AIBU to get upset with my partner's mother?

[Anawana]

Just to preface this, my partner warned me/talked about his mother's difficult personality and abuse on many occasions before. She's always been sweet with me so this was the first time I had a glance at that ugly side of her.

We are spending Christmas with my partner's parents this year. We planned that we'd go to their house on Christmas Eve, stay over and come back on Boxing Day.

Today we received a call from my partner's mother. She tells us that we need to be at my partner's sister's house at 10am on Christmas Eve as they were going to leave home early and the sister wanted us to see his niece open her gifts. It is over an hour journey so we'd need to wake up at 8am to get ready and leave. We were a bit taken aback as the mother already confirmed we'd come with the sister without checking with us first, also didn't like having to wake up that early as we both had such busy time at work recently and also are back to work straight after Christmas. So we said that we could get there for 11am as we wanted that extra hour of sleep.

She started getting so upset saying things like 'Go to bed early so you can wake up early for god's sake!!', 'I told her you'd come. It's important for her so it's important for me!!!' I told her to ask them to leave 1 hour later if they wanted to see us (they didn't have a time sensitive plan) and she told me to 'shut up'. At the end she played the whole thing as a light hearted joke but she was very demanding and borderline shouting at times... We settled on going there at 11am but I'm quite upset with the whole thing.

Were we being unreasonable here?

i dont think i would have got involved in the conversation, this is presumably how she talks to her ds, your dh.

I wouldn't be going to hers for Christmas, she sounds a nightmare. Do your own thing.

Think you’ve completely missed the point. Getting up at 8 would not be a problem for me either, being told I have no choice and my time has been promised elsewhere would be.

Minority opinion here, but I think you should to let this go. Some people can be abrasive, particularly when juggling plans and there’s an awkward transition period when families are expanding and parents have to learn, to step out of the parent-child dynamic with their adult dc.

You held your boundary, she tried to smooth it over. The “shut up” was inappropriate and you’ve made that clear. Now it’s time to move forward with good grace.

Why are you going to SIL's first though rather than meeting at MIL's? I'm confused about the plan she the reasoning - does your refusal have a knock on effect on others in terms of plans for the rest of the day?

i agree,
move on,
she made plans, you didnt conform with her plans.
end of issue.

It sounds like your partner has allowed his mother to behave and talk that way unchecked for years. If that’s the case, having spent years being able to act like that, it’s unlikely she’ll suddenly change her way of behaving to accommodate you. If you want to see a change yourself and your partner need to put in boundaries. Sticking to your time was a good start but in future I’d be looking at saying something like “why don’t you call me back when you’re able to talk to me about this a bit more appropriately” then hang up. You might have to repeat this behaviour a fair few times but she’ll eventually learn if she wants something she’ll have to behave differently.

No idea why the plans have changed. We were to go to the mother's house directly. Haven't spoken to his sister directly yet but apparently they're going out early on Christmas Eve. Nothing time sensitive, just spending the day out and about. Also no idea why we aren't seeing them on Christmas, I'm guessing they're away.

She tells us that we need to be at my partner's sister's house at 10am on Christmas Eve as they were going to leave home early and the sister wanted us to see his niece open her gifts.
I wonder whether that’s true, or whether that was the MIL’s idea. I can’t imagine being in the SIL’s place and demanding that my brother and his partner come over at 10am on Christmas Eve to watch my daughter open her presents.

Good quiestion. I'm not sure. My partner thinks that the sister did want us there but it was his mum who absolutely promised on behalf of us without checking and didn't want to look bad if we didn't show up, hence the stroppiness.

I do think there is something in adult children becoming part of 'separate' family units thus loosening their ties and traditions with their own (parents' unit). It must be done though to maintain some semblance of a healthy family dynamic, but it's odd how it's almost always the son who has to cut his ties with the sharpest axe he can find.

Just a little bit of update since the phone call last night. My partner was like 'love you' to his mother when we were hanging up and he had to call her for something unrelated today but I was being a bit quiet about her apparently so he asked me what was up.

When I told him that I was upset and explained, he said that he'll talk to his mother tomorrow and say that the way she spoke with us was unacceptable.

Not sure if it will change anything but it did raise an eyebrow on my end as I don't know what the dynamic will be like in the future but I suppose I will let this go for sake of Christmas while keeping an eye for similar behaviour.

Could your partner contact his sister wrt this arrangement.

Surely his niece will be opening her presents much earlier than 10/11am?

As his Mum is difficult it may be in your best interests to make arrangements directly with other family members?

Yes, definitely. I did mention him that arranging things directly was our best bet in the future. Not sure why the sister didn't contact us directly either but I'm guessing it was because the mum just agreed for us anyway.