To be Concerned about husband's reaction to Xmas planning making it about race

No one is saying it's wrong to want to see your family at Christmas.

The crux of the matter is how abhorrently he has treated OP.

He just doesn't want to leave his parents and granny alone at Christmas. I don't think that is difficult to understand. I imagine he realises that now you are going to be parents it will mean no more going to your own separate families for Christmas. This means either you just have Christmas as a three-piece, or everyone comes to yours for the day, or only one side does as per your suggestion. Understandably he feels it is unfair and feels guilty that it is his family who is being left out because there are so few of them.

Maybe it would be best to make this the last year you go to your separate families and start a new tradition of it just being the three of you together on Christmas day with visits to both your families around it.

It's not really about Christmas OP.

I think the bigger picture is how awfully he's treating you.

It could be a disagreement about what time you have breakfast or how you like your eggs.

The way he's spoken to you, lied about it and tried to convince you you're overreacting is awful.

It's in his favour if he keeps getting you tied up in the specifics or whatever the disagreement is so you don't focus on his behaviour.

I've been in that situation and it's so hard to see the wood for the trees.

Life doesn't have to be this hard though. With my now DH, I don't even have to think twice if I want to bring up anything. No walking around in eggshells.

You don't realise what a weight it is on you until you're out of it

I wouldnt ruin a relationship over one day.
Life is a Rollercoaster.
You will experience Many ups and down.
Happiness, stress, anxiety, and joy. All sorts.
It won't be easy. LIFE ISNT.Relationships need effort and work.

So I wouldn't stress about the small stuff.

If you accept that you do care and love each other and try to iron these things out.
It is one day and if you try a merged Christmas this year and it dont work. Next year do it separate?

I agree with this too.

My ex used to do the exact same by pretending his deliberate, spiteful remarks were jokes.

He wasn't joking OP. You know that and said yourself that he said it nastily.

My ex would also get angry when I would get upset by something unkind he did to me.

It's not how nice people react to the person they love.

You're not overreacting. He's just trying to get you to stop ever disagreeing with him so he can have everything his own way.

You can try tying yourself in knots to avoid him being horrible, but I know from experience that it doesn't work.

People like this don't change sadly OP.

We're both white British and I prefer to host our families separately as they are just very different types!

Op, have you said so are we agreed that we never have Christmas with just one family side? Or is that just a rule when I want my family? Also, re trying to make me happy, what are all the things you’ve been doing? (I suspect they are either very normal things you do too, or he doesn’t do anything, or they are things that make him happy)

you have a long and difficult road here having a baby with a man who thinks of you as lesser and makes it your problem whenever you get upset by this. It is hard to see it getting better.

Well he wants to celebrate with his family and you want fun games and music with your family. It clearly means more to him and he has explained only child elderly parents.
Can you not understand his point of view?

Are either of you religious I.e go to church etc?

It clearly means a lot to your husband and for yourself it seem a just another day.

In which case I think you could be more considerate.

But that’s exactly what he does want. He doesn’t want to alternate and give the ops family equal weight, so now that they are on an ops family year he’s changing the goalposts. His choice would be Christmas with just his family every year.

You are overacting.

He is an only child and maybe he wants his family and himself included in a larger celebration.

Why exclude them?
Whole point of Christmas is young and old are together.

Why would you do two seperate celebrations?

Perhaps he doesn’t want to go to his parents alone or just with you as it’s too boring, so his answer is to host them along with your (more fun) family so he doesn’t have to feel guilty about not wanting to go to them?

It is selfish though because you are most likely correct in that his family are more likely want to spend it more quietly.

@anonymousxmasposter

A few books for his Christmas present list
1) Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
2) White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
3) How To Be an Antiracist

Although quite frankly I wouldn't bother. He is still unwilling to listen and learn.

After reading the last few responses after my last post, please ignore my post. Yes, it’s possible to compromise over food palatable to both families, but I agree, your partner dismisses and invalidates your feelings and backs you into a corner, then decides you are over sensitive and over reacting. That is a tactic often used in emotional abuse as others have said.

This latest difference of wants and needs is just one that highlights the behaviour and attitude of your partner. This really should be something that can be sorted out in a way that both families spend time with you both. It’s been turned into his war and you aren’t able to win it as things stand. It’s not so much an interracial relationship problem, it appears to be a relationship problem. By default, whatever he doesn’t like, is put squarely onto your shoulders. You deserve a lot better OP.

He can’t take any amount of accountability for the things he says or their effect. Its a fundamentally childish and destructive approach to an adult relationship. The only way this relationship continues is if OP agrees to make herself smaller and smaller to fit the box he wants to stuff her in. Its a terrible way to live and utterly unnecessary.

If he thinks you are a terrible person he should leave you: not punish you and verbally abuse you to get you back into line. Why doesn’t he just, you know, adore you? Love your cooking snd your family and your culture and your life experience?

Just sit with that a minute. Your husband should fucking adore you. If not: dump him and find someone sho does. Life is too short to enter yourself in the wrong competition. He isn’t the horse for you. This isn’t the race to run.

I think in fairness it's a stretch to think he was deliberately referencing a racist slogan but either way it wasn't jokey, he was commenting negatively on your racial background and your family, and it sounds like he's not treating you well just in general. You're not overreacting.

@pikkumyy77 made an excellent suggestion.

OP, here is a free web version of Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft: https://ia802200.us.archive.org/19/items/why-does-he-do-that-inside-the-minds-of-bancroft-lundy/Why%20Does%20He%20Do%20That__%20Inside%20the%20Minds%20of%20-%20Bancroft%2C%20Lundy.pdf

Please read it. And then hopefully leave this awful racist man. Then, I’d highly recommend doing some reading on race and racial politics, and getting some counselling to work on your sense of self. But, first, read the above.

Despite a pp saying I was projecting on my earlier post, since reading OPs further posts I am convinced I was on the right lines.

OP, he is using race as a stick to beat you with. He will use your hormones, your sex, large family, or just anything that is different to him. He is manipulating you into a corner where you will eventually lose your voice in this relationship. Look up the boiled frog analogy. In the meantime from the National Domestic Violence website:

https://www.thehotline.org/resources/what-is-emotional-abuse/

anonymousxmasposter · Today 19:07

* apparently he said he's trying really hard to make me happy and I'm not in return, and he saw the Xmas thing as another example of my selfishness by excluding his family*

would It be possible to have both families together and make traditional Christmas food for DHs parents? I totally think your idea of having both sets of rellies over separately with his DHs DF having dementia but if he thinks his DF will be ok, then I’d maybe consider food both sides will enjoy.

Im Jewish but totally something like a brunch my Jewish family would love such as gefilte fish, fish balls, chopped herring, chopped liver and rollmops might not be to everyones taste, so I’d be sure to serve other stuff as I’d not want anyone to feel they were either forcing anything down they might not like, or go home still hungry.

its telling that he was trying to ‘be clever’ with words, and to dismiss your responses as ‘over reacting’ or ‘over sensitive’. That’s really not ok at all.

He is lying—or very, very, very, stupid. I don’t think he is stupid. He is absolutely an asshole to you and he knows it. I think you should read “Why Dies He Do That” by Lundy Bancroft to figure out just which kind of asshole he is.

I think you have lost sight of something about life with your lover and partner. He is supposed to try to understand you, care about you, and soothe your distress. If after eight years he understands you so little that he “rates” distress and finds you doing it wrong that just goes to show how little he cares about you, how little he cares about what makes you tick. Sure: men are from mars/women are from venus or whatever. But we are all anthropologists in the land of our beloved—or we should be! I spent time learning about my lovely dh and he spent time learning about me. By 8 years in your dh should not only know what will distress you but should actively try to make things better. He chooses not to.

Your husband sounds really difficult.

Your suggestion of alternating years was not at all unreasonable and it's unfair of him to try to wriggle out of seeing your family when it's supposed to be your year with your family instead of his. I would have done the same thing in your situation.

For this year, I suggest you host everyone but delegate tasks to different people. Can you have some sort of Christmas dinner with an Asian twist? Or just have a mix of both and people can take what they want? Put your husband in charge of cooking the traditional English stuff if he feels strongly about that. It's your Christmas too and if you want to eat Indian food you are allowed to.

If mixing both sides together this year doesn't work out well, next year you can revert to separate Christmases and tell your husband that you expect fair treatment between both families. Because your wish to spend Christmas with your family is no less important than his elderly relatives' wish to spend Christmas with him, whether he is an only child or not.

I'm sorry to have shared that with you then. Most people would indeed think of the song. It was coopted by racists to mean something different.

He doesn't need to see things from a POC perspective. As a white person he could never do that. So what he does need to do is close his mouth, open his ears and his mind and let you tell him what that feels like (if you choose to) and accept and validate. His 'joke' is actually a reference to a deeply racist slogan used at one time by extreme right groups "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas". He obviously knows of this, and it beggars belief he thinks its acceptable to reverse it as a 'joke'. He has much learning to do and needs to take responsibility to educate himself.