Disagreement over how to spend Christmas day

[MilleniumMouse]

I'll preface this by saying I am neither the husband or wife in this scenario.

So, mum and dad with 2 young kids. Every year, the wife has insisted that they must wake up, do breakfast, do presents, then go to the wife's parents house for the rest of the day. They leave at around 10.30am and are at the parents house until late - 11pm/midnight.

Husband has asked year on year that they do Christmas as just a 4 so that the kids can enjoy their presents and they can all just relax in the house. Wife refuses. Husband has asked can they spend majority of the day in their own house then go and see the in-laws later in the evening. Wife refuses. Husband has asked can we host the in-laws instead so that the kids can still be in their own house with their new gifts. Wife refuses. They must go to her parents and she will not compromise.

The in-laws don't drink so it's always a subdued affair, and husband has to drive so he doesn't get to drink either. Not that that's what Christmas is all about but he's said it would be nice to just have one year where he can eat rubbish, have a few drinks, and relax.

Once the kids got past the magical santa stage, husband started volunteering to work Christmas day and so hasn't participated ever since. There is obviously a lot of resentment on both sides now.

My personal opinion is that Christmas is all about the kids and its unfair to drag them away from their new toys and presents every year to spend time doing something that their parents want to do. I do believe seeing family is important but the wife could have compromised a bit and done some alternating years. (Although I also think husband also could have grown a pair and put his foot down).

Is the husband being unreasonable with this?

It is when you have young children.

What about the husband's parents? Don't they get to see their son and grandkids ever at Christmas?

Exactly! I bet if this was the husband insisting on them going to his parents every year the replies would be different!

What has it got to do with you?I'm not trying to be rude but as you won't say how you are related to the situation so it isn't clear how this affects you.

He didn't have to go to his inlaws every year. He could have stood staunch and told her to go and kept his kids with him or discussed and agreed to go after lunch or decided not to go at all but her and the kids go ahead. He chose to be a soft touch and avoid any kind of drama over it and opted to work instead. If he feels he has missed out then that is on him He needed to physically speak up for himself. He could still do that now but it needs to be him that does it. If he has asked you to garner opinions then I don't see how that helps as he isn't willing to do anything about it. She may well be a dominant character but he is a wet wipe so perhaps they are better suited than you or I think.

Yes, even to the point of calling the wife’s parents the ‘in-laws’. Bit of a give away of who the OP is identifying with!

Of course OPs are always written from one perspective, but at least it’s normally a first hand perspective, not second hand hearsay like this.

I was feeling more balanced on this until he then offered to work Christmas Day, what a whopper! Also the fact that he ‘didn’t get to do all of that Christmas stuff with his kids’ is just an excuse. It’s just one day. We are on the move a lot to different family members on Christmas Day as we see it as important to see family and spend time with them on that day but have home based traditions leading up to Christmas and a full blown Christmas Eve in the house with ham and turkey barns and Christmas music and games etc. I bet you a million pounds he didn’t pull his weight and make Christmas Christmassy on any of the other days! 😂

If I were her I would’ve agreed to one year and if he didn’t pull his weight with chores and the kids then that would be that.

Also 10 min journey- get a taxi home so he can have a drink. Or leave earlier as a compromise?

As you are neither the husband nor the wife in this situation, and you only have the husband's side of the story to go on, obviously you don't know everything but from how you describe it, it looks like the vast majority of us agree that the wife is a bully, controlling, and unyielding in this matter.
It is unfair for one partner to always have to do the driving no matter what the circumstance is if they would like to have a drink and cut loose a bit. Typically the man does the driving in a relationship, (not sure why that is but that's usual) but in the case of going to a get together when one person would like to drink, it is fair to balance the driving duties.
In this situation, considering that it was her in-laws, considering that she was absolutely unwilling to compromise on the scheduling, considering that it was an exceptionally long day, approximately 12 hours, spent at the in-laws house, and he did not particularly enjoy it, that is pretty mean to make sure that he also can't even have a few drinks.
It's possible that Christmas is the most important holiday to her and her family was super important only living 10 minutes walk away, and he gets to choose other things in the relationship and this is the one thing that she gets for herself, that's possible. But from how you describe it, she sounds insufferable and impossible.
But we don't know the whole story.

And yes, people have commented that once the children were old enough that he felt he could make a reasonable excuse of "well I have to work Christmas Day"... He took on the extra hours so that he could be away from this but I absolutely don't blame him for bailing out. Look at what he's got to look forward to. Get up early, kids open the presents, by 10:30 bundle everybody up, go over to the in-laws and sit on the couch for the next 12 hours until 11:00 p.m. and then go home. Yay. No thanks I'd rather get the overtime at work too. I'm sure that the wife was still able to go over to the in-laws and spend Christmas the way that she wanted anyway call me you said that she had a car and she drove and they only live 10 minutes walk away anyway... So it's not like he was ruining Christmas for the family, he was getting away from a bad situation. Makes you wonder how much the kids really enjoyed going to Grandma and Grandpa's for the whole day on Christmas but, didn't hear about their side of the story. Maybe they got lots and lots of gifts and had a good time. Maybe they were stuck sitting on the couch with nothing to do but listen to the grown up stock. Hopefully not. Christmas is supposed to be enjoyment for everyone.

You say this happened years ago, mother-in-law is now deceased, and you're just hearing this story and you just wondered what other people thought. Well, from what we're hearing, I would not want to be put in that situation that the husband was put in.
And imagine if somebody had posted this only the gender roles were reversed, the wife was the one being dragged along all these times, the husband was absolutely impossible to reason with an unyielding as to his demands. Everyone would be saying "divorce him". Anyway, question asked, question answered

More than a friend, even if she’s not shagging him, yet, this man ditches his own kids on Christmas, bitches to another woman about his wife, and the op is lapping it up. One hundred percent it’s not what’s presented here. What a prince among men. Not.

If I were him, I'd crack a bottle open right after breakfast and down several glasses of it, thereby excusing myself from chauffeur duties.

Unless you are one of the children, you can't say this was unfair on them. The husband didn't want to go to MILs and his wants are being spun as what the kids want. It really grates on me when people use children like that. I loved Christmas with wider family that was more important to me than playing with new toys.

That said, it isn't fair that the DH never had any say in what happened at Christmas. Some years should have been at home as he wanted.

Well, I can totally see why the husband chooses to work Christmas Day now instead and I hope when he finishes his shift, he goes home and has a few drinks in peace. The wife sounds awful.

Christmas is the least of his worries!

Posters who post cryptically on an anonymous forum often derail their own thread.

It is such a distraction to not know who you are to the husband.
I am now guessing colleague "work wife" although technically not having a physical affair...

And you have presented your post in the most one sided way that it is comical

What I don't understand is, the years he decided not to go to his in laws why did he choose to go to work instead of going to his family for Christmas?

Yep. Weird that, isn’t it?

The wife sounds selfish everything seems to be her way or no way.

they need to compromise and find a middle ground for Christmas Day.

We can all read very clearly that the wife is being unreasonable by only doing what she wants on Christmas Day however if you are not the husband and not the wife then why does your ‘personal opinion’ or any of ours matter? It’s their marriage and their life

100%

He didn't have to go to his inlaws every year. He could have stood staunch and told her to go and kept his kids with him or discussed and agreed to go after lunch or decided not to go at all but her and the kids go ahead. He chose to be a soft touch and avoid any kind of drama over it and opted to work instead. If he feels he has missed out then that is on him He needed to physically speak up for himself. He could still do that now but it needs to be him that does it.

This.
Instead by the sound of things, he's opted out rather than engage and have the Christmas he wanted with his kids when they were little. And apparently now it is "too late" so he's stuck with it. He can either man up and have a conversation with his family that says he wants to do something different, and if they don't want to he's opting out again, or finally find a compromise that works for them all instead of passive aggressively working and being a martyr.

The wife sounds coercively controlling (if what you’ve written is accurate). Fancy never getting to have a nice day at home with your DC on Christmas even once.

This all happened years ago. The kids are grown up now. He didn't "ditch his kids". Once the kids were grown up, he began working Christmas Day instead. You can say he was wrong of course, but he didn't ditch the kids.

Are you the OP with a name change fail?

OP didn’t say he went to work on Christmas day when the DC were grown up, she said he worked once they were passed the ‘magic of Christmas’ stage, whatever that is. Poor!

He sounds like a sulky child, determined to cancel Christmas for his family by going to work for the day because he doesn't want to visit his in-laws. How petty. Yet he professes to 'love Christmas'?

He seems to have no loyalty to his wife either with the amount of bitching about her that he's done.