Should we spend Christmas Day apart to support my recently bereaved mum?

[NorthSouthUK]

Interested to hear how others might handle this situation as it's playing on my mind, and my husband is being rigid about his obligations. My Dad passed very unexpectedly a couple of months ago. Mum is frail and struggling with her new reality after 60 years together.

Christmas this year is my husband's turn to see his daughter/my step daughter (10). DH and bio Mum alternate years.
Currently DC is scheduled to go home at 4pm on Christmas Day so she also has time with bio Mum.

I suggested that as DC is with us for the 4 days before Christmas, which includes her birthday, that on Christmas Day perhaps she could go home to her bio Mum at midday for this year only. She will wake up on Christmas morning with us for a special breakfast, Santa will have been, there will be presents etc. This would enable us to then go to my Mum's for the rest of the afternoon and evening to support her and allow Mum and me to share our grief and remember Dad without the pressure of everyone putting a happy face on in front of others.

DH is not happy with this. He understands DC's most important thing will be the presents, but his most important part of Christmas is Christmas dinner together and that it's already agreed the handover will be 4pm. I got a flippant response that DC might as well not come at all. He didn't seem understanding that I won't be prioritising putting on a show as I'll be upset and Mum will be alone as there's no family near her.

The only solution I can come up with now is for DH and I to spend the day apart - him with DC and me with Mum. Are there any other suggestions?

Why are you paying his legal fees and being out of pocket over someone else's childcare arrangements? You've saddled yourself with a selfish cocklodger, quite clearly. And of course cocklodgers don't give a stuff about the needs of the person they are grifting off.

Her mum doesn't seem to want to come and stay.

The people saying OP should put pressure on her DM to visit have no idea what grieving is like. Watching a child open presents won't automatically 'cheer up' someone so recently bereaved. It is just as likely to trigger memories of Christmases in the past and remind them of what they've lost. OP's DM wants to stay at home this year and that is completely understandable. As for the comment that old people shouldn't be sad when a loved one dies as they should have been expecting it, words fail me.

How far away is DM? This feels very pertinent to the planning.

I find it interesting that the idea that you perhaps leave at 12 and DH stays counts as spending christmas apart but suggesting the same for DC it's half the day spent together.

I agree Some of the comments on here are disgusting including OP still being expected to cook. I lost my dad on 6th October two years ago and the time between that and the Christmas is nothing. My parents were married for 59 years.

DDs mum is pulling all the puppets strings with your DH his mum her daughter and you. Year after year. She is not your problem though, you don't have to dance to her tune. Spend the day with your mum this year and let your DH deal with everything else.

My neighbour lost her husband in June but she did give her head a wobble and stay with her family at Xmas. She did know her husband was slipping away the last year of his life so it wasn't such a shock, although the day was pretty traumatic.

Go see your Mum on your own after lunch on Christmas Day. That way you still do Christmas with your stepDaughter. But you don't have to wait for your DH to handover at 4pm either. Your DH can then either join you later or spend the evening on his own.

You wouldn’t send your biological child away in this circumstance and neither should he. What would your solution be if you had your own child?

Because he only gets every other Christmas and its his young child , i would of thought that was pretty obvious .
Why should Christmas be ruined for 2 people just to please 1 ? Why would her needs/ wants come first ?

Drag them along so everyone can miserable by the sounds of it !

Actually, I'd only do the Christmas Eve with DH and DSD if he was likely to be grown up and enjoy the time together - and compassionate about OP's need to be with her own mother after their recent bereavement.

If he was going to be sulky, I'd leave earlier and spend a few quiet days at her DM's.

And it would take a long time to let go of that lack of support from her DH. OP has just unexpectedly lost her DF. If he doesn't support her, then I don't have much respect for him as a husband or as a human being.

Of course you would take your own child to her grandmother's - for a very quiet, different Christmas - a few months after you had all been bereaved!

What would you do - pretend that nothing had happened, so that the child has a jolly time?!?

Agree. Some of the comments about grief on here are bordering on sociopathic.

Jesus, your DH is a heartless cunt.

You should go be with your mum, I wouldn't want to look at his cunting face on Christmas Day, knowing my mum was sad all alone in tears.

As for you booking and paying for holidays for his child, then paying for him to take the child's mum to court??? Why the fuck have you married this arsehole? What does he bring to the marriage? What does he bring in terms of fatherhood?

Do you own a house together? Was it your house that he moved himself into?

I know, it's unreal. I can only assume none of them have ever been bereaved of someone very close, let alone widowed.

I think you should just go to your num
after 4. I understand DH wants to prioritise his every other year time with his DC

Your DH should not mess his daughter around on Christmas. It’s his turn to have her for Christmas dinner.

Either you explain to your mum you’d really like her to come to you because there is a child involved and you can’t come to her. Or you say to your DH that you will go by yourself, doesn’t seem a big deal to me to spend it separately?

It sounds like you don't have children together? I feel like spending holidays separately sounds like a good solution. Me and my siblings are all with a partner who has had one parent passed away so couples (married or not) spend holidays separately so nobodys surviving parent has to be alone so to us it is normal. You can spend the morning with husband and kids, then you head to mums, husband spends time with his daughter and then joins you and mum later.

Either go to your mums at 4pm or do things separately, you go to your mums at 12pm and dh stays with his daughter.
He only gets alternate Xmases with her. So the time will be precious and 2028 is a long time to wait, if he has to miss any of this year.
It also doesn't sound ideal for dh to come to your mums with you anyway. What will he even do while you and your mum are sharing your grief and not having to put happy faces on for anyone.

Why are you saying Christmas is ruined if HE has to cook Very telling

to support her and allow Mum and me to share our grief and remember Dad without the pressure of everyone putting a happy face on in front of others.

Why does your DH need to be there for this? YABU to expect your DH to cut his time short with his daughter over Christmas so he can sit and listen to you and your mum grieve your dad. Is it possible for you to go in the afternoon alone and then DH join you after 4pm once his DD has gone home?

But there's nothing stopping OP from caring for her mum that day.

OP could go in the morning and give DH some more father and daughter alone time with his daughter like step parents are always being told to do on here Hmm i wonder why the rhetoric is suddenly different now
Could it be that its because Christmas dinner has to be cooked and its well known that testosterone explodes on contact with saucepans!!!!!

But she doesn’t want to

I wouldn’t expect your DH to go and I would want him prioritising his daughter who is only little still.

Either split up this year or you go up and he drives up once his daughter has left? Alternatively if your mum is super withdrawn and sad would she even want you both round celebrating.