Still furious about Christmas

[Ionlywantedapony]

My mother lives abroad. We hardly see her.
His mother lives 20 minutes away. We see her ALL THE TIME.
My mother is not good at planning.
His mother plans years in advance.
My mother (and sister) flew over to visit us at the last minute at Christmas.
We spent the day at his mothers house and left my mum and sister alone in ours, because "that's what had been planned all along".
AIBU. To still be mad?

I really can't understand what the MIL has done wrong.

Chillx - what happened over Christmas 2015? Share your pain here - we can be your therapists

I don't know, I kind of think it's your Mums loss for being so sh!t at planning.

Putting christmas to one side, what is he like the rest of the time? Does he pull his weight, do you have your voice heard?

I'm sure you do love cakes answer, OP, since it conveniently and harshly blames everyone but you, and gives you a free pass for your own large part in this mess.
And since you picked that answer and only that answer to respond to, I'm guessing that is a pattern for you. Everything is always someone elses fault and responsibility, isn't it?

Do we know how last minute the OP's mum and sister's arrival was?

Your mum sounds like an absolute pain in the arse, I think you need to step up and have a conversation with her. If this was the other way round and it had been dh's mum just turning up, everyone would be telling you 'you don't have a mil problem you have a dh problem'

Apologies if I have misunderstood, but this sounds like it was all your mothers fault.

She turned up last minute at Christmas.

She was invited to MILS but didn't want to go? So of course she had to be left behind - it would have been very rude of you not to go to MILS

Boxing Day, the plan was to have a second "Christmas Day" at yours for your family. Lovely. Except your mother then called up and said she wanted everyone to go out for lunch. How bloody rude.

Does your mother have form for thinking the whole world revolves around her? I can see it must be awful for you stuck in the middle but really you are pointing the finger of blame in the wrong direction.

The only people at fault here are your mother and sister.

Turning up just before Christmas and expecting plans to change is shitty behaviour.

Do you think your mil would be up for coming to yours this year? That way any unplanned for guests inconsiderate, selfish twats can be accommodated. You can involve your mil in stuff so she doesn't feel railroaded and make a plan with your dh. I don't see his inflexibility as being the problem here. Presumably, he'd shopped and planned to cook a Boxing Day dinner and I don't see why your dm and dsis should get to dictate that he changes that.

I can understand why you're angry but you need to stand up to your mother. Talk to your dh. Plan with him.

Guitargirl- I have shared here a couple of times (name changed) but I ended up feeling worse because of the bashing I was given.

Basically I was let down by my mil at Christmas (lies after lies) and let down by my husbands response to the behaviour of his mom. I feel so disrespected and if I talk about it someone gets upset so I've learned to shut the f up!

It's your mum who's bang out of order. She turns up at short notice (it's Christmas ffs, she knows in advance when it will be!), refuses to accept your MIL's invitation & then wants to change your Boxing Day plans too.
Your MIL sounds like she's bent over backwards trying to accommodate & I'm not surprised your DH wouldn't change plans because why should he? He'd made plans, didn't want to change arrangements made with other family (why should everyone else change just because your DM has finally decided what she's doing?) and had made plans for Boxing Day for your family which were being changed at no notice.

You need to pull your big girl pants up and tell your mum that in future she needs to decide things in advance or do without. It's not fair on everyone else to have to throw their lives into turmoil just because she's calling the shots when she fancies.

"The only people at fault here are your mother and sister."

And the dh, for refusing to go along with his mother's sensible and generous suggestions.

I particularly like the "my plan is not to have a plan" suggestion

Yeah. Not so easy when you are the one hosting!

Your mum is a twat!

And the dh, for refusing to go along with his mother's sensible and generous suggestions.

It's not his fault, OP's mother didn't want to.

Your mother and sister are the ones you should be angry with. DP and MIL went out of their way to acomodate then despite the no notice flakiness.

Yabu for making excuses for your mother and blaming your MIL

Your mum sounds incredibly selfish. If seeing you and the children was that important why did she leave it until the last minute and then stay out shopping instead of joining in the Christmas Eve celebrations. Not only that she ruined your Christmas Eve plans by turning up so late. Does she have form for turning up when she feels like it and expecting everyone to drop everything for her? If she does then this is probably just the straw that broke the camels back for your DH if not then he should have been more flexible for s one off.

I think it's your mother fault.

If this was a about a child party we would expect our DC to go to the party they rvsp to first, even if it was there BFF

Now having RTFT it's your mum and sister to blame. If my mum randomly turned up, refused MIL's invite AND wanted us to change our Boxing Day plans, I wouldn't expect my husband to drop his own mum and run round after her. If your MIL has planned for you all coming at Christmas, then you can be sure she's bought mountains of food, prepped and planned etc etc. If a whole family was coming to me for Christmas, I'd bloody well expect them to turn up - Christmas food etc costs a fortune and take tonnes of buying and planning! I would, as your MIL did, graciously invite two extras that had descended on the originally invited family. The fact that your mum declined is bloody ridiculous, and if she was sad and whatever for the whole day, then she really did cut off her own nose to spite her face. You should be pissed off with your mum and your mum only for being such a bloody narcissistic cow! If the shoe was on the other foot, and you had plans with your DM and MIL rocked up but refused to participate in anything - would you ditch your mum that had the original plans with? Thought not! Love how you only respond to the 1% of comments that agree with you. You are being childish and ridiculous and you need to address the relationship with your mum. You and her are at fault here, not DP's side.

The problsm is between you and hubby.

The problsm is between you and hubby.

No it's not, the problem is the OP's mother being a twat.

This year, OP, you need to tell DH that you've made the plans. You'll be at home. Maybe go to MIL for Boxing Day.

ExH used to insist we went to his family every year, I had no bloody choice and I hated that. Now we see my parents some years, some Christmas Eve, some Christmas Day, the others spend it with the kids (I have the luxury of no inlaws this time).

It seems that some posters have not RTFT and/or seem intent on blaming the DH and MIL

Your mum and sister turned up literally right before Christmas, which meant that your DH must have gone shopping for this alternate Christmas dinner, when? The day before Christmas Eve? When it's absolute hell on earth in the shops?

And then she offers to take you and your sister (not the whole family??) out for Boxing Day lunch (not sure where you live, but round here Boxing day is booked solid in every pub/restaurant for miles). Had she already booked a table somewhere? Or were you going to turn up where she was staying only to find you had to have sandwiches on a park bench?

Your mum needs to learn to plan. Your DH sounds just fine (particularly if he shopped specially).