Husband decided he’s not coming to my family’s for Christmas just because he wants a day to himself at home.

[Puggymummy19]

Aibu to make him come?!
he says he can’t be bothered with the chaos, kids and just wants to be alone at home.
he’s not depressed or anything like this just being anti social.
would you care?
to add we only live round the corner, I said please just come for the dinner at least but won’t even do that

if he wanted a day to himself he could have said so months agoinstead hes thrown it on you the night before

i think its selfish and rude

Why not have Christmas day with the 3 of you and then if you really need to see relatives just pop over for an hour or so later on and leave DH to do his own thing?

We decided to just that several years ago and it was bliss. We do the same every year now. This idea that everyone wants to have a big extended family meet up is nonsense.

Do it once and it soon becomes accepted practice and nobody mentions it again in future years. You couldn’t pay me and DH enough to attend an extended family event.

Yikes. He must know how this will look. Does he like embarrassing you in front of your family? What a jerk.

@SVR16 If they want to have a special Christmas dinner, it’s a bit late to organize that now though!

I completely understand not wanting the chaos this year, but he needed to speak up sooner.

Then he’s a crap dad and you need to raise your bar and have an equal partner.

Its funny how it’s always the dad isn’t it and the mum is expected to just be the default parent and spend the entire day with her kids.

Is this satire?

He’s a crap dad and a crap partner too.

He chose to have a kids and wife but then chooses to work over the holidays and not see his wife or kids.

He’s not even working, he’s just using the building to get away from his family.

The kids may have wealth but they will have a lot of issues and likely won’t talk to their dad as adults.

Tell him he can have a day alone any other time, just not tomorrow

this, in a nutshell

The husband should have simply said 'That doesn't work for me.'

Checkmate.

He’s not really any of that. He’s selfish for wanting the day to himself ( it not exactly an ordinary day Christmas, what dad in his right mind wouldn’t want to spend the day with his child?). Something seriously wrong there and you know it.

Sounds like you’ve offered a reasonable compromise by saying come for dinner but not the whole day so I don’t think YABU. A full day with my in-laws and their massive extended family often felt like too much but I’d always make sure I attended the ‘key’ event (dinner, first half of party, wedding ceremony and meal etc).
Sounds like he feels the need to perform and be ‘on’ for your family which is pretty tiring, might be worth asking him if that’s the case and if so, why?

😂 no is a full sentence

So this is an option, then? (Rushes off to tell DH that I won’t be joining him and the DCs at PILs tomorrow, and will be having a relaxing day on my own in peace.)

If that is what you really want to do, then why not? Has it not occurred to you before now, that it could be?

@Puggymummy19 Not on at all. Can he come, stay for a bit then go home? You are a family and he should go along in support of you. They are his in laws after all.

I bet you have never announced you just can't be bothered one day. Women don't have that option, we can't be that selfish.

You’re rude and just ridiculous. Who do you think you are telling a random stranger that my children have a crap dad because he doesn’t spend every second of Christmas Day with them? Talk about judgemental. I don’t need to raise any bar, they have a great dad and he spends a lot of time with them. Maybe you are projecting because your kids have a lousy dad, I’m not sure. But god forbid people choose to do things differently to you.

I was being sarcastic. I’m not a dickhead who abandons my husband and DCs on Christmas Day of all days for some “me time”.

I mean this kindly but your husband is showing a complete disregard for your feelings and those of your family and his behaviour is clearly unacceptable. Your folks would be right to "assume something is up".

If he's just sprung this on you today then he's being a dickhead.

Sorry, are you posting this as a feel-good tale of manly solitude?

Totally agree I’d much rather stay at home but for me Christmas is about family and you just have to make an effort. I’m not looking forward to spending Christmas Day with 16 of dh’s family but I just need to suck it up, that’s the joy of being married and become a part of his wider family.

he sounds pretty selfish.

Tell him fine, so long as you get the relaxing day at home next year.

Based on your updates OP I'd leave him to it, for some reason that's how he feels this year and it sounds as though nothing more is meant by it.

Christmas is such a weird time of year, so much pressure to conform to the big celebration.

I’d absolutely love to have the nerve to do that. I would LOVE to sit at home with a bottle of champagne and a plate of smoked salmon watching Elf and Miracle of 34th Street in my pajamas while everyone else was being christmassy elsewhere. That would be heaven to me.

Oddly this is a bit weirder than having an affair.

It's literally the one day in the year designated for seeing family.