The annual Christmas ritual of reading DP the riot act

[DBD1975]

Looking for any tips or advice following on from the why do men steal all of the joy out of everything.

My family Christmas day, in-laws Boxing day. Just about to have the annual talk about don't make Christmas day weird or awkward by having to prompt you to be a courteous host, don't roll your eyes every time I ask you to help with something. Be sociable, join in and make an effort.

So far I have done everything for Christmas including buying my own presents for DP to give me and buying all the presents for in-laws and I will also be wrapping them.

DP has done s** all other than moan, sulk and act like a petulant teenager.

I will end up having to have the extra energy on both days to make up for my DP being so lack lustre/bar humbug.

It is more the upset in his routine which he finds hard to cope with, not to mention the chaos which comes with Christmas.

Any tips or advice gratefully received. Please note I have no intention of splitting up with him for those who will go nuclear over the situation.

Yeah, the posters who think I'm mean are welcome to think that, but I wouldn't cover for someone like this. That doesn't mean I'm out there going out of my way to make lief difficult for him or for other people, but I'm also not going to set myself on fire to hide his uselessness either.

My DH is totally NOT useless, but there are definitely things where I take a step back and I'm not going to cover. In his case, he's terrible about responding to messages and answering questions. But if I try to cover, all thathappens is that I land up in trouble with everyone. I don't do it anymore. If his faily call me because he hasn't replied or they can't reach him, I just hand him my phone or I tell them they'll just have to wait to hear back from him.

this is like a rant to which you don't want advice, because you would not part ways with this man

hopefully more people will waste their time on their thread, commiserating and telling the world how awful men are.

my husband is wonderful, helpful and very caring. Sorry for your loss

Maybe stop nagging and let him enjoy Christmas too. I'm sure it's more you than him. Lighten up.

Stop enabling him. You have created him. Drop the rope.

I have a problematic Xmas DH. It's upset me a lot over the years.
Both of us come from families where the women did absolutely everything. I dreamed of a 90s new model with both sexes sharing the load.
His family blame me for not putting in enough effort, my parents think I'm lazy and it's my job.
It has harder when the kids were young,I'd buy and wrap my own stocking gifts so that they saw me recieving something.
They're now 19. & 17 so each year I drop the pretence a bit more. We've majorly cut back on entertaining since the early years which is a shame that the kids don't remember that. It's probably damaged our relationships and bonds with wider family and friends.
I think I would not have minded doing the bulk of it if DH observed and thanked me for it. Appreciated it. But I can never give him the exciting Christmas of being 7 and he doesn't get a kick out of doing that for others. So it's lost like he thinks Xmas should have stopped when he left his own childhood.

Who bought presents for his family before you were in his life? Did he manage it then?

TBH many teenagers go through a spell of mardiness which needs explaining/ covering for in front of family, but then they grow out of it. Having to do this permanently for an adult must be exhausting.

Still, just think what you've got to look forward to. Decades of doing all the work and making excuses for a petulant man-child. If you're lucky, he'll marry you and you'll have to give him half your money as well. If you have children together, you'll get to do all the work of raising children too.

Happy Christmas!

It’s not a man thing.

His family blame me for not putting in enough effort, my parents think I'm lazy and it's my job.

Wow!

Honestly when I read things like this I think that we've never put a great deal of effort in!

We must have always had very low key Christmases!

These threads are getting tedious, always the same - my DH doesn't do anything! Shortly after we find out that the OP is a bloody martyr who actually believes and cares that other people will judge her for not doing absolutely everything. You only have yourself to blame OP - zero sympathy or understanding from me.

What sort of tips are you after, OP? You can't force another adult to behave like an adult. If he won't step up when you've specifically asked him to, there really isn't any point in continuing to try to change him or his approach. So my suggestions are:

1. Stop doing the 'wife work'. You don't have to do it. It is a choice; just like he is choosing not to do it.
2. Stop buying presents for him to give to you. By all means, buy yourself something amazing, if you wish, but don't let him believe his thoughtless, lazy, unkind behaviour is ok.
3. If you enjoy Christmas, next year, have the celebration somewhere else. Go to your parents' home or a restaurant or book an air b'n'b and tell your DH he can stay at home.
4. Ask your DH what sort of Christmas he would enjoy and if he genuinly wants it to be like any other day and you don't, you'll just have to accept you can't meet in the middle on this issue and you find a way to carve out your own happiness on this day without him.

My dad was like this once we were older. As adults we were all much happier when he stomped off in a mood to the other room. If he's doing this with children I'd tell him if he gets stroppy then next year youre going away and he's not invited.

Tbh you sound quite patronising/condescending so you are hardly perfect yourself

Do you expect some sort of medal? I do most of the organising myself and cba to come on here and moan about it

I mean I wouldn’t trust anyone to do Xmas for me! I want to be the one who decides picks and organises everything!

Tell him if he fucks around with his usual stupid bullshit this year you'll never do another Christmas for him again, and mean it.

I'd be coming down with flu on Boxing Day and taking to my bed. Leave it all up to him. His parents can see what a miserable sod he is

You have no intention of splitting up with him and he wont change......This is the life you have chosen.

Why do you do something year on year that makes you so unhappy? What do others do for you?

Will be like all his xmases came at once!

You're buying your own presents for him to give you? Christ almighty why is your bar so low?

I wonder does part of you enjoy being a martyr/saviour? Match his energy. Do not get a single gift or card for his side of the family. Don’t invite them, don’t cater for them, do nothing. You have the Christmas you want with your side of the family and he can have the Christmas he wants with his side of the family. Completely fair.

This. A thousand times this.

Or split up and move in with Will Ferrell.

I thought this too at the mention of routine. And then thinking about not being into gift-giving and the people-related rituals. I say this as a neurodivergent person myself who struggles and gets overwhelmed with Christmas. I put my mask on to get through it.

OP, I was watching a YouTube video the other day about this exact thing. In case you are interested it is by Orion Kelly - Why I HATE Christmas as an Autistic Adult.

😂😂

As a woman who flipping hates Christmas and all the forced social that’s expected I struggle to understand why it’s okay for women to expect men to step up to the social plate, but no-one makes me as a woman hold some large artificially jolly Christmas.

Luckily for me I married a man with similar feelings about Christmas, so ours is very pared down, and we split the necessary bits between us.

I caused absolute shock in my office (all female) the other day when I announced that I have never in my life cooked a Christmas dinner. My DH enjoys cooking so he does it-but an office full of 7 women apparently had never considered the idea that a woman with 4 DC (ie me) wouldn’t cook Christmas dinner!

Honestly OP I’d talk to him after Christmas and ask how he’d like next years to go and see if you can come to an arrangement that suits both of you.

Definitely not a “male thing”, I can’t believe people put up with this. Mine cooks the Christmas dinner refusing any offers of help and is a better present buyer than me. No way would I buy presents for myself for my partner to gift to me, as soon as that was ever suggested i’d be long gone. There are probably plenty of people who don’t particularly love Christmas but go along with it because it’s what you do/ and only once a year!

My colleagues were flabbergasted that I’ve never bought one of those massive tubs of shitty chocolate, that my nestle boycott means no matchmakers or after eights, that I do no Xmas shopping, don’t put up a tree, don’t expect gifts or even drink Baileys.

“But it’s Xmas!!!”

“Yes, and I’ve survived countless Dec 25ths without any of those things.”

People really have such little imagination about different ways of doing things.