I will be spending Christmas alone and my children do not care

[Brazien]

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?

Ah, that was a mistake what an idiotic boy. But I still think that they just want to go skiing instead of coming to you and this is a manufactured argument to help them feel better about “letting you down”. A sort of cognitive dissonance; we’re re not leaving Mum on her own because we’d rather do what we want become we’re going skiing because of her toxic attitude towards GF.

how did DS1 take the criticism of GF at the time? That would be telling, he might not even have told her.

You clearly hate your son's girlfriend - you told all your kids how you feel and you are surprised it's come back to bite you.

If you dislike her that much, why on earth would you want to spend Christmas with her anyway?

How were you expecting him to react when you criticised her so robustly? Of course he was going to side with her. And of course his little brother would be on his side.

It's not that we need to nod along, we can have debates and disagree, but we also need to accept that our kids are adults and have their own opinions. Their relationships have to be respected.

ohhh, so it's his fault! Got it, got it.

I totally appreciate that it is awkward and painful to be in the midst of this transition as your adult kids start making their own domestic/emotional units. But by venting to him so aggressively about his girlfriend you have acted as though you and he are a unit and she's outside it. What you haven't spotted is that he and the girlfriend are the core unit now, and you are the one on the outside. Doesn't mean you aren't still a family or that you don't love one another, but the focal point of his life has naturally shifted and I think you are being slow to respond to that.

I don't know whether he was right to have told her what you said, but if I were him I'd feel very disinclined to spend Christmas with my mother after she'd spoken like that about my partner. By criticising her, you're also criticising him and his choices - you are showing you don't respect what he loves. So this choice to spend Christmas apart isn't necessarily all down to the girlfriend - he's clearly very upset too. Given that your issue seems to be that you dislike her and find her annoying, rather than that you feel she's abusive or putting him in danger, you do need to accept that she is who he's chosen, at least for now.

Wow hugely inappropriate for your son to tell her that you think all these things about her. Why would he hurt both of you by sharing that?

But also, you shouldn’t have told him. When it comes to the boyfriends / girlfriends of your children, just make nice. If your parents had said they really disliked your ex husband before you married him, who would you have picked? I doubt your parents. You gotta keep this stuff to yourself!

Why not book a flight to Australia for Christmas? Go and see your brother?

You also have to apologise to your son’s girlfriend, I think. Swallow your pride. Say you misjudged her and were being unnecessarily protective. Even if you don’t mean a word. Find some common ground - avoid politics.

My MIL and I have literally nothing in common except that we both love my children. She thinks I’m a leftist looney, I think she’s an immigrant-hating-Brexitier. We just don’t talk about it. It’s all “the garden looks lovely”, “DS is doing this hobby!”. I appreciate her because she loves my children and is kind to them. And, importantly, doesn’t say mean or superior things to me anymore.

He's not trying to keep the peace. It wouldn't have occurred to him to even try because he is besotted.

It sounds like you said the original things about her when they were on a break too so there is an element of being thrown under the bus.

@Brazien honestly, I don't think you have done anything much wrong. You are entitled to your opinion and it sounds like a fair bit of it is deserved. She has failed completely to 'read the room' and not engage in political debate at a family dinner. She sounds like she was enjoying pushing buttons.

Go quiet. Let them all get on with it. Book yourself somewhere nice for Christmas and try not to let this get to you.

DH's son has married a terrible woman. She is nasty as hell, very self centred but thick with it. DH's daughter and DH talked about this and they both agreed on these facts but at some point all of this was fed back to the son and .....well of course, DH is the villain of the piece. He never imagined his daughter would betray his confidence though. He has an email where his daughter describes the sons wife as a 'congenital narcissist' but he's too gentlemanly to use it.

We haven't spoken to any of them since 2014. This suits me. I thought his kids were decent people when clearly they are not so best gone.

So, if that’s an accurate reflection of what you said, it’s DEEPLY unpleasant even if true. What on earth were you thinking saying that to DS and his siblings about his girlfriend?!

You need to take a deep breath, throw yourself on her mercy and apologise profusely for saying that. You need to eat humble pie like it’s going out of fashion. You need to NEVER comment negatively on any of your children’s partners going forward, ever, ever, ever and you probably need to suck up being lonely this Christmas as your penance.

You really are the author of your own misfortune. Time for some genuine self-reflection.

Has your son always been a massive shit stirrer?

I think that the fact she said it to all three of her children changes things a bit.

If my MIL were to criticise me privately to my husband because she was concerned about our relationship and his happiness, and he was allowed to take her advice or leave it, that's one thing.

OP slagged her potential DIL off to all her children. That changes things - if she's allowed to drag in bystanders and try to colour their views of the girlfriend, then her son is probably sensible to inform her.

(In fact, my MIL has evidently been chippy about my parenting to one of her friends, because said friend came out with lots of stuff to me that could only have had one source! But it's fine if she wants to comment/vent behind my back - it's the friend's rude behaviour that grates).

I knew there was more to this bubbling away! @Brazien you said awful things about your son's girlfriend. Not about her views, not about her behaviour but about her as a person.

Now you are trying to pass the blame for the fallout to your son for sharing what you said with his girlfriend and his siblings. You need to take FULL accountability for your actions - in this case the things that you said. Stop trying to somehow be "right" and just suck up the fact that, whatever you intended, you have said such horrible things that your children don't want to be with you at Christmas.

You can disagree with someone's point of view, their lifestyle, their behaviour - all without dismissing them as a human being entirely! Good heavens, how did you think that would land well?

You need to take the emotion out of Christmas hosting as it’s just one day. Have an open house for neighbours a few days before to get your hostess fix, then go on holiday somewhere lovely. Fixing your relationship with your DS is another issue. You’ll have to put work in. His gf might end up being the mother of your grandchildren.

Everybody in this whole sorry story sounds bloody awful

Me too for 25 years. Judge away…

Just to clarify much of what I said to DS about his girlfriend was while they were broken up. He seemed to half agree and half defend at the time (she’s not arrogant, she’s just confident and intelligent and refuses to pander to people. Or she’s not reckless she just enjoys living fully). He agreed at the time that she was “intense” and “hard work”. This all stemmed as they had broken up because DS had gone out for work drinks a few times telling her it would just be 1 drink then getting distracted and forgetting to update her along with accusation of him not being loyal etc.

After the Easter conversation I did express to DS2 and DD that I found her deeply unpleasant, DD agreed but DS2 and his partner are very close to her and seemed to defend her again.

arrogant, self indulgent, reckless and had an inflated sense of self”.

How would you feel about someone who called you or a loved one those things?

Perhaps he told her as a way to explain why he no longer wanted to spend Christmas with you as planned.

It sounds to me like your son wants to create drama here. I'd probably reply to the text acknowledging that you shouldn't have said those things and want to apologise to the girlfriend. That you had spent time listening to him tell you x y z about her and felt protective of your son. That you realise you are being dragged into immature drama and will not be discussing it any further with anyone but the girlfriend, who you would love to build bridges with and welcome into the family.

I personally think you are better off not knowing what a lot of people think of you…..what you don’t know won’t hurt you etc etc, and anyway just because someone says it / thinks it doesn’t make it fact, it’s just their opinion

OP, I'd be tempted to send the following reply:

"Thank you for letting me know. I regret saying those things - we are all different personalities and that is what makes life interesting so long as we treat each other with mutual respect and consideration. Sounds like a bit of space all round might not be a bad thing this Christmas, and might help us to treat each other this way going forward. I have certainly fallen short in some of my actions recently, and you and your brother may wish to consider whether, in announcing your Christmas plans for this year in the way that you did, you were treating me as you would like to be treated yourselves. As it is, I think your plans sound like great fun and I hope you'll have a fabulous time. Maybe I can make a contribution to a meal out or activity as your Christmas gifts this year."

No actually! Before this he was actually in a relationship with a lovely young woman who made a real effort with the family. They broke up as she was boring to him apparently and he claims his ADHD means he needs some chaos and spice!

You need to realise that the only way to move on is to stop wishing ill on your DS and his partner. Maybe they will split up, maybe they wont. You need to accept her as his partner and wish them nothing but goodwill.

Anything else, you dont deserve to be in their life.

Ok, so you don't like her - but she's his choice. Christmas is one day in 365. I've always sat down Christmas night and thought 'Thank God, done with for another year". Don't waste your energy on feeling hard done by - there are lots of lonely people out there who would love company or help on Christmas Day - try contacting the Salvation Army. Muck in - you'll find you'll have more fun than running around after your son and his partner trying to please everyone.

I can’t see the relationship between your DS and this girl lasting long tbh. She seems controlling on top of everything else.

I agree - in reality, people have bad days, drink too much, catch each other at an off moment, misunderstand each other, misread situations, get the wrong end of the stick...

Opinions are only opinions and are often in flux anyway. "Least said, soonest mended" is the wisest approach.

There is a middle ground! It's not "nodding along" versus "being a grade A bitch".... just be a normal, non confrontational person, and you can easily join conversations and debates.

proudly raising my hand for this one! yep! I have left my mother alone on Christmas Day.

We have a 3 year rotation as my parents are divorced. My siblings are in the same situation. Add to that the Covid years and my partner's NHS shifts (because people don't stop getting ill over the festive period), and it means that there have been years when my mum hasn't had any of us with her on the day itself. Luckily, a) she understands and finds other things to do, and b) we don't actually care what day we celebrate on. We'll still have a Christmas together, it just might not be on the 25th of December.

The OP is incredibly lucky to have been able to have all her kids with her on the 25th for so many years. Most divorced parents don't get that.

Well he certainly has his chaos now!

I would disengage from the group chat and not mention anything about it again to any of your children.