Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Spending xmas with sh*t relatives - support thread

3 replies

randommum82 · 14/12/2020 07:22

Says it in the title! This is a support thread for people having to spend Christmas day with people they'd rather not be seeing.

Share you stories, vent your rage, and breaaattthhheeee

OP posts:
randommum82 · 14/12/2020 07:27

Here's mine. Me and my inlaws live in the same apartment building so we're all isolated together. I get along with my MIL, she's a kind, sweet lady who never interferes in my life and loves our kids.

My SIL is another matter. She has mental problems and is a very bitter and toxic person. She spends no time at all with my kids, even though she's the only aunt they have in this country (my family is all in the UK) but if we ever run into her coming or going, she acts like the best aunt in the world, fawning over them.

SHe's never extended any help to us despite her own kids being grown and gone from home and her hving taken early retirement. Deespite this, life is always against her, people are always mean to her, it's always everyone's fault except hers.

My biggest issue with her is that once my older DS received quite a bad lifelong diagnosis, she bailed out of our lives completely. Never checked up on us, never asked me how I was coping with something so serious.

She's my DH's only sibling, and he copes by grey rocking and just listening rather than letting it go in.

Christmas day we'll have to see her at my MIL's. I'm consoling myself that it's only a few hours, then she can go back to ignoring us like she does 364 days of the year, despite her acting like a loud, over the top magical Mary Poppins aunt to the face of my kids and her latest litany of complaints about how the world and everyone in it has done her wrong. They're not fooled though!

Who else?

OP posts:
Caselgarcia · 14/12/2020 07:53

Growing up I only ever spent Christmas with my immediate family, so DM, DF and sibling, we maybe drove to GP's for tea on Boxing Day. Since meeting DP we have to host his mother every Christmas.
DP and me met 20 years ago and in that time she has never cooked me meal or invited us over to hers and she rarely visits us. She lives on her own and likes her own company and worries when she leaves her home. Every year without fail DP thinks we must accommodate her 'as its Christmas'. She does not want to leave her home, I don't want her here as she obviously does not want to be here and complains about the cold, too much food, uncomfortable chairs etc. She also has be be picked up and taken home as she refuses to stay over. Every year its the same and I don't know why DP thinks she has to come? She doesn't want to be here, me and the kids don't want her here moaning and DP just seems stressed all day. She'd much rather stay in her own home and speak to us on the phone on Christmas day.
DP just can't see it though, so we all have miserable Christmas day just because DP thinks we have to be together.

randommum82 · 14/12/2020 09:09

@caselgarcia that sounds rubbish! My SIL swings in for these family events and takes over all the prep which really irritates me because it makes me feel like the outsider of the family, between herself and MIL she'll set the whole menu and cook everything. I get no input and get to add none of my own personal touches. A friend helped me change my outlook on that - I was complaining about her pushing me out like that and she said 'So someone else has to do all the work and all the meal prep? Great! Enjoy it!'
That's what I intend to do this year. Since she has no interest in involving me, I'll put my feet up and enjoy the meal.
It's hard when it's inlaws. I wish my hubby would appreciate how much I dislike being around her. Whenever I bring it up, he says she's his only sibling and has stood by her a lot in the past before we met (regardless of having abandoned her only brother in a time of need - our child's condition is life limiting, she only ever calls to sob about her own problems and never asks her own brother how he's coping).
I think like your DH, they jsut can't accept that these people who are important to them are actually deep down, pretty crap human beings, and that we've had more love, appreciation, support and general happy times with our friends that blood family.

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread