Christmas: Family duty and feelings of guilt.

[whostheJohnsonnow]

Just wondering what the other single women of mumsnet (meaning those with no children or DH/longer term DP are doing for Christmas?

I'm mainly asking because I'm feeling in a real turmoil about what to do about mine.

A bit of background...I'm 37 (on boxing day, argh!) Lived in London for nearly five years. Live on my own; although I do have a boyfriend of a years standing. Tbh Christmas these days mainly serves to highlight the fact I have no children or DH (would love to have both)

It's just automatically assumed by parents that I will come home every year for Christmas. This year I'm really not sure if I want to go. I would love to hear how the other single women here are balancing duty with their personal feelings. I'm feeling really stressed and unhappy over it all right now.

It sounds as though your parents have other people coming for Christmas so won't be alone.
Your friend isn't a very good friend. I can't imagine telling a friend her parents would be "devastated" over something that trivial.
I stopped going to my parents every Christmas before I got married due to work commitments.
Tell them you have other plans hope they have a loveley time and you'll see them at x date.
You're the one who will be on her own so I don't get the guilt.
Some people are just far too overinvested in the mythology of Christmas as some sort of extended family paradise.
As someone else said on another thread it's just a roast dinner and some presents.

Rebecca. They will have my brother and possibly my aunt there. Without sounding egotistical (hopefully) I'm kind of the glue that holds these occasions together. Trying to stay upbeat, keeping the mood jovial etc. My family tend to get stressed and annoyed for no apparent reason. My aunt has had a go at me over the dinner table for two years running now!

I'm definitely with you on the overinvested bit. The days over and my family tuckered out by 6pm! I'd have a far fuller day staying in London with the boyfriend. In fact I'd have loved my parents to come here. It would have made me soooo happy. There's always a million excuses as to why it can't happen though...

What would your advice be to a friend in your position, whos?

Then I got the "you have to come home for Xmas. Your mum will be devastated" lecture off my friend last night.

That person is not friend of yours, infact that is probably the sort of thing your dad would come out with. I would jettison this friend asap, that person as well does not really understand that not all families are kind.

You sound like the peacemaker in their passive aggressive game; get yourself off the merry go around and have the Christmas you would like for a change.

I'm spending Christmas with the kids and New Year with the boyfriend. Last year was my first New Year alone for 22 years. I claimed to everyone that I was meeting up with friends in town, then shut the blinds, changed into my nightie and sat on the settee watching TV and eating junk food with the dog and cat until I fancied going to bed. I thought I might have felt lonely but in fact it was really nice, no pressure whatsoever.

Just say you've got other plans (no need for detail) and if they complain, just keep going on about how they will have to come and visit you some time.

I'd tell them to take a year out, and have a peaceful Christmas in London gleam.

It's so much harder when it's you though. Especially when you're lost in the FOG like I am. I'm just worried that I will lose contact with them altogether if my feelings of resentment keep growing like they are...

My friend isn't a terrible friend btw. She's just much closer to her parents than I am to mine. Therefore she's judging it by her family relationship iyswim?

So they want you there to be the focus - creating the joy and also acting as a butt for their frustrations?

Fuck that, pardon my Latin.

That sounds glorious raven. I am jealous of your massive, baked potato sized balls😃

Attila. My friend honestly doesn't mean to upset me. She's just a real family person, and she doesn't really grasp how difficult I'm finding my relationship with them right now.

It does feel very passive aggressive tbh. I am always the peacemaker, but I still end up getting it in the neck. I organised for us all to go to the cinema last Christmas eve ( after breaking my neck to get the time off work) Then on the night my mum had a strop with me and said she just wanted to stay in.

She apologised once I explained how hurtful I found it, but still...

Your parents are being very selfish. They expect you to jump through hoops to keep them happy, without ever making the effort to visit you themselves. No decent parent would want their child to spend Christmas with them just out of a sense of duty or guilt.

It doesn't matter how old and grown-up we are sometimes our parents manage to make us feel 7 years old again.

And you could bear in mind that when they were your age they were probably having Christmas the way they wanted and not trying to please their own parents.

Your ideal plans for Christmas sound absolutely lovely.
If you can over come the FOG and pluck up courage to make whatever excuse suits you best you will be so much happier in the long run.
Good luck!

La Contessa. That's a pretty good description actually. I'm always watching people's faces; waiting to see if anyone's pissed off.

No wonder I drink so much! Which also gets remarked on by my mum and aunt incidentally...

I suggest that you decide, from this year, to stop doing it. Just don't go. Claim vomiting illness (get your boyfriend to speak to them on the phone to confirm how massively vomity you are, if needs be - that will throw them) and just spend a lovely few days in London with people who don't make you feel like crap. It will be liberating!

Family isn't everything.

whosthe

re your comment:-
"I'm just worried that I will lose contact with them altogether if my feelings of resentment keep growing like they are...

My friend isn't a terrible friend btw. She's just much closer to her parents than I am to mine. Therefore she's judging it by her family relationship iyswim?"

Re your family of origin; are they really worth bothering with?. If they were not family would you want them as friends?. You would not tolerate any of this from a friend, family are no different.

How much contact do you really have with them now, what nice things do they bring to your relationship with them. They seem to relish using you as their dumping ground whilst you are very much the peacemaker trying desperately to keep everyone around you happy. It does not work.

I would suggest you read up far more on fear, obligation and guilt as well.

Your friend needs to be somewhat more empathetic; she is really comparing you unfairly and unwisely with her own emotionally healthy family of origin. Some people really cannot comprehend that not all families are nice; she seems to almost be blaming you.

I'm just worried that I will lose contact with them altogether if my feelings of resentment keep growing like they are...

I can relate to your comment.

It's like I got to 30 yrs old and suddenly despised the people my parents are. I hate feeling like it, I was always close to my mum... but things have happened and now I see her in a completely different light. She's selfish, negative, emotionally draining, manipulative and tries to bully people.

I know she would be heartbroken if I said that too her, but unfortunately it's the truth. I'm not even sure she realises she is like that, but I certainly see it now.

I also live a few hundred miles from my home town, since I was 18, so been through all this over the years and sometimes you just want to turn the phone off and ignore everyone.

I've gradually distanced myself more and more and stood up for what I want. It's caused some huge arguments and fall outs with my mum this year, she doesn't like it at all. I've also told her that I will not, under any circumstances, socialise when her husband is with her (they live abroad).. he is horrible in lots of ways, but sort of hides it.. I see right through it though. Anyhow, this isn't about me.

You need to make a stand, you will be spending the day with your partner. Lie if you have to, can you say you are "on call" as the other staff member may have to leave work at short notice? I hate lying to my mum, but I feel backed into a corner a lot of the time.

Attila speaks a lot of sense. I know it's hard to hear, and I thought that when I first heard it.. "Oh, they aren't that bad" etc etc.. but then it's starts to dawn on you.. and you start seeing it for what it is.

It's a hard process to go through.

If you don't have money to go away then I would do one of the following

Volunteer at a local homeless shelter, its what a single friend of mine does every Christmas. No one can bang on about how sad it is that she is alone because she is helping the homeless so not actually alone. She then goes back to her flat and has an M&S tapas buffet, wine, watches what she wants and visits family on Boxing Day.
or
Stay home in your flat. Go for a long walk in the morning, have the house stocked up with yummy food and drink for when you get back.
or
Is there a friend in London who would host you and who you would like to be with.

We always had a single friend of my Grannys for about 40 years, she was brilliant, great fun.

Oh give yourself a Christmas present and have a year off! I didn't realise that your poor boyfriend would have to go too. No, have a Christmas with just the two of you in London. Tell your parents you won't be able to make it - yes, you can say it's about the shifts if you like. If they mention your aunt you should say quite firmly, "Well, she isn't exactly making me want to be there, is she?"

They won't be alone - your parents have each other (something quite a lot of parents seem to forget) and they have your brother and your aunt. Let them all be miserable together.

If they mention is just say you are at home this year, because last you you moved work schedules, arranged stuff and whatever else you did and all you got was moaning and sniping and life is too short to make all that effort and get a bag of shite back, and on your birthday as well.

For what it is worth, I used to stay at home or at friends, for many many years. But would pop back for a few days in between just as an excuse for another roast dinner. I also had a sniping auntie and couldn't bear the long long days in someone else's house [my mum moved back to where she grew up after I left home] and with no one to go and see.

If you go - they wont be happy with you - will snipe at you and make much of your Christmas miserable and find you, and other things to be unhappy about.
their level of misery: medium
yours: ultra high

If you stay in London they wont be happy with you - will snipe at you and find things to be miserable about
their misery level: slightly higher
yours: ???...thats the question and where the balance of this problem lies.

Do you feel you are responsible for their emotions here?
Would you be more or less miserable if you stayed in London? it would seem that currently staying would staying force you to change your view of yourself in a way you were not happy with?
Overall - if you all had decent boundaries and respected each other as adults the second choice should be as easy to make as the first ( hence Atillas brilliant as usual advice)
You dont seem to see you cant make then happy or unhappy come to that - you can choose to make you happy though.

Your parents are shit
Fuck them and do what you want
For life, not just for Christmas!
[santa]

I'm single and childless but I go home to my parents every year. I am not so fussed about Christmas and could quite easily not observe it, but it's important to them so I make the effort. It's only one day and makes them happy. Isn't that what Christmas is about?

I think you need to invest in some counselling in the New Year as a present to yourself - it will see off the FOG. Why not book a lovely Airbnb or cottage twenty miles from your parents and stay there with your boyfriend. Then both go for breakfast or early lunch and go back to spend the rest of the day with him?

Could you really not point out that your Aunt is nasty to you and your dad moans on your birthday? What does your boyfriend think of you putting these people who treat you poorly first?

Isn't that what Christmas is about?
erm..no
that lovely but quite contentious view of what that one day is for is quite a recent thing and a view shared only by a tiny % of the population as a whole....

Oh what a shame! You are needed to work late on 24th, you really won't be able to get a train, but much better than someone with children having to do that shift. Still, your going to be fine being alone on Christmas day, and your friends and boyfriend will be around on Boxing day for your birthday. Never mind mum and dad, you're going to order some yummy food and put a brave face on, they really must make sure they don't feel sorry for you, you'll be fine. No, no, you know it'll be too much for them to come to you. You know they are really upset for you , but don't worry, not much we can do about it! Oh, there's the door, love to dad, bye!

^ go on, make the call, you know you want to...

I don't go home for Christmas OP and I have spent Christmasses completely alone before now and enjoyed every minute of it. I see my parents on Christmas Eve to exchange gifts and then leave them to it for various reasons.

On Christmas Day now, it's just Mr Sodder, the dog and I. We have something unusual-ish to eat and fall asleep on the sofa. It's much more enjoyable than being with my parents, believe me.