DH is British, I am not. We don't have children. When we got married we agreed that one year we would both fly to my home country to spend Christmas with my family and the next one I would fly to my home country on my own and he would spend Christmas in the UK with his family. For New Year we are always in the UK. In 2019 we spent Christmas together with my family. Then Covid happened, in 2020 we both stayed in the UK and 2021 I flew to my country on my own. Last September I told him that I was going to book our plane tickets for Christmas and he told me he would rather stay in the UK but "if I really wanted him to go" he would suck it up and come with me. He made it very clear how much of a big sacrifice this was for him (he has a close-knit family and loves Christmas with them) so I said, it's ok, I'll go on my own.
The problem is, I struggle with my own family and specially my mother. She has a history of controlling, infantilizing and manipulating me. My father is a nice guy but for the most part he has always enabled her, as has my brother. Over the years, I have become better at managing these visits on my own. 10 years ago we would be having spats (maybe 2 over the course of a week-long visit), 5 years ago I would have found myself giving in to my mother's control and hating myself for it. Nowadays I mostly feel really anxious, depressed and on edge most of the time, just spending a lot of time reading or working in my room or walking outside and hardly speaking about anything meaninful during meals because I learned years ago the hard way that any information I give my mother about my (rather successful) life in the UK can be used against me at any point.
When my husband is here with me, I find it easier, because my mother's control and infantilization subsides somewhat, and also because as soon as she tries something I can discuss it with him and relativize. But he notices (even though he doesn't speak the language) that the atmosphere at home is somewhat tense and he'd rather spend Christmas with his family anyway.
A few days before my trip this year he told me that in the future he would come to my country with me for Christmas "if I really wanted to". But I really don't know if the right answer is "yes, I do". I think that, no matter how unpleasant my past with my mother, it is up to me to face it like an adult, and not hide behind my husband or anyone else. I don't want to be needy. On the other hand, I resent my husband selling this to me as if it was a big favour he's prepared to do for my sake, when in reality, even if we did stick to our original agreement, he would get 1 Christmas out of 2 at home AND ALL New Years at home too, so hardly equitable for me. On the other hand, I do get Christmas without his family is a big sacrifice.
Thanks for listening.