I am hating Christmas this year

[TheGrinchWasHere]

Just a general moan about Christmas and the way things have worked out. No pity needed and I am well aware that I don’t have to accept any of it but it is the way the things have turned out. I am happily married. My DH is my best friend and we have a wonderful full life. Our extended family pressure and responsibility is wearing me thin and I’ve decided that New Year is my favorite time of the year as that is when this pretend family bullshit can end and my husband and I can get back to living the life we love, running our business and doing what we want. A quick summary (may not be quick but I need to get it off my chest)

1. My DH has children. They are young adults who are busying themselves with the business of growing up and each of them are with their respective other half families this year.
2. my DH has a brother who is mentally impaired from a brain tumor. He is well enough though to expect to be a part of our Christmas plans. He receives no social assistance as we live in a country where this does not exist. He gambled away everything he owned and we fully support him financially. My DH is wracked with guilt about just leaving him in his care home. BiL is in adult diapers mostly out of laziness, has limited mobility, is obese and is belligerent. He fights with the staff at the care home so only bathes when he feels like it. He stinks and I’m now expected to have this person at my Christmas table.
3. BIL has a daughter 24 who does nothing for her father. She too is expecting to be at our Christmas table as her way of easing the guilt and responsibility of seeing her father over Christmas. Can’t be bothered unless it’s orchestrated by us.
4. My parents live near us and will be here too. They have in the last few years moved to my country and I am there only child here while my siblings live in the UK. I am tired of being the only person they have. I moved away 20 years ago because I chased what made me happy and have made a very happy life for myself without having family on my doorstep. My dad is negative and doesn’t have a nice thing to say about anyone and my mom is so desperate for us to be a picture perfect family of ‘besties’ that she cannot see the stress the rest of the above puts on me and my desire to just be left the hell alone. This time of year is the only time my DH and I have to chill away from work and I’m constantly getting poked and prodded about what ‘we’ are all going to do with these free days.

I wish I had a Time Machine to jump to 1 Jan.

Rant over.

@sandyhappypeople @Minjou

I honestly hear what you are saying about my niece. Ive always been the one who has advocated for her to draw up the boundaries and be ok about her decisions not to see him or have anything to do with him. But she will tell everyone that she loves him, cares for him and does so much for him … because she thinks we don’t know how little she actually does.

It's probably a good idea that you make other plans next year. You don't want BIL or his daughter there and it will probably show, no matter how good you think you are at hiding it.

The relationship is fine. We don’t put any pressure on them because they have to split themselves between us, their DM and their new partners and we are crippled under imposed responsibility so wouldn’t do the same to them. They also don’t live in the same town as us. I’m sure there will be a Christmas which isn’t so dire at some point in the future but it does make it hard to keep hoping each one is going to be better than the last. So running away on a solo mission does seem safer.

It’s probably a part of the stress figuring out how I put on a happy Christmas face when I’m feeling the complete opposite.

Yes, Look to new year and just get through the motions at christmas.

Yes this is my plan. I’m probably throwing an internal tantrum that I can’t have the Christmas I really want. I’m well aware that there are people worse off than me but geez…. It would be nice to have a lovely Christmas lunch with normal people who are all kind to each other and fun and light and happy.

i will always love the start of the new year when we can get back to normality.

OP, I feel for you, I do. It sounds like hell! We all have duties and obligations but these don't have to be carried out at Christmas. Make a change next year and do not include those awkward family members. You can do that at another time of the year. Break the pattern.

Thank you to everyone who has been kind and understanding. MN can be both a blessing and a curse. It’s a wonderful place to be honest and offload things you would never be able to say out loud but then often you need to be prepared to be crucified for being human.

Last year my BiL landed up in hospital a few days before Xmas (skin issues hygiene related) … and I was so secretly relieved to have a table of normal people (my SC were also with us) and my parents had gone off to see my DMs sister in another town. It was a slice of normality which isn’t going to happen this year unfortunately. I will suck it up and go through the motions.

I get that, and it must piss you off. I'm just saying make your own choices and let others maker theirs. Stand back and draw your own boundaries, you'll be happier for it.
Let this be the last Christmas you are unhappy with your arrangements.

The Care Home your BIL is in does not sound like it is meeting his needs, no care home should be allowing residents to get to the point where they stink or have skin infections due to poor hygiene, regardless of how difficult they are. Maybe the facility is not equipped to deal with his needs, and he needs moving elsewhere.

Mum is in a Care Home, in the Elderly Mentally ill part - mostly Dementia patients, but also people like mum with other mental illnesses. They are a high-needs tricky group, who can be agressive & violent - no-body stinks. My own mum can scream and lash out at shower time, but she’s still clean and showered.

All that said …. Book a holiday next year, be waited on hand & foot …

Aw man OP, you're getting a hard time but I understand. My uncle had disabilities stemming from a brain tumour, PPs are projecting and making assumptions when they don't know the situation. It's not necessarily a brain injury. It can be hearing difficulties, or processing difficulties, or anger issues. Urinary incontinence can stem from pituitary issues, but this can be helped by medication, but then sometimes the mood and anger issues lead to them not taking the medication and they cba going to the toilet so it's just awful for everyone.

Your parents even sound similar to mine. @Rippleok 's comment made me laugh. Well, chuckle wryly.

"Goodness - these interactions sounds so confrontational.
Dad, I’m really struggling with Christmas stress. I know you’d rather the plans stayed the same, but that doesn’t work for us - so next year we will be going to the UK."

There speaks a woman who hasn't experienced the guilt-tripping, emotional blackmail, and manipulation of an emotionally abusive man like my (and probably OP's) dad. This would lead to a temper tantrum, storming off, and possibly tears (from my dad - not from me).

I wish you'd posted this in October. There's loads you could have done to avoid it...

I understand all of your frustration and resentment, and I don't judge you for it. Regardless of the brain tumour, which of course your bil can't help, or the fact that the brain injury means he can't help some of his behaviours... It doesn't change the fact that he sounds extremely difficult to be around. And feeling like you HAVE to be around him, would definitely get even a saint down at times. Being a carer is hard work, at whatever level you do it, and you are entitled to be thoroughly deflated at the prospect of the Christmas ahead of you.

Next year, you're not hosting Christmas. Take your bil out of his home into yours for a meal or whatever the weekend before, hold your nose (literally) and make it nice for him and his daughter, but that's it. Keep the day itself for you and your husband and whoever isn't going to drag you down.

I get you and he should be getting better care if it were possible. We don’t live in the UK. We live in a country with very little state sponsored support for people in his position. We fund his care completely. There is a gap in the market for private care for people with disabilities and it’s expensive. He has not paid any care or duty to his own life and is very lucky we could afford to pay for what we do. If we placed him in another facility it would be geared to older retired people and he wouldn’t fit in. He is belligerent and disconnected from his reality. If there was ever a case for karma he is it unfortunately and this isn’t being said with any nastiness or glee that he is where here is but rather as a person who has been witness to the life of a man who has almost insisted on its downward trajectory to rock bottom.

Thank you. I will be sipping a cocktail on some island I hope.

I almost can’t wait for the day my niece has her own home and is expected to host Christmas. I am intrigued as to how she is going to navigate this situation.

It sounds like you're glad BIL has had his karma and simultaneously pissed off that you also have to deal with the consequences at your Christmas table. Just uninvite him and his daughter, you don't really have a relationship with the two of them anyway so what is there to lose? She can sort him out for once.
Your husband has nothing to feel guilty about either if you're both paying for all his brother's care etc. You seem like the cash cow for the family, your parents included, they don't get to guilt you as well as be funded by you.

Thanks. There is probably a fair amount of resentment at having to be responsible for everyone but I think I’ve made it clear from the start that I’m worn out from the responsibility and Christmas is just another instance where I’m expected to carry the load to ensure everyone else is ok.

Im not glad for his karma at all. Im not that type of person to take glee in other peoples suffering but I am conscious enough to know that we each get out of life what we put into it. My DH has spent the good part of his adult life trying to help a man intent of doing harm to himself. I know we should not accept responsibility for him and we do enough as it is but it really is an emotional battle that goes deep into family traditions and expectations. My husband and I are both a type personalities who are successful in what we do and this family failure is hard to suck up so we probably overcompensate and over think our roles and what is our problem and what is everyone else’s problem. We have gotten better over the years but it’s still heavy.

Have you ever changed your BIL's (or any other adult not related to you) adult nappy after he has soiled himself? If you haven't done this, you really are in no position to judge.

I hear you on that, but just like with a child’s tantrum all you have to do is hold your own boundary and let the tantrum happen around you.
you say “we are away next year”
dad throws tantrum/ cries/ stomps off you say “I can see you are having big feelings about this/ I can see you are unhappy about this” and still book to go away!

its hard to resist when you’ve been taught and bullied into giving in but once you’ve done it the first time (heart thumping, feeling stressed or wobbly ) doing it again gets easier and easier! And your own life gets less miserable and more your own

Don't patronise me. When it comes to abuse, there's no 'all you have to do is...'. I have strong boundaries. I am also low contact with my father. None of that is easy or enjoyable.

Yup. The guilt and built in expectations are very real….

You have my sympathy. It will be over very soon and you can get back to your normal life. You’re not alone in this, many people going through similar at this time of year

I think I have a problem.

Sounds like you need to start your own thread to get the help you are looking for

It doesn’t sound like anyone seated around this table on Christmas Day is going to be enjoying and full of festive spirit. Bleak

Then propose going away next year as just a one off. Go away for one Christmas and see how you like it. No one could reasonably begrudge you one year away, it would be less confrontational than flat out refusing to spend Xmas with them ever again. And then I think you might enjoy it so much, as a well earned break from your responsibilities, you could do it again without too much guilt.
If you decided that now, then this year might be more Ok, knowing there’s something to look forward to next time.