Christmas Day

[Evans60]

This year has been a busy year and my husband and I have decided to spend Christmas Day just the two of us with our two dogs. He’ll be spending the week before Christmas with his mother at her home as I’ll be working. My husband and I will spend Christmas Day together at home before I spend a few days with family and friends then come back home and us spend a few days together before starting the new working year. My husband has said his mother is still upset she won’t get to spend Christmas Day with us, despite seeing him for a week! We’ve spent the last few years with family on Christmas Day and want this year to ourselves for one day. AIBU?

I think the poll is stuck

I don’t think it’s odd. DH and I both feel drained after a day with his mother.

She talks without pausing for breath, complains about her neighbours and friends, is hard of hearing yet comments on every single thing we say between the two of us, but won’t ask for us to repeat the sentence, just guesses out loud what we’ve said (E.g. “love, please can you start the dishwasher whilst I brush X’s teeth”… she then says “why are you asking him to start the sausages for dinner?”…yes, cos that makes sense just after breakfast. This happens over many sentences a day. She won’t get a hearing aid, because apparently “they’re for old people” 🤦🏼‍♀️

So, no, it’s not particularly odd to find certain individuals draining.

If he’s so drained and needs a rest, why spend a whole week with his mother? He can spend this time off at home resting and just invite MIL on Christmas day.

It doesn’t sound like Christmas has a religious meaning for you or indeed any meaning at all , so just treat it as a luxurious Sunday roast with extra chocolates kind of day.

I wouldn't have spent a single Christmas day with my MIL the witch so I think you've been very generous having her so many years. She needs to get her own life you're not responsible for her. Whatever she would do if you were both seeing your family - she needs to do that.

Life's too short to.worry about it. No-one will be happy with it. Just ignore and do what you want to do. It's nice your husbands spending somlong with his mum, that's worth more than one specific day.

wants to see her OWN SON on Christmas day as she is alone and will feel very lonely. I mean just how DARE someone want to see their OWN SON on Christmas day?

On this occasion - apparently a one-off following several years (Covid excepted) where she has spent Christmas with him - it's her own son who happens to feel otherwise.

@Mumwithbaggage I'm on my own every Christmas now, since my DH passed :(

Maybe your mother and his mother could spend the day together seeing as you don't care if they're on their own.

How would you feel if your husband spent it with his mother and left you on your own? Just another day right?

Op doesn't care as long as she gets her skiing holiday.

She is still people. MILs own son wants to stay home alone.

why do his wants not matter?

oh right. Because an older woman wants something.

@LovePoppy

Does he though or is he trying to keep peace with his wife ?

She's so intolerable he's spending a whole week with her 🤔

Another “stuff your feelings and needs down” for someone else post.

OP and husband should be unhappy, but that’s totally cool

I thought you were going to she was about 80. I'm 55 and if I'd just had my son to stay for a week I'd be glad of some time on my own. Can't your husband take her out for a lovely Christmas dinner together, just the two of them whilst he is staying with her? I'd understand if my son and his wife wanted Christmas day alone, I'd make sure I had a great time with him during the week he stayed and then I'd have a lovely, leisurely day to myself on Christmas day, nice walk, lovely food for one etc It's one day, too much is made of this "perfect family Christmas".

Believe it or not, men are autonomous human beings with minds and decision-making capacity of their own. They somehow manage to hold down pretty complex, demanding jobs considering they occupy the vast bulk of the CEO roles. They are more than capable of capitalizing on the 'gender pay gap' situation to benefit from the automatic advantage in the workplace conferred by their sex. They can even pack their own suitcases to go on [skiing] holiday, too.

I'm not quite sure where this learned helplessness women are so eager to attribute to men comes from. One thing that is obvious, though, is that it's a fallacy.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks are you ok?

All of these things seem a bit unrelated.

I work for a company that pays the same to men and women for doing the same job. Granted a lot of women earn less often because they have taken time out to care for children. They could always split the maternity period though ?

My partner doesn't go skiing - are you pissed off that your partner does!

All this aside, men like an easy life - seems to me he's trying to please everyone. And failing.

No one said she’s intolerable. Certainly not the OP.

just that they have mismatched expectations.

is the DH giving in to his wife instead of having free will? Who knows. But as you said, he’s chosen to spend a week with her. Why is that not enough?

@LovePoppy I wouldn't leave my mum on her own on Christmas Day.

All of these things seem a bit unrelated.

They're entirely related. You're suggesting the OP's husband may be 'trying to keep peace with his wife'. That is a misogynistic assumption. It tends to be made on the basis that when a conflict of wills arise between a MiL and her son, it must automatically hold that it's somehow the DiL's fault. It also arises from the (very) misogynistic assumption that men's place is to be henpecked and chivvied around by their partners.

The OP has stated, very clearly upthread, that it is her DH's decision to spend Christmas day this year - a one-off year - alone with his partner at their own home. The suggestion that OP is manipulating this situation from behind the scenes comes from you. It's entirely unsubstantiated, and based on biased assumption.

I work for a company that pays the same to men and women for doing the same job. Granted a lot of women earn less often because they have taken time out to care for children. They could always split the maternity period though?

The thread isn't about you. It isn't about maternity leave, either. The situation as regards a statistically-proven 'gender' pay gap is in response to the implicit suggestion in your post that men bear no responsibility for their own decisions; in reality it's the devious woman who is behind it. I claim they are not so helpless as some women would like to believe. And as clear support for that statement, I quote this little pearl: All this aside, men like an easy life - seems to me he's trying to please everyone. And failing.

QED.

My partner doesn't go skiing - are you pissed off that your partner does!

Say what? 🙄

I actually didn't think you were unreasonable until your subsequent posts. You sound like you just don't like her and you don't care and that seems harsh, especially at Christmas.

thats your choice.

im sure you’d hate to have people tell you that you were wrong for that?

So she does have somewhere to go if she wanted to, she'd just rather guilt trip her son and his wife into spending it with her. FWIW I'm the same age as her and wouldn't dream of doing that to my DD, if she wants to see me on Christmas day brilliant, but if not...well there are other days (NYE this year). She's not elderly or infirm and she's spending a week with her son. She is the one that is selfish IMO not you OP.

So because she didn't want to remarry she deserves to be alone on Christmas? Bit mean.

@LovePoppy I wonder how YOU would feel if you were disregarded on such days because DIL doesn't want to accommodate and has convinced DP he should support this.

Ps. Did the bold help you understand ?

I’d feel pleased my child spent a week with me. I certainly wouldn’t feel disregarded. My children don’t exist to cater to me.

I would also hope to hell that I raised a strong enough child that they didn’t allow their partner to make all of their choices. I would trust that my child was making their own choice and not blaming everything on their partner.

But I can see you don’t hold men folk in very high regard in that they can’t make their own choices.

The OP says there are friends and family she could go to, if the MiL chooses to spend the day alone rather than be with them, then it's hardly the OP's fault is it?