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

[Pollyxplummer]

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?

If this is exactly as written and my DH chose a lunch out with his mum rather than spending Christmas day with me and our kids he would be packing his bags and moving in with her.

I suspect your DH is excited though as he would never normally be the one to be asked. That's sad and when her and the DD make up, he'll be sidelined again. This is not good at all, but in fairness to him, it all stems from childhood and it sounds like he needs to talk and think it through a bit more- even just to think if this is normal (her isolating him and her on Christmas Day).

Are you twelve?

That’s awful! Tell him his kids until adulthood will always remember the Christmas Day daddy decided not to spend it with them. Everyone in your family will give him looks and he’ll know it.

How old are your kids? There’s no way it’ll only be 24hours either. More like 4/5 if a Christmas dinner out.

The fact she’s invited and fine with company but wants to show she has the pull/draw over him over his family is what she wants.
And he has gone! Left his kids let alone wife! Would make me look at everything in a new light

If it were my family who I was hosting for as soon as DH disappeared they would be saying how strange it was for him to leave me in the lurch leaving me to drink copiously with the implication that he’s not a decent partner but that’s our family, It just seems disrepectful to you and yours especially when the day after you had arranged to see MIL and she’s wanting full family affair. Maybe he’s looking for an excuse to escape so he doesn’t have to help host and work but I’m sorry for you if he can’t see how hurtful this is.

Loads of places in my town are advertising Christmas meals, checking online most still have availability, I assume lots of people are finding £70 or £80 a head for a meal is too much with the cost of living. They'd have no issue getting booked here.

Serve your Christmas dinner in the evening, so DH has two. Make him eat Every. Single. Mouthful.

Yeah, that’s not okay. This is absolutely one of those times where ‘his family’ needs to mean ‘his wife and children’, way more than it means ‘his mother’.

Sorry - I’m pretty chilled out but this would absolutely drive me over the edge. 2 hours? No chance. Why doesn’t your husband see the value in Christmas as a family?! Awful.

I’d be cross about this, it’s not on at all. As a mother and MIL I can’t imagine doing this or any of my adult children thinking it’s acceptable. His main priority is HIS CHILDREN, then you, and she should be telling him this. She’s got an invite to yours anyway, it’s so rude.

I’m sorry to say that in your position I’d go out to a restaurant with the DCs on Boxing Day and he’d go to his mothers without us. I’d possibly never do Christmas with her again unless there was a lot of understanding from them about how wrong this is.

What a dick he’s being, and how awful of her. She’s had her turn at many Christmases and shouldn’t be depriving her grandchildren of their dad for the day. I’m getting annoyed for you as I type this!

Its a power play. She is doing it to flex her muscles and show everyone who's boss.

I would be extremely upset if my DH did not immediately shut this down and tell his mother to come to ours or go to a siblings. I dont believe he does not see the issue - he just does not want to face it.

Honestly, why do u care if he spends a couple of hours with his mum 🤣

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

If I were in your position I would find it very, very rude of them both.

Is dh also expected to pay for this swanky lunch I wonder?

He's her son, not her husband. She shouldn't be asking him to dump his wife and kids for her, and he should have firmer boundaries.

Yeah I’d get this nipped in the bud now because if not this will be a yearly thing!! I’d be fuming, my ex dh used to spend every Xmas hardly in between running from house to house of his family members (who he never bothered with from one year to the next) the kids hated it and so did I. Trust me if it happens once it’ll be the new normal

This is minimising to such an extent that you have almost missed the point entirely.

Obviously the point is not that OP doesn’t want her DH and MIL to spend a couple of hours together, it’s that they have ridden roughshod over existing plans with no consultation all. It smacks of power play, entitlement and self centredness on MIL’s part and weakness, laziness and mummy issues on DH’s.

They are both being unspeakably rude. Your mother-in-law is ridiculous, picking off individual children to have a special, weirdly intense relationship with. What do her other sons think about not being The Chosen Ones for her mad Christmas Day act of extreme self-centredness?

And your husband is an absolute arsehole for leaving you on your own to host that many people, when his mum is abundantly welcome at the table. I’d be absolutely furious with him. My family would be just as angry that I’d been left to cook a lunch for that many people, on my own. We host for 12 every year and it’s a military operation with a spreadsheet and a task list each. It has to be, so we both get to actually enjoy hosting and chat with our family, and each other’s company. It’s Christmas - he should be with you, and your kids if you have any, with his mum at the table with him. He’s a total arsehole. Thoughtless mummy’s boy. Deeply unattractive.

He’s working very hard to be her golden child isn’t he?

But OP 's MIL is perfectly happy to have these complete families come to her on Boxing Day.

Also, sorry, but as a fellow widow, you have to get on with this stuff, especially two years in. Taking one's son away from his wife and kids for Christmas dinner is unacceptable, whatever one's circumstances.

His mom is making him her emotional spouse to the point of competing with you for significant holidays.

I'd ask who is he married to, his mother or you.

If he chooses mom, I would not do one thing for him in the house or the bedroom. He can move back to his mother's house and spend every holiday catering to her. I'd probably be divorced too.

It's not like you're not seeing her.

If it's not a big deal for them to miss Christmas day lunch then surely it's even less of a big deal for you (and kids, depending on a) whether you'd prefer to do something with them or take some time to yourself and b) whether he'd be more annoyed if none of you came, or if you left him to look after them by yourself) to miss Boxing Day lunch with her. No way would I be going to both.

I’d be more annoyed at having to do all the hosting alone on Christmas Day! For that reason alone he should have said no.

Definitely feels like a power play from her. She clicked her fingers and he came running.

Tell him to bugger off for the whole day if spending Christmas with his kids means that little to him. Honestly, the number of parents who will be working over Christmas this year, or separated and it’s the other parents’ turn to have the kids, who would desperately want to be with them. I hope he has a miserable time with his mother.