AIBU to feel second choice when my mother spends Christmas with her husband?

You can't leave a dog for a whole day!

There isn’t always a solution to leaving pets on Christmas Day. Many, probably most, pet sitters don’t work then. The Kennals where I leave my dogs whilst I’m away is closed over Christmas. That’s the price we pay when we choose to have dogs though. In these circumstances, my visit takes place on Boxing Day. I agree it’s unreasonable to expect OP’s mother to leave her husband on Christmas Day.

I have read it. She can’t see her husband and the OP on Christmas Day as neither of them drive and there is no public transport. So she has to either see her daughter or her husband.

If you have a husband who would leave you alone to spend Christmas Day evening and night and Boxing Day on your own after being at work then that is what works for you then that’s fine. It’s not something I would do.

So? Maybe she wants to have dinner with DH and a cosy evening on the sofa.

It's not tricky if you plan it in advance. It's not like Christmas is a surprise!

So their Christmas dinner can be an evening meal! They still presumably want each other’s company just to slob out in the sofa all evening too, like anyone else!
Poor Mr DM shouldnt be all on his tod because his wife has been forced out til late on Boxing Day (? Transport woes beyond me)
Gawd, this relentless insistence on DM having to up sticks and teleport to her daughter’s place is dreadful.

There IS a solution, involving the pets, but OP seems unwilling to contemplate it. I rest my case, as they say on tv!

If you read the OP, the mother isnt spending it it with her husband - who is not back until 7pm

Well said @Millytante. My dh is from another culture from me. The first time I met his family I went to his country and it was the day of a major ceremony. I’m just trying to imagine me saying that I wasn’t going to get involved with that because I’d never done it before. That’s just not what people do. Well, unless they are big old racists I suppose.

Feel like I'm losing the plot reading some of these replies @CharlieChopadopolis
It's very hurtful, she's your mum and expecting you to spend Christmas day alone whilst her husband is at work is awful.
Can't understand people telling you to grow up and live your life.... Christmas is about family

Her mother doesn’t ‘expect her to spend Christmas Day alone’. The op can go to her mother’s house but she won’t go. Christmas is about family, her mother wants to see her husband.

Why can’t you understand that people think the OP should grow up?

I think all this airy waving away any reason Mr DM might have for wanting to be with his wife (just as she clearly wants his company) because his Muslimitude is a de facto exclusion order at Christmas according to a lot of people here, is bloody outrageous.

The two households are too far apart for easy visiting on Christmas Day, so a mini stay is necessitated, and neither is keen to be the visitor. Of the two parties, I think DM has by far the stronger case. By virtue of seniority of course, if nothing else. She has no doubt earned a relaxed Christmas, and dashing hither and yon does not appeal.

Her being held responsible to provide company for an obdurate adult daughter at the expense of her own (very naturally) preferred domestic arrangements absolutely appals me.
At some point as adults, there surely has to be a cessation of any expectation of parental duty in such non-urgent matters.
By any standard, it behoves OP to make the journey if she desires company. Not the other way around.

I think it’s positively indecent for people to be disposing of DM’s expressed preferences, to encourage OP in feeling bitter and aggrieved, and to rudely shove her poor stepfather aside as though he has no value, no place in this festival, nor any say in the matter in the first place.

.

Feel like I'm losing the plot reading some of these replies @CharlieChopadopolis

It's very hurtful, she's your mum and expecting you to spend Christmas day alone whilst her husband is at work is awful.

Can't understand people telling you to grow up and live your life.... Christmas is about family

Normally I’m a Read The Full Thread kind of person but I got up to the first comment by the ever-wise @MrsTerryPratchett and I’m done. It’s not just good advice for the OP, it’s what we all should be doing. Always.

And some people have actually been banned from driving. Or are too crap at driving to pass their test in the first place.

Also finances. People on mumsnet seem to assume everyone's got a spare couple of thousand knocking around to invest in driving lessons and a car, plus a space to park said car. Which, no.

My mum chooses her partner over me at Christmas too, but she's an atrocious cook so I'd rather make my own arrangements anyway.

For someone who would rather be at home with her husband, yes. 🤷‍♀️

What are you on about? Maybe he was off last Christmas and so is working this one. Or maybe he’s an A&E doctor.

To be honest I can see why she doesn't want to come, if she also doesn't drive then getting there at Christmas will not be fun and if she thinks you only want her there for a few hours then it means she will be thinking about how she'll get home as well, my dad also spends Christmas with his wife and not me and my sister, I've always seen that as normal she is his family too and I have my own life with my own husband who I would probably be furious with if he left me and the kids on Christmas to go to his mum's.

Yeah….. 🤷‍♀️

We don’t know the family history, dynamics, etc..

Because there is an element of practicalities there. Pet cover over Xmas can be very tricky. And it sounds like mother comes other times when it does suit her.

Or we trust the OP knows him better than we do?

If he’s still working what a 12 hour shift, he’s not getting into it that much. Not enough to actually embrace the festival day off and spent it with family….

Is it? For family? Mother and daughter? And hubby would mind that they had a few days together celebrating a festival that he’s not invested in?

They can’t seem to win here op.

if they come to you they are ‘taking advantage’

you can’t go to them because ‘your pets are too expensive’

you don’t have any other friends it seems.

What do you actually want?!?

you need to broaden your circle to more than one person, because one person, especially one who wants to spend time with her husband (which is normal and the point of being married) cannot possibly fulfill all your entertainment requirements

That is hearsay evidence, and inadmissible.
OP seems to have inferred his lack of botheration about Xmas by virtue of his being Muslim, but for all she knows he gets right into the swing of the jolly, warm, and twinkling vibe, as do many Muslims.

This is good advice.

YABU

You are a grown adult. Your mother has a husband and wants to spend Christmas with him.

She would have to be there xmas eve to boxing day, it's quite an expectation

Why isn't it just as hurtful that OP prioritises her animals over her mother?