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?

So the GF isn't offended by the interaction; she liked it.

The GF doesn't want to spend Christmas with the OP, so she isn't.

The GF doesn't do Christmas, either at a cultural level or the level of her beliefs.

So all is well then! Too bad about anyone else. But the OP is the narc.

There’s no accountability here.

Do you think they could all just possibly like her because she's nice and fun and they enjoy her company?

@user1473878824 There was nothing nice about the group text, was there? That was a deliberately cruel action.

Perhaps they’re all unkind people, who knows.

Whilst I do agree that you shouldn't have said unpleasant things about your Dss GF, adding all 4 of you to a WhatsApp dropping that bombshell and then all leaving is shitty behaviour, and reminiscent of something I imagined dreaming up in primary school. This argument happened at Easter, your Ds has had plenty of time to address it like an adult.

Both Your Sons need to grow up massively tbh. Your DS2 sounds like a shit stirrer. And going round your ILs house and talking about politics relentlessly is fairly arrogant, and I cant say I'd exactly be ecstatic about my son bringing a woman home who'd called his sister fat. Neither you or the GF have behaved impeccably, but the way they've handled this is really cruel and childish

She sounds like a pain in the arse OP.

Whilst I do agree that you shouldn't have said unpleasant things about your Dss GF, adding all 4 of you to a WhatsApp dropping that bombshell and then all leaving is shitty behaviour, and reminiscent of something I imagined dreaming up in primary school. This argument happened at Easter, your Ds has had plenty of time to address it like an adult.

Both Your Sons need to grow up massively tbh. Your DS2 sounds like a shit stirrer. And going round your ILs house and talking about politics relentlessly is fairly arrogant, and I cant say I'd exactly be ecstatic about my son bringing a woman home who'd called his sister fat. Neither you or the GF have behaved impeccably, but the way they've handled this is really cruel and childish

But it did achieve what they wanted, so there's that in its favour.🙄

DS1 did the group text, not the GF. Why is everything always the woman’s fault??

Nicely summarised.

As a stranger reading I can tell you preferred old gf ‘lovely young woman’ but you can’t pick your children’s partners.
The fact that your other ds and boyfriend like her and actively want to spend time with her bodes well. It’s not a case of everyone disliking her and her isolating your ds from all his family.
I’d apologise sincerely. Don’t be venting to your daughter or other son. Maybe see if they want to do something low key with you in next month or two. Book something for Christmas for yourself.

Or she’s not actually a nefarious puppet master pulling the helpless boy’s strings, and he has in fact formed that opinion on his own, as an adult with his own agency, preferences, and backbone.

For all we know the only thing she’s said is that she’d rather not see his mother for Christmas and is going to do something else, and he’s decided that he would rather join her in that. Hell, he and his brother may have been complaining to each other about their mother’s expectations regarding Christmas for years, and have decided to use this as an opportunity to break away.

I think so too op.

You can't pick your dc's partners.

I'd just step back because the more I hear about this GF, the more I feel confident the thing will implode. She has all the skills for short-term relationships and none of the skills for the long haul.

Quite.

The fact that OP seems to believe that this woman has masterminded the breakup of her entire family just to ruin her Christmas and life because they disagreed and OP was massively rude about her feels telling.

Well, you can see why he likes her. And yet you made the rookie error of telling him exactly how awful you thought you was once they'd broken up, without realising it was perfectly possible they'd get back together -- surely everyone learns this by their mid-teens, when they slag off someone's ex during double maths, only for them to be back together by home time?

Why did they do it in such a cruel way @InterIgnis? That group text was horrible.

Yes, she's probably sitting around striking a white Persian cat on top of a cliff in Dubrovnik.

You really should book to visit your brother in Australia at Christmas if you possibly can. That would be a real adventure - proving that you are a brave, go getting woman capable of living an exciting life independent of your children.
Apologise to your son for criticising his girlfriend and be as pleasant as you can towards them moving forwards; hopefully they will soften towards you. They should, but they sound quite mean so it’s hard to predict.
My money’s on your son and his girlfriend splitting up tbh but if she’s going to be around for keeps you will have to learn to keep your negative opinions to yourself.

What's that got to do with the girlfriend though? Perhaps her children know a bit more about the situation than us!

The thing is though, no matter what they "knew" (aka no matter what their opinion) about the situation was, that is a low way to tackle it.

I’m sure this reply will get lost in the many hundreds of responses, but i am interested in this thread as I am one of 4 adult children to our mid 80s widowed mum (no longer drives, no parents or siblings).

Initially I thought “we’d move Heaven and Earth to make sure Mum wasn’t alone at Christmas”. Then I read on, to OP’s discription of her DS’s girlfriend, and realised that the reason for this, is that DM has never been so rude about, unwelcoming, dismissive and intolerant of any of our partners. She’s also realised, graciously, that her babies have grown up and have other priorities, people and pressures in our lives. She’s a practising Catholic, and realises too that Christmas is a season, not just a day.

At this point, in order to salvage anything of your relationship with DS1, i’d apologise again; make alternative plans for Christmas (Crisis? Church or Charity outreach?); plan a New Year’s Eve or 12th Night meal; reflect on how i treat people who I don’t like but are actually harmless.

To be fair, she does sound kind of fascinating ……if a bit insufferable, OP, I really think you may be a bit jealous of her, but ii think that’s understandable as I don’t know her and I feel a bit envious of her

Her mother has died though. We don't know whether her parents were together when her mum died. Maybe her dad didn't treat her mum very well. It's pretty traumatising to lose your mum so young and it must have affected her in some ways.

Did you read the part where the GF openly criticised the OPs religion while she was hosting for her?

@user1473878824 I am starting to wonder whether they’re all unkind people tbh. Even if they don’t want to spend Christmases with their Mum going forward, the way they did this was cruel.

Australia could be a lot of fun for the OP if she can afford it and would get a warm welcome!

Yes @thepariscrimefiles, we don’t know the background. Spending her father’s money seems to be acceptable though, even if he isn’t!