AIBU? Trying to unpick yesterday's upset

[DairyleaFunker]

For years, DH has been put out by my family (barring my parents who he loves) joining us for Xmas lunch (which DH makes). Over the years, the extra family member has included a rotation of siblings who have addiction problems or other issues and they would otherwise be alone at Christmas but usually only one person per year would be at a loose end.

I was brought up thinking 'the season of goodwill' means you don't willingly leave people alone at Christmas unless they want to be alone.

This year, my single brother - who can have everyone on eggshells as he can suddenly raise his voice and be very confrontational (but also can be very full of festive spirit, maybe due to a bipolar diagnosis?!) -was expected and he has come for several years without any major issues.

My niece (who is not DBs daughter) is recovering from coke addiction and recently fled a new relationship in December due to discovering a worryIng history of DV found herself homeless and put into emergency accommodation. During this challenging time she seems to have resisted going back to coke and has maintained her job and working with her ex and organisations to maintain shared care with her ex of their DS (3). Her and my brother teamed up for Xmas eve and morning and had a lovely time. The plan was that they would then come to mine for around 2 hours before lunch then at lunch the DS3 would be collected by its Dad and niece would go for a work shift.

On Xmas eve I heard from my brother that nieces shift had been changed to the evening and the DS3 was being collected after our lunch. Niece doesn't drive and lives half hour taxi away so I asked him to check what her plans were now that she had new time to fill - trying to be clear that she wasnt invited to mine for longer. We left it as he would ask her to let me know and I didn't hear from them again until they arrived on Xmas morning. As we were readying for lunch, my brother loudly asked me if my niece and her DS were staying for lunch, I said that the plan was that they were going just before lunch, to which my brother raised his voice a little and said 'I didn't ask you what the plan was, I asked if they were staying'. I told him he was putting me in an awkward position and I left the room wanting to run away and hide as felt torn - do I upset my husband by letting her stay? Do I kick her out on Xmas day knowing she has nowhere to go and will have to pay for a taxi home just to come back to the area later for work? Meanwhile niece staying quiet and maybe a bit socially unaware as seemed to think she could just plonk herself in my house for the day and didn't mention or ask about changing her plans and I didn't want to spell it out to her and make her feel unwelcome at a time she is trying hard to get her life on track. My brother had to take someone home so I called him to smooth things over before his return. We argued and I told him he had railroaded me into having more people for lunch than agreed, he said I had had time to accomodate her when he told me about her plans changing and I reminded him he had said he would tell her to let me know her new timings. I told him he had raised his voice at me on xmas day in my own house which is exactly why my husband wanted a quieter Christmas as more people creates more opportunity for arguments - he said he was going to his friends house instead. I text him as we sat down for lunch to say there was space for him if he changed his mind and no further discussion was needed as it's Christmas, he didnt reply or return.

Niece and her DS stayed for lunch then the DS was collected and niece was looking to contact another family member to go to their house for a nap before night shift but they gave an excuse that she couldn't (the rest of the family on her side are horrific and selfish so I feel responsible to show her some kindness and care) so I told her she could nap in my DC room as we wouldnt use upstairs until after the time she would leave and so she did that then went to work.

DH served lunch but didn't eat, chatted with my oblivious parents and says he would eat his later to relax and enjoy it, he's never done this before and he didn't eat a dinner at all yesterday even when everyone had gone.

I know he will blame me for not eating his lunch - no doubt because he 'didn't feel comfortable in his own home' and possibly because my niece was there (but out of sight and asleep for hours).

I just don't know what I could have done, I upset my DH and my brother and felt I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and I've ended up upsetting them both. In honesty, I don't mind a busy house full at Christmas and would have 20 people for dinner but DH says my family are too volatile and he doesn't want an awkward atmosphere. He bites his tongue a lot as doesn't want to make a scene in front of the kids in Xmas day.

Should be sleeping in but woke up at 6am as can't stop thinking about it all

‘Sacrosanct’ is the word a PP used, not me - I was responding to the post.
I fully admit I don’t really get all the stress about having Christmas a certain way to the extent of not eating. But clearly the majority of posters here do, so I am in the minority.
I am honestly at the stage now where I think if you are not Christian and going to Church to celebrate the birth of Christ, it’s all a big consumerist, angst inducing waste of time and money. So no doubt that influences my views here. It seems to me the OP is stuck between keeping her husband happy and making sure relatives are okay and this is amplified because of the pressure of how Christmas should be.

It’s not the right thing to do at any time of the year.

Wow so you think non Christian’s can't celebrate without being consumerist? That statement itself is a whole other thread.

Op isn’t stuck between her husband and her family’s because they did have somewhere else to go and every year she sides with them and let them treat her, her him and her husband with disrespect.

She is firmly on her families side. No compromise.

I don’t blame your DH. Your family sound like a nightmare, your brothers temper sounds awful. Niece clearly invited herself last minute.
There is sometimes a reason people are alone at Xmas and that’s their own fault like tempers and coke addictions and general chaos (not always I might add) it’s not your responsibility to make sure they’re not and ruin your own immediate families Xmas day.

yes it’s an awkward position but DH AND DC come first.

When does DH get the Christmas he wants? Or does your desire to unite all of your troubled relatives override his preferences every year?

Poor DH. Your family sound appalling.

If your brother could find someone else who would have him for dinner at short notice then he can do that again next year. It's clearly not a case of him having no where else to go. make it just yourselves and your parents next year as your dh clearly doesn't need the drama poor bloke.

Well, I am not sure what the point is if you are not Christian? I mean, don’t get me wrong - I have done Christmas for many years having children and a family, and I will continue to make the effort to embrace all the things which matter to DC like the tree and carols and time for movies and board games etc, and people can do what they like without my views having the slightest impact on them, but I am not sure the vast consumerist, angst-ridden fest Christmas has become does anyone any good.

I mean, elf of the shelf, Christmas Eve boxes, Christmas pyjamas and bedding - so much stuff the planet doesn’t need. I do wonder what the point of that all is. I do see the point of Christmas if you believe that is when Jesus was born and are celebrating that.

But that’s just my opinion, I was trying to explain why I don’t get the need for Christmas to be a certain way and I wouldn’t turn away family to ensure it was a certain way. You don’t have to agree.

Fortunate to have a lovely family but find it maddening when Dh family don’t LISTEN to what we say. So despite clear guidance of what to buy for our teens or if they ignore that give them money or even don’t bother if that’s easier - insist on spaffing tens of pounds on vouchers for things they actively don’t want. We have told them they do t want. . It’s very frustrating. So feel
the dhs pain. You explain and it’s ignored. It’s disrespectful and incredibly frustrating.

If this was reversed, if the wife of the relationship had been pleasant and hospitable towards her parents in law, cooked Christmas dinner for everyone, and the husband had invited his volatile and troubled relatives who predictably caused drama; cries of LTB would be ringing out all across mumsnet.

No one is saying Christmas needs to be a certain way for everyone.

But yes, saying any non Christian participating must be consumerist, is shitty. It’s a national holiday. It’s not just a religious one.

It’s certainly not a time that you must put up with your wife’s awful family dictating the day, putting people on edge. Wether you are religious or not.

Religion doesn’t need to come into this discussion at all and I would love to see the study that says non Christians are more consumerist that Christian’s.

People take part in all kinds of different ways. You do realise that in many non British families Christmas Eve gifts have been around for generations? So many people go on and on about things they don’t want to do and get annoyed that other people do. Completely forgetting that many of these things come from other culture traditions.

For whatever reason you felt the need to bring the attitude of ‘well I am above all this’. It’s bizarre

I think you are reading things into my comments I did not say, to be honest.

The thing that seems lacking in your narrative is any prior discussion with your DH. Maybe next Christmas talk to DH beforehand and find out what he feels, under what corcumstances would he feel OK about you inviting/accepting and extra relative without talking to him first? It's your DH's house and Christmas just as much as yours.

It would help if you actually read the thread.

DH cooked not the op

I'm trying to say this gently, but it seems that you want to take the mantle of the charitable and magnanimous host each year when in reality you're being a doormat who delegates to your DH. You say you're "caught in the middle" yet it seems to me that you have created the situation and aren't using any of your own agency to control the outcome.

A saying I've tried to take to heart as someone who struggles with boundaries: "Don't make someone your priority when you're only their option." Note that your DB had other options, but figured he would get you to accommodate him anyway.

You didn't want to leave your DN out in the cold, but she:

• never contacted you directly about coming over
• changed her plans but never clarified them directly with you beforehand, despite having been asked to do so
• was asked DIRECTLY about her plans when she arrived and must have noted that confusion over the plans had caused tension between you and DB. Yet she did not apologise for the confusion, the inconvenience or the rift, thank you for your hospitality or offer to make other plans (however hollow that offer might have been). Instead she slunk off and parked herself on the couch without comment, hoping that you wouldn't pursue the matter any further
• had never been factored into Christmas dinner or your Christmas evening, but had no other plan for food in place (so what was she going to eat before her night shift?) and no other solid plan for where her nap was going to happen (since she was ringing around only hours beforehand - her other family may well be arses, but I don't think it's unreasonable for anyone to say no to someone randomly asking to sleep at their house on Christmas Day with no notice). Either neither of these things mattered to her, or she was banking on you to bend over backwards for her again.

While it sounds like she is in a challenging situation, she doesn't seem to have expressed any gratitude for the effort you have gone to or tried to make her stay go as smoothly as possible for you and DH. Which suggests that she wasn't particularly fussed about being by herself at Christmas and that this was therefore about how YOU felt about her being alone, not how SHE felt about it.

You want to open your door to any guest who wants or needs your hospitality. But any guest who genuinely appreciates and needs you doesn't want to be a burden and wants to consider their host's plans and feelings. Neither of the poor unfortunate souls you have invited seems to fit this bill.

Next, as I mentioned, there's an issue of agency. You "tried to make it clear" that there would be no dinner for DN by asking what her plans were for the rest of the day. That's not clear, that is dropping a hint. Clear would be outright asking what her dinner plans are as you only factored in X number of guests and she is not one of them.

You are the host and the one who insisted upon factoring DN into your Christmas plans, so I'm afraid it was your job to clarify if she was staying for dinner. Not DH's, not DB's, not even DN's, yours.

As soon as you found out that your relatives were shifting their schedules about, you should have immediately gotten the plan back under control. I agree, it does not make sense that your DN was going to be in your house when the rest of you were eating, so this point required immediate clarification to avoid unnecessary inconvenience to you and DH. You should have asked DB for DN's number off the bat and spoken with her directly to clarify what was happening. Instead, you left it to your volatile, unreliable DB to pass on a message, adding an unnecessary weak link to the chain of communication. Whether he passed on the message or not is anyone's guess, but she never got in touch and you didn't adequately pursue the matter with either of them, leaving a big question mark hanging over Christmas dinner numbers. It doesn't even seem like you went out and grabbed any extra supplies in anticipation of unexpected extra guests. Instead, you blamed DB on the day for not being a proper middle man and argued with him, causing him to storm off and once again impact seating numbers.

No wonder your DH gets stressed out. It's not just an extra guest or two, nor is it just a case of additional drama - it's an exasperating annual game of musical chairs because you won't organise your guests and your guests won't organise themselves. If DH ever objects, he is simply a scrooge who doesn't understand the true meaning of Christmas. You're the good guy, you see; he's the mean ogre who won't LET you be the good guy.

Part of being a good spouse is to respect your OH's time and efforts, and to step up to ensure others do the same - this means not allowing OH to be messed about, taken advantage of or placed at the bottom of the priority list. Part of being a good host is ensuring the day is properly organised to ensure that hosts and guests all know where they stand and that there aren't any unwanted surprises. You can't succeed at either of these roles currently because you characterise yourself as a plastic bag blowing in the wind, at the mercy of all of these outside forces. Your thought process seems to be "My family don't communicate or organise themselves and my DH is a grinch, whatever am I to do?" when in actuality you instigated the whole affair out of your own desire to appease everyone. And in the end, who was happy? DH wasn't. Your DB actually did have somewhere else to go, but if he hadn't then he could have been wandering the streets angry and on his own. And your DN either didn't give much a stuff if she came or not, or spent the day feeling unwelcome and like she had created an atmosphere.

What you need to say to yourself instead is, "I want DH to have an enjoyable Christmas. I also want to make sure my relatives are okay. Here is what I am going to do to ensure both of these things happen."

You can have a quiet Christmas Day with DH and the kids, give your lonely relatives a call to show you haven't forgotten them, and make plans to see them on Boxing Day or for New Year's, either with DH and the kids or on your own if need be. You're mistaking bending over backwards as selflessness. But sometimes taking charge and doing things your way is the most selfless thing a person can do.

These kindly elderly parents whose offspring are all problematic shouters or serious drug users and shit parents - how does that work then?

Your DN sounds like she was railroaded and communicated only through your DB. It sounds like she's trying hard to get herself together and lacks confidence. She sounds nicer than either your DB or your petty DH, who needs everything his way but doesn't speak to anyone directly.

I'd have as little to do with DB as possible, no more invites and stick with it reassuring DH.

I'd tell DH that he either sucks up some flexibility or you will clearly explain that people can't come because HE doesn't like it, can't cope with it and will refuse to eat if they do come. That's the consequence of his behaviour, he doesn't get to make you the bad guy to everyone.

Nailed it…

@DairyleaFunker I think you’re as chaotic as the rest of your family… but your drug of choice is people pleasing and martyrdom.

As the song says 'There are more questions than answers and the more I find out the less I know.'

Why would anybody have someone over BEFORE Christmas lunch and to LEAVE when lunch starts? Daft beyond belief. That's what created an unnecessary opening for some and an unnecessary dilemma for others.

Where were the brother and niece having a lovely time on Christmas Eve 'and the morning' - does that mean Christmas morning? - where did they stay overnight on Christmas Eve and why couldn't they go off and have Christmas lunch at his or in a restaurant or with his friend? Why couldn't they visit the OP on another day, say Boxing Day?

Why didn't the child's father pick up the child as arranged? And why didn't the brother take niece to wherever so that she didn't need a taxi and who was the someone he went to take somewhere? Why didn't she arrange beforehand where to sleep before her shift? Why didn't she ask the host if she could stay for lunch and apologise profusely when the brother stormed off, and for the imposition or inconvenience? And why don't the OP's parents look out for brother and niece and invite them to theirs or take them out for Christmas lunch, or the brother treat grandparents and niece? So many options and possibilities that could be taken.

From my perspective while husband was cooking, someone else was cooking up a scheme at the expense of his peaceful family day. Some combination of wife / brother / niece contrived by some combination of scheming / manipulation / bungling / havering / chaos to land him with a lot of drama and annoyance which ruined his family Christmas and his appetite, while he had to carry on for the sake of the children and the guests. He was I expect wound tight and seething with suppressed anger and I don't think someone who is that upset by chaos and mayhem will be disposed to forgive or forget it for a very long time.

And these elderly parents who have created this shit show of a family sitting back. Don’t get it..

Your idea of Christmas is a shelter for stray and lost souls, your DH's idea is that it's family time.
By that I assume he means his own family, not your "edgy" relatives, each coming with their burden of issues. He didn't eat because that bunch of weird figures in his household are stressing him out.
You need to decide where your priorities lie, is it with your unconventional relatives and your attempts at making them feel all nice and fluffy and comfy or your own family and your partner who's making all he can to keep you happy, even though it doesn't make him happy?

So, when is your DH going to be allowed to have the Christmas that he wants and not what you want?

It sounds like he's just expected to go along with whatever you and your chaotic family want. You lack boundaries, perhaps because you enjoy playing martyr, and he's expected to grin and bear it because wouldn't want OP to feel she was leaving anyone alone on Christmas.

Sometimes, people have nowhere to go on Christmas (or other occasions) for good reason.

He wanted a calm, peaceful Christmas. He didn't get that because his wife prioritises everyone but him.

The fact that you can't see that you and your chaotic family are the problem and not your DH is worrying and perhaps telling as to why he's so annoyed because you consider everyone else's needs and not his.

Poor guy must dread Christmas every year if it's treated like an open house to your difficult family who you refuse to establish boundaries with.