Hello,
I have 3 adult children, my eldest DD is 31, she is married and has a gorgeous little boy who is 11 months old. They spent last Christmas with me and DD already made it clear they would be doing one Christmas with us and another with her husbands family which is obviously totally fine and understandable. My next child is my DS who is 27 and then my youngest DS who is 25.
I would say I generally have a very positive relationship with all of my children, we talk relatively frequently and haven’t until now had a large falling out, they haven’t ever raised any issues with me in terms of our relationship and have historically initiated and planned visits. I am divorced and have been for many years, I have no close relatives as both of my parents have passed away and my only brother lives in Australia.
I absolutely love hosting Christmas, it is the highlight of my year. When my children’s father and I divorced we actually agreed he would get Boxing Day and New Years Eve (our children were still small when I got divorced) in exchange for me getting Christmas as it matters so much to me. I have hosted Christmas every year since I got married at 23, I never complain about hosting or resent doing this, like I said it’s the highlight of my year. As my children have grown it has of course meant some years I’ve had all of them home and others just one but never have they left me alone for Christmas and I’d actually say they have instead made quite a bit of effort between themselves to ensure someone is always around to spend Christmas with me.
Tonight I was added to a group text message chat, it included myself, both of my DS and their respective partners. DS1 has been with his girlfriend for about a year and a half, DS2 has been with his boyfriend for a year. My eldest son then sent a message, I’ll paraphrase but it effectively said that due to my attitude and opinions in regards to his girlfriend he will not be spending Christmas with me this year as he would like to spend it with her and refuses to expose her to my “inflammatory” opinions. He said he his brother and their partners have all booked to go skiing/snowboarding instead. They then all left the group message chat before I was able to reply.
First of all, this is not a way in which my son would ever normally speak to me, it was very defensive and accusatory in tone. Second of all, the opinions he is referring to are from a conversation I had with him following a large family get together for Easter. She is 24, French and seems to have an extremely elevated ego and level of confidence that borders on arrogance. I know she has a poor relationship with her own father (her mother has passed) but he none the less funds her life which consists entirely of expensive pastimes (snowboarding, tennis, concerts) and seemingly getting drunk, using drugs and partying.
At Easter she mentioned politics, which isn’t something I’d be keen to talk about over a family meal normally but my DS said that if we can’t have a friendly debate then we seal ourselves into an echo chamber of our own beliefs. She was totally unwilling to hear me out, and kept citing her multilingual abilities, degree and “travels” as reason she clearly knew much better than I, about politics, in Britain, a country she has only lived in for about 2 years. I shut the conversation down and said this is clearly unproductive. I then told my son afterwards that I had found her attitude to be filled with arrogance. She has also blank out refused to attend my nephews wedding as it was in a church and my DD told me that soon after she gave birth she said to her “if you ever want to play tennis or go to Pilates I will go with you; I’m sure you’re dying to shed the baby weight”. DD found this quite upsetting at the time but DS refused to call her out for it.
In terms of Christmas, both of my DS had said they would be spending this year with me, DS1 did not spend last year with me but DS2 did. I was looking forward to this and despite my dislikes of his girlfriend’s attitude, I made it clear she was also invited, as was DS2s boyfriend.
I called DS1 after the message in the group message chat and explained that I had never meant to cause offence to his girlfriend or to him for that matter and only ever shared opinions as she has always seemed so keen to be forthcoming with her own. I told him that I would be spending Christmas alone and I found that very upsetting and asked him to reconsider, I also offered to cover any costs associated with rescheduling their trip. He told me quite plainly it is not his problem that I would be alone and that he felt like I did not approve of his girlfriend and would never approve of him dating someone “intelligent, gorgeous and cultured” as it would make me “insecure”. Again this is never a way he has spoken to me before. He then hung up.
I then called DS2 who said that he was sorry I would be alone but he feels they’ve given me enough time to make other arrangements and that he feels that his brother is right that I clearly don’t like his girlfriend and he wants to show a stand of support to his brother and his girlfriend who he said he thinks is brilliant. He claimed I only don’t like her as she doesn’t conform to my expectations of a polite “basic” girl who just wants to get married and go on family holidays every year.
While I would say I don’t massively like her, I’m an adult and totally capable of being perfectly civil towards her. More so the reasons I don’t like her have nothing to do with her beliefs but her sheer arrogance, ego and reckless lifestyle, funded entirely by her father.
AIBU to be quite upset by this and to believe this is most likely coming from his girlfriend? How should I approach this going forward?