<i>&gt;Seriously? One week is too long to spend with those you love?</i><p>The author was talking about &quot;extended&quot; family and not the core family of blood relatives.  It&#x27;s understandable that nieces &amp; nephews don&#x27;t necessarily look forward to spending A WHOLE WEEK with Uncle Bob&#x27;s annoying 3rd wife.  A lot of extended family members can only tolerate each other in small doses and forcing themselves into a week-long retreat in a confined space would be torture.<p>Every family is different and unless there&#x27;s some external circumstance (e.g. military deployment), the relatives settle into their own rhythm in the quantity of contact.  For example, some adult daughters talk to their mothers every single day, multiple times per day.  This would drive some husbands crazy and they&#x27;re happier with a wife that chats with her mom once a week along with the annual Thanksgiving dinner at the mother-in-law&#x27;s house.  At that frequency, there is genuine peace and harmony.  Any more than that and people start plotting murder.