Christmas would not happen without me

[zoeb92]

More of a rant than anything… feel free to tell me to suck it up.
Every year it’s the same thing. I do everything. Husband does F all.
I have to think for him — for absolutely everything. Are we hosting? If so: Christmas food shop, inviting everyone, getting the house ready, sorting the logistics. All me.
Gifts? I start shopping in October. DS’s presents were bought by the first week of November. His family’s presents were all bought on my weekends off, while he spends his Wednesday off going for breakfast with friends and then the gym.
I’m nine months pregnant, and I battled the shops on the last Saturday before Christmas — fighting for a parking space — just to get something suitable for his mum because he’d left it too late. I’ve spent two hours wrapping everything while he’s been at work. Fine.
Now I still need to spend another two hours doing the housework and cooking dinner. Then he texts to say he’s out this evening with his dad for a Christmas pint. He never goes out — but honestly, it just feels like if I didn’t do everything, nothing would happen.
I’ve even bought a gift from his nephew to his mum (who’s the guardian), because I didn’t want my MIL waking up on Christmas morning to nothing. Do I get any thanks for thinking that far ahead? Of course not.
I’m absolutely fuming. I’d just like a little bit of appreciation.
I’ve even had to wrap my own Christmas presents — which I bought myself, by the way.

What the fuck are you doing? Seriously?
You're about to have two children to a man who clearly doesn't love or respect you and yet you're running around, heavily pregnant, facilitating everything for his extended family.
Drop the rope. Either the selfish cunt will step up or he won't, but stop setting yourself on fire to keep his Christmas warm.
Buy nice presents for your kids. Write from mummy on them. Don't go through the charade of wrapping your own presents, let them see what a selfish asshole their dad is. Get your own family presents and write from zoeb92 on them. Leave him to it with his family. If anyone dares comment, make it clear that it was his responsibility.
And then leave the pathetic, selfish, contemptible prick before next Christmas.

I get where you’re coming from. It’s the same in my house. But - and it is a big but - I’ve realised that l, while it’s important to me to have things done in a certain way, it isn’t important to my DH. So without me, certain things wouldn’t happen, but he’d likely be fine about that. So I’ve come to accept that I do a lot more because I care about it more. Which is sort of fair enough when I think about it in those terms!

You are doing it all because you want to do it all.

I used to buy dh’s family presents but after couple of incidents I stopped. I have to remind Dh and he goes to Sainsbury’s to get presents. Mil is getting a box of shortbread and Sil is getting a bag of chocolate covered nuts. When I was in charge the presents were much bigger and thoughtful.

You need to show him this message OP. If you can't say it to him, write it down and find a calm moment to let him know how you feel.
You deserve to be heard and he needs to understand how much he is letting you down but doing so little.
Wishing you a happy and healthy rest of your pregnancy and safe arrival of your little one. Xx

Hell would freeze over before I’d have gone and got his mother a Christmas present. He’s got two legs and a couple of brain cells, he either sorts it or she gets nothing and he can explain why

You have two options here.
You carry on moaning about and do nothing and then get defensive when others ask why you are doing it.
Or you do something about your issue that you are unhappy about. You try to find a solution instead of moaning about the problem.
Do things so your son has a nice Christmas but you do sweet FA about your partners family

I don't think this thread has quite gone as you expected, OP. I think you might have wanted a bit more in the 'oh, poor you, how dreadful' line.

Instead, you've had a lot of people wondering why you are doing things you don't have to do. And, I'm afraid, I am one of those people.

You're BU to to think Christmas wouldn't happen without you. It would. It just might not happen in the same way. Your DH would have to turn up 'careless and presentless' on his own to his relatives. If that bothers him, he'll do something about it. If it doesn't, the sky won't fall in and Christmas won't be cancelled.

If you weren't there, I'm pretty sure your husband won't be resorting to chicken nuggets and chips for dinner. He'll go round his mum's.

I think it suits you a bit to imagine it won't happen without you, that your son will have no presents, his belly will be empty and the in-laws will instantly go no-contact whilst muttering about what a bad wife you are.

And it's understandable if your DH treats you like a bit of furniture all year that you want to feel important. And imagining some sort of miserable Christmas show without you in the lead role gives you that.

So I would ask you to think about what's really going on that means you can't 'just stop' as others have suggested.

My Dad still does all his own Christmas shopping. He's 89...... He can't manage the wrapping anymore, so I do that for him now.

And how will your DD have a nice Christmas with presents and dinner etc if your DH was like OP's? You'd do it yourself. Just like OP is.

You can't force people to do things. Neither can you change people. So your claims that you would is absurd and arrogant.

If your DH was like OP's then you would absolutely take on the jobs yourself, I don't know why everyone in this thread is pretending they wouldn't. Or maybe you would really love to have a presentless, no dinner Christmas while having people in your home that was dirty and untidy. Everyone's different I guess.

I voted YABU because you never had to get presents for his mum or his family.

Let him fail to get his mum and his family a gift next year. Do not cover for him any more.

And do not host people if he won't clean the house and prepare.

If my DH wasn’t interested in ensuring our DC’s and family had a lovely Christmas, we wouldn’t be together.

Thankfully DH is very family oriented and making events special is important to him.

Completely unacceptable. He could have ordered you some presents online and wrapped them up as the absolute bare minimum. I don't even understand how you're in a situation where he thinks it's ok for you to be buying and wrapping your own gifts?
A lot of men do leave the food shopping and all the little details to their wives, mine actually has to go to the supermarket though as I don't drive. But to not buy a single gift is terrible.

I've never ever bought a present for my inlaws, not my job.
He's become helpless because he knows that you'll do it all.

But can't you see that's entirely different to the situation OP is in.

The old MN ridiculous jump to LTB has of course surfaced, with zero regard to reality - but it makes posters feel good and empowered to say it. They wouldn't stand for this nonsense, oh no.

No. I. Bloody. Wouldn't! Firstly my threshold for fuck wittery is very low so I wouldn't choose a DH like that in the first place. The OP doesn't appear to have tried talking to or changing her DH behaviour in the first instance so no idea if he might or might not change his ways. If I was that unfortunate to have this sort of partner and they failed to respond to me ripping them a new one. I would of course sort presents for my DD but I would also absolutely minimize the tasks involving him or his family, have a low key Christmas dinner or go out for Christmas dinner, hire a cleaner etc. I'd also probably be getting divorced pretty quickly...I know I can't change other people but I sure as hell don't have to tolerate them or keep them in my life if they treat me badly. I'm not arrogant. I just value my time and I am no bodies skivvy!! Have we set the bar so low that any woman who doesn't or wouldn't put up with this sort of shit we call absurd/arrogant??!! Jesus wept.

Well I wouldn’t, and I’m not just saying that because I know what I do for Christmas and that’s absolutely bugger all. Last year I went travelling for 6 weeks to avoid it, so I can say with absolute certainty that I didn’t run about doing things for my partner. I’ve no idea what he did for his family while I was away and I don’t consider it my problem.

Whatever about doing stuff for your son, I wouldn't be doing anything for him or his side.

You've brought this on yourself OP. Maybe your DP isn't as incompetent as you think. Give him jobs to do beginning of December. Eg you're on all wrapping, present buying for x and y, decorating etc etc.

Hand on heart, I wouldn't buy presents for his side of the family. Yes, I would cook, clean and make sure MY kids have something to open. That's all.

I would not go out of my way to buy a present "from" my husband's nephew to my husband's mum. Because 1. It's husbands family 2. The nephew, presumably, have parents of his own or 3. The nephew is an equally useless adult male.
Thinking it is in any way my responsibility requires olympic level mental gymnastics. And that's what everyone in this thread is talking about - overfunctioning to the extreme.

You're very blusterous. You could certainly divorce if you'd like to, that's up to you. The reality is much different to the trivial act MN paints it as, but I agree sometimes it's the best thing to do.

Still, what you have admitted to is you WOULD do the work on your own to give your DD presents and dinner - you wouldn't 'go on strike' and just leave her to have a miserable Christmas. At least we have ascertained that.

There’s a difference between buying and wrapping presents and making a Christmas dinner for your own child and buying and wrapping presents for in laws and for yourself and nephews to give to other people though.

If my dh was like the OP’s husband, I would not do all of the things the op does. I would not even think about doing them.

I understand that. But everyone's banging on that they 'wouldn't stand for it' and 'conversations would be had' and he would (or has) abracadabra change his ways because NO WAY would they do more than their fair share.

Bollocks. Presents for his side of the family aside, everyone would clean their house if visitors were coming, they'd cook the entire meal so their kids could have a good Christmas, and they'd do the lion's share of the prep if they had to. They'd be just as 'enabling' as they're sneering at OP for. Claiming they wouldn't is just irritating.

What is he like for the rest of the year? I assume he’s your son’s dad? Will he be doing the lions share of care for him while you have a newborn? As you work full time does he do 50% of the school runs?

If he doesn’t, then it needs to change. If he’s worth staying married to, surely he must love you and if he loves you, why is he treating you like a skivvy and not buying you Christmas gifts? That doesn’t sound like love to me.