To think DH is selfish denying the DC Christmas?

[ohganggang]

Been together 7 years, married for 5. We have a 4 year old DD, a 2 year old DS and I'm pregnant with out 3rd. DH was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, they do not celebrate Christmas as they believe it is satanic. The religion has a shunning policy and DH got shunned by his family and friends when it came out he was in a relationship with a non-JW (me) at the start of our relationship as that is forbidden. He is essentially dead to his mum, dad and siblings.

DH had stopped believing in the religion long before I came on the scene and was just keeping up pretenses for his family until he got found out. He is now as atheist as they come. He has a lot of religious trauma from his childhood, from growing up believing the world was about to end, watching the kids at his school celebrating Christmas and 'knowing' they were going to be killed in Armageddon for it (they teach that God will kill literally everybody who isn't a JW, no exceptions), being taught that the world is run by Satan etc etc. He lived his childhood in perpetual fear. I have advised him to seek counselling and he won't.

He now rejects anything to do with religion, and can't be doing with Christmas. He actually gets depressed every year around the Christmas season and says it's because it brings up the trauma of his childhood. Because of this, we've never bothered with Christmas together. For the first couple of years of the relationship before living together, marriage and DC I'd just go to my family on Christmas Day as usual. Christmas 2017 after DD was born, we stayed home and did nothing and it was the first year I didn't do anything for Christmas. Me and DH had a conversation that year and he said he doesn't want to do Christmas with our kids as it will trigger his trauma and remind him of the childhood joy he missed out on. He also wants the kids to be completely atheist and have nothing to do with religion. I accepted that.

But DD is now 4, and in pre-school, and the pre-school is making a huge deal out of Christmas coming up soon. I find this problematic because obviously it causes issues for families like mine but we're in a small town with not much cultural diversity so I think they've assumed all of the kids will be celebrating at home. They absolutely haven't considered some families might not be celebrating Christmas and I've debated raising a complaint, but that's another thread. Naturally, the talk of a Christmas nativity, the kids being hyped up about an upcoming Christmas 'party' and general encouragement for the kids to talk about Christmas among themselves, has resulted in DD getting excited for Christmas.

I have told DH today that I don't think it's fair on the kids and that I don't think it's right to project his trauma on to the kids. To me it seems like a case of "I didn't get to have Christmas so why should my kids?". I do understand his trauma though. I tried to compromise saying we don't have to decorate the house but I am doing presents for the kids and me and the kids will go to my parents on the day to celebrate and he can stay at home. He says no, that he isn't comfortable with his kids having "that religious bullshit in their lives". I'm really annoyed with him.

You're helping turn the children into props in their traumatised father's story.

Please do what you believe is right. And some holly, candles and presents isn't remotely religious.

Christmas is not a religious celebration in my household. We are simply celebrating the winter solstice using the secular trappings of our culture. Reindeer and snowmen and even trees are not religious. There are some people who also celebrate a religious holiday at this time and they are welcome to it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun too.

By denying his children participation in Christmas, he is actually othering them in the same way he was othered as a child. It’s a very odd choice to make. Most people overcompensate in the other direction.

If he's using his trauma as an excuse to be unplesant, controlling or abusive, do something about that.

If not, and it's just this issue specifically, perhaps he would agree to alternate between celebrating a (cultural, non-religious) version of Christmas with you and the DC one year, and not the next. Or agreeing that you'll go to your parents on the Christmas year, and and he'll have some 'me-time' without complaint. And then the next year, having a nice wintery time with as little reference to actual Christmas traditions as is possible in the UK. (But the school stuff still happens and he'll show a pleasant interest in that.)

If you can afford it, post-pandemic, another solution might be to make Christmas week/fortnight the time you go on holiday abroad. Perhaps every year. Perhaps every other year.

If he doesn't believe in religious dogma, why does he get to decide if his kids are atheist?
I'm pretty atheist (maybe skeptical agnostic?) but I don't get to make up my kids' minds for them regarding religion. That's just as brainwashing as any other religion. I teach my kids to ask questions and to be skeptical, tell them my reasoning but leave them to make their own minds up and respect their decisions. I can't decide for them if they will be atheist, agnostic, christian, jewish, muslim, buddhist or whatever.

As it happens, I come from a culture that doesn't celebrate Christmas. But in the UK (or other western cultures), Chrismas is a big deal even if you're not religious. And I love the Christmas message. You can certainly just enjoy the cultural aspects without going into the religious. Easter I can understand more, that has a much more religious aspect to it but Christmas? It's lovely (and it's all based on pagan traditions in the UK anyhow)

@Skeumorph

You have children now.

You have responsibility for young lives and so does he.

I would tell him - it is crunch time. Counselling, or you leave with DC.

He's going to give them the same traumatic childhood he had.

This.

Sorry, I think he's being terribly selfish. He shouldn't inflict his own misery on his kids! He's denying them what he couldn't have. That's the opposite of what most parents do, which is wanting their kids to have everything they couldn't have when they were young.

It does sound like he needs to deal with his past. I'm sure it's affecting more areas of your life than "just" Christmas, and it's not fair for the children to suffer because of it.

He's being ridiculous, as well. He can't honestly believe that celebrating a secular Christmas will make them religious! That's just an excuse because he has a huge chip on his shoulder about his own miserable childhood.

He needs to get over himself. I say this as an xJW. We’ve embraced all the holidays, and while we don’t do it perfectly our D.C. have the experience. Christmas is more a cultural event than religious for most. We don’t do the nativity etc, but do carol concerts (all kids in bands so part of that). If he doesn’t want to partake that’s up to him, but he can’t stop you and the D.C.

I'm not sure you can make a complaint that nursery are celebrating Christmas.

I am a Christian and even I can say alot of things these day don't have the religion in Christmas. Christmas for most people is about family. My husband is atheist and celebrates it with me.

When your children are teens they might resent him. The why didn't we get to do what everyone else did questions may come out. As well as feeling like the odd ones out. I'd celebrate it and if he dosnt want to join in then we'll he can dosnt have to. He does need help though.

That would be a deal breaker for me, but I wouldn't have contemplated having kids with someone who wouldn't celebrate Christmas. He could get over himself or fuck off.

Christmas isn't religious for many peopl and has nothing to do with religion for many. It can be materialistic and to do with family. I get he sees it as a trigger, but I was fecking miserable I couldn't celebrate it so I'll make my kids juts as fecking miserable and give them a lifetime of issues is juts being a selfish git. I'm afraid I echo other responses- his good points are............because fatherhood doesn't sound like one of them.

@ohganggang

He obsesses I think. He spends hours and hours on his laptop on online ew-JW forums where they share articles on the religion's website to each other and rip it all to shreds, or compare their traumas.

That fucking cult still has such a massive hold on him.

He's only going to get worse if he won't seek help and you need to seriously consider whether you want the kids to be exposed to this kind of behaviour.

But DD is now 4, and in pre-school, and the pre-school is making a huge deal out of Christmas coming up soon. I find this problematic because obviously it causes issues for families like mine but we're in a small town with not much cultural diversity so I think they've assumed all of the kids will be celebrating at home. They absolutely haven't considered some families might not be celebrating Christmas and I've debated raising a complaint, but that's another thread. Naturally, the talk of a Christmas nativity, the kids being hyped up about an upcoming Christmas 'party' and general encouragement for the kids to talk about Christmas among themselves, has resulted in DD getting excited for Christmas.

Don't raise a complaint with the school.
Did you not expect that this was going to happen in pre-school? You should have pre-empted it and talked to the school to say your child didn't celebrate Christmas....and more than likely they would have asked you did that mean opting out of all Christmas activities or if you were comfortable with any of them and what you would like your child to do while the rest of the class did Christmassy stuff. The school might have played Christmas down a little bit or mentioned that not everyone celebrates it etc. but realistically the build up in school and for the rest of the children is going to remain the same. The school not having any Christmas activities would no doubt make things easier for you but it wouldn't have actually solved your problem and it would have been the easy way out!

What is your plan now that your child is excited about Christmas and your dh is saying no?

For most Christmas is a celebration of family, not religion, can you ask him to celebrate your family?

From your updates op this would be a dealbreaker for me if he absolutely would not budge.
My mum is dead now and i've forgiven her for many things but I haven't forgiven her for not standing up to my stepdad and giving me a Christmas. I wasn't allowed a tree or decorations, presents sure, anything to amuse me so i'd go away but nothing cheery. Not because they were of another religion, or didn't believe. Simply because my stepfather was a cruel spiteful alcoholic who liked to mentally torture me in any way he could. My mum never even tried to change things, she just went along with it.

Because of this i've always made a huge effort to make sure my dc have a great Christmas, we aren't religious, it's more about family to us. Does he really not understand he's putting them through exactly the same thing he went through, he really cant see that?

I guess the question is do you want your children to grow up as traumatised as your DH? Because he’s repeating history, he’s just justifying it in a different way.

Always just watch on here but feel compelled to post, Christmas is memories that will shape your kids forever. I Can always remember my own Christmas memories being not very fond. Make the memories magical because they are not little very long but the memories will last a life time. Please don't deprive them of the magic Xx

@ohganggang

I know this is the typical, cliche thing to say but in every other sense he is an absolutely wonderful husband and dad. I hate that he is damaged like this and probably was in denial and thought marriage and kids would fix him.

Well it didn’t fix him did it. And now it isn’t about him. It’s about your kids. Are you going to stand by and watch him put your kids through the same trauma or not?

Also the difference between your family and Muslim/Jewish/other faiths is they may not celebrate Christmas but they do have other major celebrations. So they can say to their kid yes Jimmy celebrates Christmas and we do not but we celebrate X and Jimmy does not. What do you do instead of Christmas? Also it is really weird that the one bit of Easter you cut out is the not-Christian part. The eggs bunnies etc come from the pagan celebration of spring and everything bursting to life. There was no Easter Bunny at the death of Christ/ when he came back as far as I am aware

@Cupcakeschocolate

We don't celebrate Christmas. Muslim household. Kids don't feel like they are missing out. They are school age and have never been upset. We let them join in at school and do the nativities and activities etc. But we have our own holidays where they get gifts. We might not do extravagant piles of presents but they get their birthdays and 2 ends which adds up to Christmas and Easter. They get gifts, and lots of nice food and visits. So essentially a non religious Christmas but a different time of year. We wish others a merry Christmas and have often helped those celebrating on Christmas day when needed. Etc. It doesn't need to be about religion and isn't for most people.

His argument doesn't make sense. And he hasn't taken your childhood of having Christmas in to consideration. What do you normally do Xmas day? We have a family day of rubbish to and a good meal

This (but Sikh for us)

The guy needs proper trauma focussed therapy.
Many of us had horribly abusive childhoods.
Once we have our own children, the vast majority of us try in every way to ensure they never experience the fear and misery we did.
He's directing his pain on to his own kids and that's inexcusable. I would say it's actually his responsibility as a father to get therapy if he won't do it for himself.

I would be saying bye. He sounds awful to live with tbh.

It’s not the same as Muslim families or other religious families who don’t celebrate Christmas as they have their own version (Eid, Hanukkah, dwalli etc) so the children don’t miss out as they have a wonderful celebration, which is great!

Your children are being forced to miss out on all the non religious parts of Christmas that children and parents love because his needs overrides the whole families? Why does he rule supreme? Why is his hate for Christmas stronger than the children’s (possible) love for it?

He needs serious help. I couldn’t live like this.

You need to save Christmas for your kids, let them enjoy it. This is his issue and he needs counselling if his relationship with his children (and you) is going to survive long term. I’d be stronger in issuing an ultimatum on that - I certainly couldn’t live like you do. He sounds extremely hard work.

He needs therapy. But he needs to see that he needs therapy. Its not your job to make him better.

You're not celebrating Christmas as a religious festival though, are you. Neither is the pre-school. And yes pre-schools and schools are as Christmas-obsessed in diverse areas, because everyone recognises it's a 'fun cultural event' rather than a strictly religious one.

I'm pleased you're taking the DC to your parents.

Ask him what part of a Christmas tree and Father Christmas is about Jesus. They're not. You go to church if Christian, or not if not. That's where the religiosity lies. The rest is about family, friends and fun.

My ex used to take a similar view of birthdays and Christmas. That's a substantial part of the reason he's an ex, and my kids have a tree and lovely Christmas traditions.