DH and his ex have a 19 year old son, I have known him since he was a little boy (off topic: no I was not OW and did not break up their marriage so trolls back off!). Every year since he was 7 his mother and stepdad have taken them away to his relatives and her relatives, so for 12 odd years we have not celebrated Christmas together. DH and I have young children and they have always expressed their wish to big brother around to open presents etc… this year we asked DSS to come to us for Christmas seeing he is now at uni and a young adult, we thought he might want to do that as he now has his own free will (not dictated by his mother). But he is choosing to go back “home”, and said he’s only available to spend time with us 26th-30th December. Seeing we live in Spain (DH is Spanish, but DSS lives in the UK) those days are really expensive to travel out here (£400) even with Ryanair. More than we can actually afford really. Too expensive to justify only 4 days with us, of which two are barely full days. We asked him to come on 24th and leaves 30th or he comes on 26th and leaves on the 1st or 2nd. He would like to spend Christmas with the other side of the family and New Years with his mate. Naturally we feel quite low on the priority list and quite hurt by it.
whilst he was growing up, we always made a point we wanted him to spend Christmas and every holiday with us, we would fly him over and when younger DH would fly over to pick him up, DH always flew over every time he got a chance to (ie long weekends, birthdays etc). DH made a real effort to stay in touch. No fault divorce, grew apart, didn’t love each other anymore etc…
DH and ex used to live in Spain together but post divorce ex wanted to be close to family so asked to move from Spain.
aibu to feel DSS doesn’t really consider us his real family as he now has got a chance to spend Christmas with us but chooses not to.