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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

DH wants to leave his family to go out with his mum on Christmas day.

628 replies

Pollyxplummer · 07/11/2025 15:39

EDIT - MISTAKE IN TITLE, HIS MUM, NOT HIS MIL

Long story short, MIL has fallen out with her daughter who she used to spend a lot of time with.
Since then, she's been spending a lot of time with DH, meeting up with him and suchlike but she also rings him several times a day. She's newly retired and sadly lost her husband two years ago
This Christmas I am hosting for my family, there are 12 of us and I am cooking a big dinner. MIL is 100% welcome to come if she wants to and this has been made clear to her. She also has two other sons and their families she could go to, and also probably her daughter still
Instead of taking up any of these options, she's asked DH to come out for lunch with her, just the two of them and he's said yes.
DH doesn't understand what my problem is, he says he's still spending Christmas morning with us and is only popping out for a couple of hours then coming back. I can't understand why he would choose to go and hang out with his mother for 2 hours at Christmas instead of eating the food I've cooked at home with his wife and two children and his in-laws, with whom he gets on very well, and why he's just run straight there when she's crooked her finger instead of telling her to stop being silly and go eat with someone or stay on her own if she doesn't want to.
I should add - as this is important - the entire family are all going round to hers on boxing day and having a Christmas dinner then too, so she still gets to see everyone. We tend to alternate between in-laws and she hosted Christmas day last year and we all went.
AIBU? Should I just suck it up? Or would you be upset?

OP posts:
sittingonabeach · 08/11/2025 19:17

How old are DC? Are you expected to do all the prep?

WhistPie · 08/11/2025 19:22

jrc1071 · 08/11/2025 19:12

I see a different I think you’re getting upset over nothing. She had a falling out with another family member, she lost her husband two years ago. It could be very possible she doesn’t feel like being around a bunch of people this Christmas and just wants to hang out with her son. It’s no big deal for your husband to pop out for a couple of hours.

Try, for goodness sake, to read at least the OP's posts. Her MIL is hosting her entire family on Boxing Day. If she didn't want to hang about with people she wouldn't be doing this would she.

Marieb19 · 08/11/2025 19:24

This is bizarre and unacceptable. I would havd a word with DH and MIL making it clear she was welcome on Christmas Day but if she ruined your day by breaking up your family you would not be going to her on Boxing Day. She could lose a daughter and DIL.

TheatreTraveller · 08/11/2025 19:28

If my husband even considered for a moment leaving our children on Christmas Day I would never forgive him. (Obviously work or emergencies completely different).

Pessismistic · 08/11/2025 19:28

Hi op I would be totally pissed off. I would ask your mil if she would have done this when her dh was alive and if she would have been happy that her dh chose his mum over his family. Remind her what that would have meant. Unfortunately
your mil is controlling the situation in her favour. Does she like you? I would say ok you spend it with your mum instead of me and your kids then next Xmas choose not to go to his mums and do your own thing with the kids let him break tradition.

Nanny0gg · 08/11/2025 19:29

Tryingatleast · 07/11/2025 15:44

It’s his mum- if my mum wanted and could meet me Christmas Day I totally would, and so I’d let dh because I’d hope he’d do the same as me. You’re getting to be with your family and as he said he’ll be there for the proper family bits!!

Lunch with his family and in-laws is a big part of the proper family bits!

MK42 · 08/11/2025 19:29

Manipulation, pure and simple. It’s sad that she has lost her husband. It must be tough. But what she is doing is controlling. She is being put at the centre of things, demanding the attention. My partner’s mother is very similar and I have had to put down some firm boundaries for both myself and my children to protect our peace.
She will frame you as the bad person when you enforce the boundary. You aren’t. It’s just people of another generation demanding fealty. She seriously needs to grow up.

Biscoffbiscuits · 08/11/2025 19:29

Are you sure this isn’t HIS idea? Maybe it’s an excuse to get out of co hosting at home?

Mumstillgonenuts2025 · 08/11/2025 19:30

The falling out with the daughter there’s more to it than you know! 🤔

Blueytwo · 08/11/2025 19:37

At the very least it is discourteous to you and your parents What does it say about her affection for her grandchildren? My relationship with her would be permanently damaged. I would go on this Boxing Day just to make it clear you are not as rude as her. I would arrive as late as possible and leave as early as I could. I would make it clear to your husband that his choices will have damaged your relationship and that you consider it totally unacceptable. I suspect she will fall out with him too eventually And what do the other siblings make of this…?!

ToadRage · 08/11/2025 19:38

I'd be fuming. We usually spend Christmas by ourselves cos we don't have children and all family is far away. On the one hand I can understand some sons do feel the need to pander to their mothers (my MIL always gets her way when she is here, I barely exist) especially as her husband is gone. It's incredibly rude of her to drag off your husband to have lunch elsewhere when you invited her to yours, she should have stayed at home alone if she didn't want to spend Christmas with you and your husband should have told her exactly that. I would make a huge nuisance if myself and bring it up at every opportunity, I know my husband would get so pissed off he would cancel just to please and get me off his back.

Millytante · 08/11/2025 19:39

Lostnowandthen · 08/11/2025 17:48

It seems you have an "exclusive" concept of "family", Your parents, as indeed your partner's parents are a part of you family. "Inclusion" does often cause inconvenience but it's more rewarding overall than "exclusion" and particularly beneficial to "your nuclear family" than exclusion. We need to learn some of the concepts of other cultures and traditions.

Whom are you addressing? OP, whose attempts at including this MIL are being rebuffed?
Are there no other cultures (assuming OP represents the dominant culture of she’d have specified) in GB where mothers exert a very strong and exclusionary power over their married sons?

QueenClinomania · 08/11/2025 19:43

If she's always favoured her daughter maybe your husband is like a little puppy jumping for sudden scraps of attention.

Maybe her daughter will get back to normal before christmas and she will drop your husband.

If so, be extra kind to him.

TheCheekyCyanHelper · 08/11/2025 19:46

Tryingatleast · 07/11/2025 16:10

DingDongJingle

I personally wouldn’t like to sit through a Christmas dinner with someone else’s family, I’d feel like a spare. Yes possibly different if he sees his mum a lot (but I’m still stubbornly thinking how nice it would be for them both to have seen their families Christmas Day and for him to have had time with his mum. I don’t see my mum a lot so it is irrational!!)

It's not someone else's family!!! Those are her GRANDCHILDREN, son and daughter-in-law! She's having them over for Boxing Day, one day later! There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for making her son abandon his family for Christmas, other than showing her control of him.

Poodleville · 08/11/2025 19:49

TorroFerney · 08/11/2025 06:40

I was going to post along the same lines. For your husband, the one thing he wants has happened - he is the favourite. He's transported to being a little boy and the one thing he has always wanted is happening, mummy wants him, he is her special and chosen boy. He feels he needs to take this opportunity whilst he has it. Childhood scars run deep.

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I think these two posters may have nailed it...

Booboobagins · 08/11/2025 19:52

Sorry she's recently widowed and you have a prob with her son spending a couple of hours with her on Christmas day. Wind you neck in there are 11 other people at your house.

He could time his lunch with mum so he can join you part way through yours.

Once his mum is dead she's gone forever. Is 2 hours really something to cry about over?!

Grow up.

TheCheekyCyanHelper · 08/11/2025 19:55

Barcamug · 07/11/2025 17:03

Ok, apologies, but there will be other "complete" families there? I found that really hard.

Show quote history

That's just being selfish. Absolute narcissist move.

Retiredfromearlyyears · 08/11/2025 19:56

I wouldnt go on Boxing Day! She is behaving very rudely!,

dijonketchup · 08/11/2025 20:07

You’re right, this is bat shit, I would be totally bemused

Nosurprisethere · 08/11/2025 20:07

I’m not sure who I’m most disgusted with. Your MIL who is selfish enough to ask your DH out for Xmas day away from his family, or your DH for accepting and agreeing to go.
I’m afraid the excuse of being widowed in the past two years is just lame.
Quite honestly I’m not sure that Boxing Day at hers is something to look forward to. Not surprised that she’s fallen out with her daughter when she treats her daughter in law and grandchildren with such disdain.

OneOliveDuck · 08/11/2025 20:08

She is being controlling and utterly unreasonable but she can be because your husband is going along with it. He is the problem. He has put is mother over his family. MIL should never have put him in this position and when she did he should have told her so

Tryingatleast · 08/11/2025 20:09

TheCheekyCyanHelper

I didn’t mean the gcs I just meant the in laws, his mother wouldn’t know them well. My own mother has always said she feels like she’s imposing and feels uncomfortable when it’s just her in a big family situation

ThistleTits · 08/11/2025 20:15

Has she also asked the other siblings to abandon their families and join her for lunch? She has no hope of a booking now, she knows this. I'll put money on him and her eating at her home.
They are being totally disrespectful to you and your family.

TamarindTreeSunset · 08/11/2025 20:16

I can't imagine any Mother asking her son to leave his children and wife on Christmas day. So Mother and son eat dinner on their own! It's unusual to say the least. If my DH and MIL tried this with me and my children, they had better have booked over night accommodation elsewhere.

Noddynoodle · 08/11/2025 20:18

I would be sooooo, sooooooo pissed off with this. Up and leaving his wife and children on Christmas Day when she is invited to join in or spend the day with her other children?!? So spiteful and narcissistic , it’s a choose me, choose me situation.

I’d be so tempted to switch days to Boxing Day of hosting your family to clash with her hosting and see how she likes being fucked over. Christmas should be about her children and grandchildren, not her.

Good luck navigating this one. It maybe time to rethink your relationship with your husband x