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Christmas

From present ideas to party food, find all your Christmas inspiration here.

Any family dramas ?!?!?

120 replies

Ilovechoc12 · 23/12/2022 17:45

Oh my god it was the dog last yr - which ended up - my dad being in the travel lodge.

This yr it's my brothers girl friends cat travelling from Scotland! Why don't they use a cattery ?!?!? It better not turn up in a cage at my house. I'm not in for surprises as that's the way they think they can trick me by turning up randomly.

😂😂😂😂😂

We have no animals - I don't want animals. I do love them but equally don't want them
I've got enough to deal with 4 children.

Therefore please don't think you can bring your animals to stay at my houses over Xmas. I have enough stuff to deal with hosting 20 people without any animals.

I think I might drink too much tonight so I'm not stressed - as I've just learnt about the cat one hr ago.

What's your family dramas .....?????

OP posts:
TabithaTittlemouse · 24/12/2022 10:52

Mil is doing my head in although I adore her. Dh is being vile and I’m trying desperately not to cry.

@5YearsLeft that’s crazy!

Mermaidinmymind · 24/12/2022 11:16

@Ilovechoc12 Your first post gave me the biggest laugh I've had in ages - thanks! Sympathies to all who are suffering with family drama.

Cosycover · 24/12/2022 11:28

@5yearsleft

Where do you live? Could you do a car journey? Because a bunch of us mumsnetters can come get you and take you home!

5YearsLeft · 24/12/2022 11:47

@TabithaTittlemouse I’m so sorry he’s being vile to you and you’re left trying not to cry!!! That’s heartbreaking. If you need to cry, you’re allowed to. If you don’t want him to see you, do it in the loo with the water running or out in your car. You shouldn’t have to pretend like you’re not hurting when you are. UNLESS the crying will make you feel worse, and I can understand that too - I have days where I can’t cry because I wouldn’t be able to stop. I do hope your MIL does all right by you and your “D”H stops being a twat waffle. I’ll be sending comforting thoughts your way!!!!

@Cosycover Oh gosh, this is an insanely kind offer (I’m in Switzerland), but there’s no home left. My grandparents are dead and gone, I have no other close family, and there’s no house waiting for me. However, someone’s comment earlier really got to me - if I’m dying anyway, wouldn’t it be better to do it being free? I callled my GP at about 1am last night (he has a private practice and it’s just him so you can just leave a voicemail 24:7) because I knew his answer machine would say how long he’s on Christmas holidays. Sure enough, he returns 8 January, and I’m going to meet with him then and see how far of an advance I can get on my medications and then maybe find a short term rental from Feb to April, and just carry a reality of clear “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” sign with me. Maybe they make it on hooded sweatshirts…

linelgreen · 24/12/2022 12:40

My middle son has just added his GF onto our Xmas day lunch and now told me via DH with 24 hours to go she is a vegan!!!!

CallMeBubbleDarling · 24/12/2022 13:02

My brother and his family have arrived at my parents house. He has forgotten one of their bags. It has all his daughter’s and wife’s clothes in. Think the atmosphere may be slightly tense today

Deathraystare · 24/12/2022 13:45

@5YearsLeft ·

Bloody hell, that is more than rough.... All I can say is I hope you do sleep through most of Christmas!

AwNo · 24/12/2022 14:15

Christmas 2020 I dyed my hair blonde and it went orange. 🎃🍊🧡
No shops open to go back to brown. No delivery to get a dye. I was fucked.. I looked like Kathy Burke on Gimme gimme gimme

Thank God we weren't allowed to go anywhere 😆

Tinselpipes · 24/12/2022 14:18

tinofbeans · 23/12/2022 18:03

Our current drama is we've brought DDs pet giant African land snails with us to DPs for Christmas.
The snails need to be kept 21-24 degrees. DPs have their house at 18 max. After much handwringing, we have compromised and the snails will live in the airing cupboard for our stay Grin

This can't be real 🤣

DuchessDandelion · 24/12/2022 14:19

@5YearsLeft
Definitely start writing - start wherever feels right. Don't worry about what not to include just yet, that's what editors are for!

Also, In the UK you'll need to have your formal DNR forms physically on you for the wishes to be obeyed.

Ritasueandbobtoo9 · 24/12/2022 14:35

5YearsLeft · 23/12/2022 19:17

I don’t even know if they’re family but they’re all I have. My Christmases just keep getting more and more awful. I’m dying, and my husband decided to divorce me and get remarried before I ACTUALLY died so that his second wife, who was one of my best friends, could get a visa for the country where we live. I live with them because I’m too sick to live anywhere else, and too young and poor to live in a cradle-to-death home.

She invited his mother, who still acts like my MIL, for all of Christmas. MIL has early-onset Alzheimer’s and has called saying that her plane ticket demands she do all kinds of things and she can’t make heads or tails of it (she’s just flying EasyJet which she’s done 100s of times before so it’s heartbreaking). This is all being communicated to second wife, who she likes much more than me. I heard second wife telling MIL that they’ve scheduled a Christmas video call with my former DH’s family back in America - a group of people who used to really like me, but have apparently decided that I’ve one foot in the grave and it’s time to focus on the second wife.

I’m going to try to sleep through Christmas so I don’t have to deal with any of it. I miss Scotland (homesick), I miss my grandparents who used to make Christmas special (both dead), I’m stuck with:

  1. a man who claims he still loves me (pull the other one; it’s got bells on it),
  2. his new wife who hasn’t been speaking to me for over a year because she claims that me being depressed and bordering on suicidal over my illness and all I’d lost traumatized her, and normally I’d feel quite guilty for exposing that to someone, even unintentionally, except part of my depression was her treating me with such a huge amount of contempt for a year solid while she was choosing to live in our flat, completely funded by us, and trying to get together with my husband, while my condition was worsening and I was vomiting blood. It’s been months since she’s spoken a single word to me, and two years of monosyllabic treatment before that. (Oh, and I know, I have an enormous “D”H problem, but she was also one of my best friends, so I didn’t expect sudden daily hatred and contempt).
  3. And my MIL, who won’t remember all the hurtful things she’s said to me in the past 15 years. And will become unruly if someone gives her any plonk, which the new wife probably will.

Fingers crossed my “sleep through it all” plan works, which should be easy because I feel like shite. I wish more than anything in the world I could have hopped on a plane to absolutely anywhere and not been here, but I’m just too sick. Hopping on a plane might kill me, and I’ll never qualify for travel insurance as I haven’t for years, but it would be worth it. And maybe if I sleep through everything, I can dream of winning the lottery, buying a cottage in Scotland, and spending Christmas there with my grandparents back with me. Or even just one person who loved me. What a Christmastide clusterfuck.

Sending you hugs / peaceful wishes/ beautiful Scottish lochs and haggis - for the situation you are in sounds awful. Personally I would haunt them all from the afterlife.

VickyEadieofThigh · 24/12/2022 15:54

linelgreen · 24/12/2022 12:40

My middle son has just added his GF onto our Xmas day lunch and now told me via DH with 24 hours to go she is a vegan!!!!

She'd just have to eat the veg if that happened to me. I could open her a tin of lentils to go with it.

Fruit for pudding - job done.

MiniHouse · 24/12/2022 16:57

That's a bit random but it's their cat, their problem. They look after it.

No drama this year. In the past would sometimes be MIL got far too drunk and accused someone of doing something bad in the past that they may or may not have done and it was 10 years ago.

Marylou62 · 24/12/2022 17:31

I actually could take over this thread but I won't... I tell myself my father won't be here much longer so I'm putting up with his awful behaviour towards me...been going on all day..but once I've dropped him off at the care home tomorrow where my wonderful mother is I'm driving home..250miles I drove today and the same tomorrow..on Xmas day to put up with his rudeness.. sorry...had a gutfull and a glass of wine! Merry Christmas everyone and hope your drama's are trivial...

Tempyname · 24/12/2022 18:22

We always have a drama as one of my relatives in law seems to manage to find a reason to fall out with at least one relative a few weeks before Christmas ’every’ year. It’s so predictable and generally seems to be a disproportionate reaction to other people making decisions that she doesn’t agree with. She then often excludes whoever she has fallen out with. I really feel family events that include the majority of the family should be everyone or no one, unless someone is a violent type etc. For context the thing this relative didn’t like was that the other one got engaged. Both are over 30 years old! We aren’t going along with it this year as we feel she is a bully at worst, a Drama Queen at best. Others feel really conflicted as she would be otherwise alone if they didn’t attend her event but no one wants it to look like they endorse her exclusion of others either. Drama!

imnotthatkindofmum · 24/12/2022 18:26

Drama today is that Dh has refused to Di anything festive with us. Took DD to see Santa possibly fit the last time as she's 10 this year. He couldn't give a crap!

Obviously leaving me with the mental load too. Might go in the bedroom and cross out his name on all the presents I planned and nought!

Just a small drama. I hope those of you with bigger dramas manage a good day somehow x

ParannoyedPenguin · 24/12/2022 18:31

My back went yesterday 😒

ParannoyedPenguin · 24/12/2022 18:32

Sorry wrong thread 😅

Cuppasoupmonster · 24/12/2022 18:37

Who brings their cat with them, seriously 🙄

None here apart from DH had a slight row with MIL a couple of days ago. We wfh and she lives locally and seems to think she can just ‘pop in for a cup of tea and chat’ whenever she likes, and gets really offended when we point out we’re working and don’t have time.

Anyway DH put his foot down and when she turned up on Thursday at 3pm he refused to let her in, told her he was working and that she would have to wait until Christmas Day to see us. She made a huge fuss, said how awful he is to her and went off in a huff. So things will be a bit frosty tomorrow. I back him 100% 🤷🏼‍♀️

TabithaTittlemouse · 24/12/2022 18:58

@5YearsLeft thankyou, that’s really sweet. I had a long walk and got back and things have been slightly better. I think if I let the tears fall they might not stop.

MiniHouse · 24/12/2022 20:24

linelgreen · 24/12/2022 12:40

My middle son has just added his GF onto our Xmas day lunch and now told me via DH with 24 hours to go she is a vegan!!!!

Crikey, the couldn't tell you whilst there was still time for shopping. It sounds like they don't an ahead. I'd ask them if they want to bring their own food to add to the veg due to the lack of notice.

PearlclutchersInc · 24/12/2022 21:46

Ilovechoc12 · 23/12/2022 18:05

I'm going to refuse them at the front door.

They haven't mentioned it as they know a billion percent I would say NO.

They are hoping to let the kids see the cat ..... and I'm a mean mummy.

If they want their Xmas meal - they better not bring the cat to my front door.

The poor cat will of travelled scotland to London 😳😳😳😳😳 surely a cattery is better.

My husband was saying is it a cat on a lead , a boxed cat. God knows.

All I know is I don't want a cat 😡

Someone else must have more stresses? Gosh I love mumsnet 😘 x

Feel equally sorry for the cat. It's going to be mega stressed too. They sound like a right pair of eejits.

Rogue1001MNer · 25/12/2022 01:42

@5YearsLeft I remember you from your earlier threads a few years ago (I've posted too, I think)
I'm sorry things have continued to spiral downhill.
I seem to remember you were cheering for the new relationship for your DH. You were actively pushing it, I think

Thinking of you and sending love

Rogue1001MNer · 25/12/2022 01:45

African landsnails lady sounds like a CF!

Poor poster with the sick child, I'm so, so sorry.
My heart goes out to you.

@Ilovechoc12 hold girl, and good luck 🥂🍷🥂🍷 will see you through

5YearsLeft · 25/12/2022 02:07

@Rogue1001MNer Yes, I was that idiot. I definitely thought it could all work out somehow because he claimed he was so upset about my health and he told me he was at a breaking point and he “needed” someone else to do what I couldn’t anymore and truthfully, I was a complete and total fucking doormat. I should have insisted we go to counseling. And when my friend wanted to sleep with my husband, I should have never spoken to her again. Instead, now I’m an outcast in my own house. He treats me sometimes with slight amounts of affection, and mostly indifference, and she treats me with contempt. Writing a book would be really hard because I know I have to admit to all of that - that I made huge mistakes while I was sick and let this happen. If I could turn back time, I would do it all so, so differently. I thought maybe it would be better that he wasn’t alone. But admittedly, I didn’t expect that someone who used to be my friend would use actual phrases like “using your death to be manipulative” when I said I’d like to spend more time with him, because I have less time than she does. I just… I fucked up so badly. It’s turned out so horrifically.

Thanks for the love. I appreciate it.

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