want to go. I know this. When they've asked, we've just said the dates and locations have not been really workable yet. But we are at deadline now... we have to register by Aug 31.

What are our ethical duties here? Must we go? And try to get the most out of what they intended to give us? Or can we decide that it would cause us headache and hassle, and extreme stress that we'll be put on the spot in discussions like they hold. Can we just say "NO"? Would any of you folk like to go, and just pretend to be us?

So there's that.