DH can’t be arsed to sit at table for Christmas dinner

[Brawsome]

Too much to expect? Five of us this year so fewer than usual. I’ve done all the shopping and will do the cooking. But he just wants his usual tray in front of the tv and has little interest in joining the family at the table and contributing to the chat. I’m beyond frustrated and just can’t face another argument. It seems very rude to me, but are my expectations too high? Ironically, if he does join us the convo will mostly be about why all the governments (UK) are wrong about Covid, so perhaps we are better off pulling our crackers without him. Anyone else dealing with similar?

Well if he was in my house and refused to sit at the table for the Christmas meal we were eating as a family, I would seriously be thinking whether I wanted him as family, never mind at the family meal.

This.

The only reason I would ever be eating a cooked meal from a tray on my lap would be because I didn't have a table!

Sounds like dh doesn't want to be part of the family so give him a divorce for christmas

Will have a chat tomorrow about expectations

Is he 5?

If you have to have this chat with an ADULT then wtf?

Does he act like he is part of the family normally? I.e get involved with family life and generally being there or is it you and the children and he is someone who comes and goes and only contributes financially or when he wants to?

Is it part of a deeper problem

He sounds awful OP. What an oaf.

He sounds like Jim Royle.

Maybe after Christmas you should take some time to consider what you are getting out of your marriage. You might be happier without him.

Happy Christmas. I hope you enjoy the day nonetheless.

He is beyond selfish and self absorbed. And totally without manners.

Rude fucker.

I see everyone on here, will have the linen napkins out with the silver napkin rings, maybe he's fed up with the covid thing, the depressing news and cannot be arsed with Christmas.Everyone on here has perfect Husbands, who do half the shopping and food prep. Oh, well, you will have to divorce him then

@nannybeach

I see everyone on here, will have the linen napkins out with the silver napkin rings, maybe he's fed up with the covid thing, the depressing news and cannot be arsed with Christmas.Everyone on here has perfect Husbands, who do half the shopping and food prep. Oh, well, you will have to divorce him then

Where do you see that?

All I see is people expecting basic good manners.

As I see it, you have 3 major problems.

First, he's so disinterested in family life that he doesn't want to sit at a table eating a meal with you once a year, when you have worked so hard on it and it is important to you.

Second, and I think this is more important, you don't really want him at dinner because he brings you down.

Third, and this is the most critical, you're wondering if your expectations are too high. Good lord, OP. No, they're not. They are dangerously low.

Be good to you this Christmas and stop worrying about him. Let him eat in front of the tv. Cut him out of Christmas. I bet you will enjoy it more.

I think the issue is less eating in front of the tv (although there is no way I would do that on Christmas Day) but more the selfishly refusing to join in. So if you were all going to watch tv while you ate and it was somehow part of your family tradition then that’s fine, unusual but fine. It’s the fact that he is taking himself off to please no one but himself that’s the issue.

For what it’s worth I do think Xmas day is one of the times it is nice to sit around the table as a family and I say that as someone who does eat in front of the tv most nights (the kids eat earlier at the table).

Incredibly rude! Why does he want to do this? Is there something on TV he wants to watch? Does he not like your family? Does he not have a spine and is unable to sit upright on a chair??

I’d hide all the trays, unplug the TV and tell him to grow up. I’ve never heard anything so self-centred, babyish and pathetic.

Can you move your husband to the shed for 24 hours?

Tell him you’ve left his plate “ on the side” and he can come and collect it and get his own tray. Do plate up for him but give him the rubbish bits and not a big plate at all.

You are so not unreasonable to the extent that this scenario is actually an example that the courts will accept to grant a divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour.

"Opting our of family life: refuses to join the family for meals, including on Christmas Day."

There you go. You just need another 4.

My Mum & Dads last Christmas together was like that. She made all this lovely effort and wasnt asking too much of him, just be a teeny bit sociable for one day. He just wanted to lie on the couch.
She moved out not long after that.

Genuinely I'm concerned that you have been so ground down by life with this man that you put up with it all.

It isn't normal to have a relationship where one person is so checked out they don't want to be part of family life and/or to survive and have a happier time you almost want them to exclude themselves because they'll only make you miserable if they're around.

This sounds like such a downtrodden depressing marriage. I think anyone and everyone deserves more than this.

We haven’t got a table so we won’t be eating at one, but if we did then of course we would be using it, I love setting a table for Christmas and sitting around it. It’s just me and 2 DD’s this year so we will be slumming it and eating at the coffee table or on the sofa.

Was he raised by wolves?

Everyone who’s saying they wouldn’t put up with it - what can OP actually do? She can’t make him sit there and it sound alike he would be a pain if she did

@81Byerley

YANBU. Even my disabled elderly husband, who finds sitting up to the table painful now, is insisting that if I'm cooking for him, the least he can do is make the effort and sit up to the table.

Oh bless him. What a lovely man.

So he doesn’t want to sit at the table and you don’t really want him there? It’s Christmas Day, if you can’t be together then when can you? And more importantly do you want to be?

@WorraLiberty

Hell would freeze over before I dealt with even remotely similar

All that needs to be said.