DH has arranged to spend Christmas with his parents….on his own

[Jisforjuggling]

This might just be the end of us.
The ILs live in a different country and don’t speak English. We stayed with them just before the first lockdown and he has managed to visit twice since (albeit once was for a funeral). We are booked to visit in feb half term. DH wanted to go for NY. I can’t. It’s a day travelling each way to get there and back and I have work commitments that just make it not worth while. I said he could take DC for the last week of the holidays. This would be the first time has has taken the children on his own and he knew I was apprehensive. I don’t trust his manipulative overbearing mother. This was huge for me. DH presents me with the flights he is proposing to take. He has turned this into an 11 day trip which also involves cancelling 2 long-standing holiday plans. I said no. I agreed to 6 days, 7 at a push. He says I’m being unfair and preventing him from seeing his parents. He sent me a text last night saying he has booked to go on his own for a week over Christmas. In 11 years we have never spent Christmas with his family….in his words ‘they don’t really celebrate Christmas’. It’s never even been discussed as an option. I’m considering telling him if he goes through with this we are finished. (Yes, iceberg and tip are valid comments).

@pinkgin85

Why didn't you want him to go for 11 days? How many miles away do they live? My parents and family live 3000 miles away from me so anything less than a 2 week trip wouldn't make sense.

From the OP: This would be the first time has has taken the children on his own and he knew I was apprehensive. I don’t trust his manipulative overbearing mother. This was huge for me. DH presents me with the flights he is proposing to take. He has turned this into an 11 day trip which also involves cancelling 2 long-standing holiday plans. I said no. I agreed to 6 days, 7 at a push.

@Soontobe60

Are his parents elderly? I think if I hadn’t seen my parents in a long time and wanted to take my children to visit them then Christmas seems like and ideal time. They’re his parents, and his children’s grandparents, of course he wants to get them together over Christmas - that’s what lots of families do! But you don’t want to spend your holidays doing that - fair enough, that’s your choice. Now you’re saying he’s wrong for feeling that way, and you should come first, but sometimes feelings don’t work that way. My DH and I didn’t spend Christmas with my MIL in 2019, and she died in January 2020. He’s never got over the guilt he feels for not having her over on Christmas Day - and he saw her every week.

You’re suggesting you may well break up your marriage over this. So your children become victims of this, meaning that every Christmas from now on they’ll only spend with one of their parents. Doesn’t sound great, does it?

You both need to sit down together and let each other speak - be totally honest with each other. Why does he want to go so much, why do you not want to go so much. What’s the best compromise. Ultimatums never really end satisfactorily as everyone loses out.

Yes, this. It also must be sad for his own parents that they've missed out a lot on their grandchildren's lives. Sounds like you both resent each other and good counselling will help.

@JisforjugglingThe biggest victims of a divorce are always the children. So if you think a divorce will mainly "punish" him, think again. He will move on eventually (or quickly) and replace you with another woman but the children will have to deal with a broken home for the rest of their lives and have their childhoods and stability ruined by shuttling physically and emotionally between two houses and parents (I say this as a child of divorce myself)

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow I’m not sure what you are getting at. No family trip was booked (except the one in feb). I work shifts that were set months ago, I only have 4 days in a row off. He could take the kids when he wanted, just not for 11 days. He has decided to go himself over Christmas without discussion

@Greenmarmalade

If you split, he’ll have the kids 50-50. He’d be able to let his mum look after them whenever he chose, on his days/nights.

Just be aware of this in your decision making.

I think you’re well justified in splitting up.

Not when they're in a different country he won't.

@ShinyHappyPoster

From your initial post I thought your DH was being manipulative but from your later posts, I think there are faults on both sides. Your 'permission' for the trip was based on using your DC as a spy so you can try, from a distance, to micromanage DH's parenting and your DCs' relationship with your MIL. If you are there, you can intervene. If you're in a different country, you need to trust your DH to parent. I'm also now wondering if the long-standing holiday plans were agreed with DH in the first place or if you unilaterally organised and booked them. Covid has made lots of people re-evaluate family relationships. It isn't your job, to remind your DH of how you expect his relationship with his parents to look. A PP had it right when they said, you both seem to struggle to compromise. I'd be upset my DH wasn't seeing my DCs on Christmas Day but I would be focused on them having the best day possible and, for their sakes, I'd suggest you both go to counselling to see if you can find a way to communicate that isn't based on ultimatums on unilateral decision-making.

It's not about her husband's parenting. It's about his mother's behaviour with the children.

So this is another one of his tantrums?

I think that the best thing you can do is just say “ok - the kids will be sad not to see you but if that is what you think is best for your parents”. And then start making lovely Xmas plans for you and the kids. Make sure the kids’ passports are hidden (in case he realises that “punishing” you isn’t working as well as he’d hoped and he decides to up the ante).

Don’t make any decisions or ultimatums now. In a couple of months - away from the high drama of Xmas etc - I would think about whether you want to stay married to someone who is happy for the kids to be collateral damage in his “punishing” if you. But not now. Everything is too raw at Xmas time for it to be a good time to make such big decisions.

[quote Jisforjuggling]@Soontobe60 I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I haven’t said he couldn’t go and take the children- I said he could go, just not for 11 days. We have never gone there for Christmas partly because it’s a pita to get to and partly because they don’t really celebrate. They have been invited to spend multiple Christmases with us and always decline. They are early seventies with a few health problems, but mentally are mid 80s and always have been. Every time there is a health issue they make out they are dying. DH moved heaven and earth to go and see them and always comes back with ‘they weren’t really as bad as I thought’. [/quote]
Your DH is handling this in an immature way but @Jisforjuggling with this issue of Christmas, you're acting unreasonably. His parents are elderly so more than understandable they're reluctant to travel. There's nothing wrong with him wanting him and the kids to spend 11 days with their own grandparents, especially when they barely see then as it is. You're being really unreasonable so can see why he's unhappy. Especially when the kids already see so much more of your family, it's very unfair.

He sounds petulant, like a child who lacks boundaries.

Unattractive. I think you have been too accommodating for too long op.

@girlmom21 and @RedHot22
Just catching up on messages. Where have you got this from? This isn’t from one of my posts.

They have always been quite emotionally manipulative and only communicate between themselves in a language I don’t speak and don’t understand

I think if you don't respond to this decision and just crack on with planning a lovely Christmas for you and your children he'll either change his mind and not go or he'll go and have a miserable time. I doubt he'd do it again.

Well he shouldn't book anything without it being mutually agreed! What if you did the same! Bonkers.

I've got a lovely friend who is very close to her family and she spends all summer with her kids in her home country and her husband just comes for about 10 days. Which means they spend a month apart. She's also gone during xmas and sometimes he's joined them and other times he hasn't because of work. I personally wouldn't do this to the father of my kids, but it works for them and they're both happy about it.

The fact that he bails and then joins is very unsettling and I would struggle to be with someone like that.

I completely understand where you're coming from in terms of not trusting your kids with someone you can't trust until they're older.

I haven’t said he couldn’t go and take the children-

............. does he need you permission ?. Now I sort of understand.

@NovemberNovemberDarkNights Except they do celebrate Christmas, just not in the way OP wants them to. Different cultures celebrate Christmas differently.

OP, so why are you against the 11 days, if there was nothing else planned?

@PinkWednesdays

OP, so why are you against the 11 days, if there was nothing else planned?

Read the OP again

@Livelovebehappy
Spending 11 days with their ‘manipulative and overbearing’ grandmother is not going to scar them for life
That’s assuming she doesn’t kill them. Has previously left them unattended when specifically told to watch them due to a close by hazard (that we could t avoid), gave 3m old a plastic carrier bag to play with…..I could go on

@Clymene I have - OP said they have holiday plans but then they don’t?

Apologies for thinking that was you OP

They don’t speak English and you don’t speak their language either. It must be difficult. I assume your DCs are being taught both languages?

[quote Jisforjuggling]@Livelovebehappy
Spending 11 days with their ‘manipulative and overbearing’ grandmother is not going to scar them for life
That’s assuming she doesn’t kill them. Has previously left them unattended when specifically told to watch them due to a close by hazard (that we could t avoid), gave 3m old a plastic carrier bag to play with…..I could go on[/quote]
You’re ok with 7 days but not 11…so the 4 extra days is enough to potentially kill then, but the first 7 days aren’t?

OP said they have holiday plans but then they don’t?

Presumably she means plans for during the school holidays not an actual holiday.

[quote Jisforjuggling]@Livelovebehappy
Spending 11 days with their ‘manipulative and overbearing’ grandmother is not going to scar them for life
That’s assuming she doesn’t kill them. Has previously left them unattended when specifically told to watch them due to a close by hazard (that we could t avoid), gave 3m old a plastic carrier bag to play with…..I could go on[/quote]
I think you are being a little over dramatic here regarding an 8 and 10 year old. You describe your MIL and manipulative and controlling. But to be honest some of what you write here suggests that you engage in some of the same behaviour.

It really does sound as though you’ve tried to be difficult and unaccomodating to your DHs reasonable desire to see his family at some stage over Xmas. Despite having the luxury of living close to your own family.

The thing about how they celebrate Xmas was a total red herring and irrelevant- just a way of justifying things. That sounds like a typical European Xmas.

This is one of those threads where I’d genuinely love to hear the DHs side of things, I really would

This is one of those threads where I’d genuinely love to hear the DHs side of things, I really would

Same. OP sounds really controlling, dictating when her husband can take their primary aged kids to visit grandparents. I wonder if her DH is simply fed up of her calling the shots which is why he decided to take a screw this approach.

@PinkWednesdays - agreed. Feels like he’s come to the end of his tether …

@Clymene well there’s plans and their are plans
and it’s ok for bigger plans to overtake smaller plans. That’s life.

The fact that the OP has declined to specify what those plans are makes me think they’re at the “visit aunt maud on Tuesday morning” end of the scale rather than “two days in Paris”.

Imagine if this was the other way round - we have spent the past 11 years with DH and his family. This year I want to spend Christmas with my family, but my husband won’t let me. I decided to go ahead and see my family anyway, but now he’s thinking of divorcing me.