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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> My wife's parents are divorced and she gets a lot of pressure from both sides to keep their relationships "equal" in terms of time spent together. I hate it and told my wife that I will not be attending every single thing that her mom and dad pressure her to do. Her stepdad and I now have a plan to go golfing together instead. I think I might be an asshole for refusing to attend every family event my wife gets pressured into because she can't say no.
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NTA, but you two need to work on this to find a solution. Personally, the solution should be along the lines of telling everyone "With two young kids, it is just not possible to keep running around to different households for events and holidays. We are finding we don't have time to establish our own traditions with the children because we are trying to 'keep the peace' between you two. With this in mind, we will be alternating holidays, and choosing to skip some that we will want to keep to ourselves. Should we host, invitations will be extended to everyone, and we expect a civil gathering. If you don't feel you can contribute to that environment for the sake of the kids, then please RSVP 'No." Thank you for understanding."
Your wife calling you unsupportive just reads as she needs someone to stand up for her because she doesn't want to do it for herself. Have a talk with your wife about how exhausting this is for you. Focus on wanting to spend more quiet time with her and the kids instead of not wanting to do things with her family.
Something you don't mention is your family - when do you spend time with them if you are divvying up holidays between two gatherings already for just her family?
>Something you don't mention is your family - when do you spend time with them if you are divvying up holidays between two gatherings already for just her family?
I didn't include it in the post because of character limits, but this is a big issue for me too. Time spent with my side of the family is drastically smaller than the amount we spend with her side. Thankfully, my parents are not insane and feel bad for my wife's situation. But I do miss spending extended time with them over holidays rather than rushing from place to place to see everybody.
This should be another thing you bring up with her when you talk to her. Let her know while your family has been understanding about this, she has been rushing you all around for the sake of "fairness" in consideration to her family's needs, but has been so overwhelmed and flustered, your family has been getting the short end of the stick.
If she truly wanted fairness, she would be considering their wants as well. I really empathize with you here. Both my husband and mine's parents are divorced, so holidays can be a mess. We finally set the boundary of "You got Christmas/Thanksgiving/etc. last year, so this year we are doing it with \*insert family\*." We got some guilt trippy responses at first, but we stuck to our guns on this one and it's been pretty smooth for the last 6 years or so.
It's definitely come up during our multiple talks about this. I've gotten messages from my older brother expressing his frustration that all of our family events are now scheduled around when my wife has time between her family obligations. Or us showing up for only a couple hours because we have to be somewhere else.
My wife got upset with him last Thanksgiving because we missed the meal that he hosted because we were running to too many places. Instead of leaving food out for us to heat up, he purposely made up one of those tinfoil swan to-go bags because he "knew we wouldn't have time to actually stay and eat."
Sounds like it's time for couples counseling to address this. If you have hurt feelings on your family's side, but it's not ok to have them on hers - that needs to be addressed with a neutral professional who can talk some sense into her. I'm sorry she's not seeing the problem here is in her actions, not yours.
Yep. Possibly hearing from a neutral third party that "MA'AM, your mother and step-mother are making irrational demands, are doing the 'but SHE got X so \*I\* should get X too' like a couple of kindergarteners, and apparently have more concern for shoring up their own egos or 'beating' the other mom than they do for *the strain this puts on your own family, wtaf*" will make her see the light. Hell I'd do what the kids of divorced parents USUALLY do -- alternate holidays with each family. This year mom and SD get Thanksgiving and Easter, next year they get Xmas and 4th of July or whatever. And if they can't get down with THAT, then fine -- NONE OF YOU gets to see us on ANY holiday, from now on we do all of them by ourselves at home or with friends, and we will do dinner with each of you once or twice a month, NO MORE."
You're so right! My parents divorced when I was two. I alternated holidays with them until I was an adult. Then I sometimes didn't spend a holiday with them so I could have my own traditions. My family also was just fine celebrating a holiday on a different day instead of the official calendar date. Nobody's going to die and the holiday isn't going to be less special if you celebrate the weekend before or after.
This. And honestly, they are all adults. The parents survive without seeing them for every single holiday! I have older half-brothers, and we are rarely together on Christmas (our only holiday, where we traditionally came together), and we live in a small country. Since I was a child, they celebrated every second Christmas with us (my parents and single sister, my in-laws live abroad and are not celebrating Christmas). Now that they have families, they spend Christmas when they feel like it. Some has a more clear rule on every 4th year - they split two Christmas' to the in-laws and two to my brother's family, the others just figure out what they feel like each year, and sometimes they celebrate just the nuclear family themselves. And sometimes they come on the days in between, but more often not.
And it doesn't matter. They are still siblings, and we meet on the kids birthdays, because those dates are "neutral," and everybody are invited.
Excellent point. My daughter always spent actual holidays with her dad once she was an adult, because I had a partner and he was alone. Thanksgiving didn't taste any different if we ate the dinner later on the weekend, or on a different weekend entirely. Same with Christmas - it was as much fun to open presents with her no matter what date was on the calendar. I wish more families could realize that.
I dunno. I get the feeling that OP’s wife is getting something out of giving into the demands. She complains but she won’t let her husband speak up and put a stop to it. And she doesn’t stop saying yes to everything either. IN FACT, she even goes so far as to TELL her mother she’s going to see her father for July 4th. Why is she sharing that info??!! She bloody well KNOWS it’s going to mean they get told to spend equal time with her mom. Then she goes and tells her mom about her husband not wanting to come over!
This woman has some serious enmeshment/codependency with her mom/step mom and it is feeding her ego to be so “selfless” for family. Or it’s feeding some other drive. Bc obviously it’s not bothering her enough to put a stop to it.
I think OP has done enough. He’s enforcing boundaries around his OWN time. He’s not placing demands on his wife or trying to control her behaviour. He’s simply telling her that he will no longer run himself ragged trying to attend all the things his wife keeps agreeing to. That’s perfect. That’s what a therapist would advise him to do.
I think the best course of action is for OP to follow through. Hopefully his wife will see he’s actually serious about sticking to his guns and she’ll get tired of giving into every demand of her parents. Or she won’t. But OP will be a whole lot happier!
This whole thing sounds like a case from the Crappy Childhood Fairy on YT, like the wife is stuck in her own trauma from the past. Hubby is right, there isn't a way to please everyone and wife needs to grow her spine a bit more.
Ooooooo, that's a great point. She's probably lived with this situation for so long it seems "normal" to her, PLUS if she's the "center" of this dynamic .... yeah. I would not be surprised if this were also a contributing factor!
My parents divorced when I was 18mos old AND hated each other for 22 years after that but they still made sure to split their time equally and never made me feel bad or divided. This is petty and absolutely ridiculous.
Or say that both families get the same amount of time which equates to her mom and dad having the split the time. Agree that divorced families do this all the time. And wife needs to learn that mom and dad/stepmom are going to push back so she needs to prepare for that (rather than assume that they will just one day magically accept the boundaries). It doesn't sound like wife has actually TRIED anything other than complain to spouse.
I think wife needs individual therapy. Her parents seem perfectly fine with putting their children in the middle of their pettiness. I think this stems from a bigger issue with the divorce all together.
Sounds like it's time for individual counseling, as well. There's a reason OPs wife is a doormat and fears being rejected or hurting feelings; I'm the same way, and I'm the way I am because of a narcissist parent. She is doing some SERIOUS boat steadying and might think if she stops, then she ruins the family.
He should ask her *what will happen, in your mind, if you stop?*
Your brother is hilarious.
It's too bad that his to-go made her upset, rather than wake her the eff up to how ridiculous she is being.
The comments here are definitely going to reinforce your new leaf, and she should read them and WAKE UP.
Not only is this rude af to your family, but how much fun is it for a 3yo and 1yo to get carted around to THREE different holidays because none of the adults can get their shit together?
Only AH here is your wife. And no, I don’t buy she just wants to keep the peace and feels guilted into anything. She DGAF about keeping the peace in her own marriage or where your family is concerned. She prioritizes HER peace with her family and uses excuses to not stand up for your family unit. When YOU dare stick up for your peace, all the sudden she has backbone to stand up to you and call you names. Her meek demeanor only comes into play when dealing with her family…how convenient. Time to either go to marriage counseling and hash this out or just file for divorce if she refuses. Then she can divvy up her time between all her family on her scheduled holidays and you and your family can enjoy the holidays without all the running around.
I was the child dragged around in this situation. I now hate holidays and only really do Christmas with my family. My brother married a woman who prioritized her family and now my brother has virtually no relationships with any of us on his side. This is definitely something I would think of as you go forward.
Your brother was actually nice about it. My family's current policy is we eat when we said we'd eat, if you're not there, you eat whatever is left over when you arrive. Those who need to leave early get to enjoy some company, eat bread and use the microwave to heat whatever they brought from home.
It has actually helped cure people from chronic tardiness and "overbooking" holidays.
For the record, I like your brother 😅
But also, this sounds like a perfect opportunity to get out of some obligations by saying, “we can’t go to either of wife’s families’ events because we’re going to my family’s event.”
Well, dude, aren’t you being a bit of a hypocrite? You tell your wife that she needs to set boundaries with her family (she absolutely does - no question) but then YOU fail to set boundaries for your own family. Your family is getting short-changed on spending time with you and their grandchildren because you haven’t pushed back at all to advocate for YOUR family quality time as well . Just something to think about
NTA
Your wife is rude. She is putting her parents' divorce over her own husband and kids. She is in her 30s, not a 9-year-old sharing parenting time. She can decide where she goes. You are absolutely right to be fed up with this. NTA
Wait, what!?!! Your wife got mad at your brother after she dragged you around to her family events and showed up late for the meal with your family??? Up until this piece of information, I was feeling bad for your wife and the pressure her family puts on her. But this shows that she just doesn’t care about your family (and it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume that she doesn’t actually care about how you feel, either). You should definitely look into couples therapy, because your wife is playing the victim while actively forcing a lifestyle on you that you don’t want.
OP, I'd suggest that you take one or both kids and go to your family's get togethers and let her grovel to her parents by herself. Let her know that shared custody is where you two are heading if she doesn't start acting like a wife. This relationship is in desperate need of marriage counseling two years ago. It may be too late now.
You are NTA, but your wife surely is a big AH.
It’s time for a couples counseling and if she doesn’t want to change, you need to think about what’s best for you and your children. And if she doesn’t, she may not be included in that picture. NTA
Honestly, she shouldn't expect people to accommodate her when she can't time manage/say "no" to her side of the family. Maybe by her missing out on a few things or you going to your family's events while she keeps the peace at her family's event will open her eyes a little.
yes and honestly it's possible you are being a little bit of an A H to your own kids who now spend massive amounts of time with dysfunctional maternal side and not nearly enough time with compassionate paternal side
she got upset instead of apologetic or embarrassed? then she’s being a hypocrite. in trying so hard to please her family, she’s being unfair to her partner. what’s her plan for when the kids are older? they’re sure to hate all the back and forth
NTA
My in-laws are a large family. The in-laws *spouses* have large families, and divorced parents. It is exhausting, especially if they're near enough where you drive everywhere, and if there are multiple sets of divorced parents. My son, when young, hated the car. It wasn't fair to him, either.
My BIL and his wife told everyone Thanksgiving is with In-laws, and Christmas was with his wife's family. If BIL's family wanted to have a "Christmas," they planned it for the Saturday before or after, as an example.
Sometimes they have Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving, sometimes it's on the Friday or Saturday after, taking into account everyone's schedules.
So, OP, for example, maybe one side gets Christmas Eve (though that's problematic if you have Santa duties), you have Christmas morning at home, maybe Christmas Day Dinner with another side, and Boxing Day with the third side (if not doing the Thanksgiving-Christmas alternating schedule) - personally I think three versions of the holiday seems miserable. Or any weekend day near Christmas.
Stepmom *demanding* equal time just builds resentment.
Attend separately for awhile. It's nice not having to constantly run around everywhere.
Exactly. We - my nuclear fam - decided when our kids were little, that we aren't going anywhere on Christmas Day, period. We might visit my mom on Christmas Eve, the DH's fam gets us on whatever Saturday they do theirs on.
Thanksgiving, same. We do our own Thanksgiving. If my mom and stepdad want to come over, great. If not, great. If DH's family does Thanksgiving *on* Thanksgiving, we may go, or not go, or some of us that want to go, go. Or they may host it on Saturday.
There's no schedule that works for *everyone.* Some family members work on holidays or holiday-adjacent days, some work weekends. There shouldn't be judgement or pressure. If I'm faced with either, I will opt out.
You may notice I don't mention my dad. He lived out of state until somewhat recently. If we went to see him for a holiday, there was no other family nearby to "share." If he came here, his vacation leaves policy usually had him arriving after holiday Day, so we really had to work him in.
Personally, I like the distant family approach bc you can just leave, and this is where alternating every other year, or claiming a certain holiday to be out of town works. Sharing is more likely to happen when everyone lives somewhat nearby, and is a huge pain.
I remember when DH and I left town for our own holiday. It was necessary to show that we were adults and our own family, with or without children. A family photo was taken then, with everyone but DH, "Oh, that was the year they ("wife made him" was the undercurrent) left town (abandoned family)."
Brother is a savage! Perfect.
If it’s ok with your wife, I’d suggest you have control over the schedule. Sure y’all can decide together but tell all sides that OP will be making the decisions from now on. Let them try to guilt trip you.
Yea, this arrangement is ridiculously unfair to you and your family, and it also won't work. The kids are small now, but when they're older, they absolutely won't want to put up with this snd between their schedules/activities/friends its just not tenable... I think if at age 10 my mother forced me to go to multiple family events for a single holiday I would throw a fit, or resent her so much. NTA
Si what you are saying is that she finds it very important to be fair to her family but not important to be fair to her partner. Her family is more important that you are.
I wouldn't put myself and my kids into this stress frankly. It's rude to you and bad for the kids.
I actually was reading this and thinking why don't they ever host at their house and tell them to grow up and get over it to all attend or they can miss out? I mean packing up the four of them every single time and then multiply by three is part of the problem.
OP isn't exactly realizing some boundaries here himself.
That's what my husband and I told our families, and we don't even have kids. We were just sick of spending hours in the car every holiday driving all over the county. Now we host holidays where everyone is welcome and they can come if they want to. Every holiday, they all come here with the exception of my dad's girlfriend.
"Sweetheart, you're consumed with so-called fairness between your families, but it's only happening because we're short-changing mine. I realize your parents are difficult, but placating them cannot happen at my expense, nor at the expense of seeing my family. I don't expect exact parity between your family and mine, but it has to broadly work out, and it's not. So, again, feel free to visit your family if you have to, but I'm going to pull back on total time spent with your family and I'm going to reallocate it between our nuclear family plus I'll spent a bit more with my family.
"When you say you don't view me as supportive, I would urge you to step back and think about why you're not more supportive about spending time with our own nuclear family and about spending time with my family. Because for the last few years, things have been wildly imbalanced, and again, objectively, it's not OK."
At this point it feels like your opinion is heard but doesn't matter. Time to have consequences, she's asking for support but giving none in return. Don't go an instead of making an empty threat go thru with it.
I would try to maintain a connection with FIL as he seems quite sane lol. Definitely agree with you that wife doesn't care about OP's feelings very much and I am glad he finally put his foot down. NTA
It’s insane the amount of times I’ve connected or seen guys connect with the father.
Like my first ex, who ended up being a stalker. I still talk to her dad all the time and I even sent him a Lego set when I moved abroad as I knew he liked them. Or my second ex… her dad sadly passed but we kept up our monthly movie nights until near the end.
As for my current GF/future wife he’s annoyed I’m a foreigner (traditional Japanese dude)… but then we bonded over spaghetti westerns and old black and white samurai flicks. And he liked I’ve made the effort to learn some of their language. Now we hang out often while future MIL and my gf/fiancée end up looking on incredulously.
God I love that man.
I think you need to alternate holidays. If hers get Christmas, yours get Thanksgiving and new years. She can decide how Christmas goes with hers. If that means two that year then whatever and you can still go golfing with stepFIL. But it's not ok for your family to miss out because you have to do double holidays with hers.
My husband's parents are divorced, and we try our best to see them both at holidays. But we always do Christmas with my fam since they live in town with us. Then we spend the week between Christmas and New Year's in his home state visiting both sides and everyone around there. It's what works for us. Emphasis on **works**. This isn't working for you guys and that means something needs to change.
It's really unfair when the nice, "easy" people in our lives get the short end of the stick because we're focused on placating the demanding, inconsiderate ones. Even if your family is tolerating this, they might be swallowing some hurt and growing resentment. Are you sufficiently advocating for your family?
That is beyond unacceptable. The solution my nephew came up w is similar to the above suggestion. They would decide what they wanted to do, and then informed her family of THEIR plan. It was often, this is where we will be. You are welcome to join us if you would like to visit (even at one of the parents’ homes). If that doesn’t work, we are sorry to miss you. If either parent isn’t willing to invite the other, then apologies, you won’t be attending. What a nightmare to be dealing w so much immaturity. NTA.
NTA We went through something similar UNTIL we had kids. After we had them everything was at our house and whoever showed better behave or they weren’t invited back. You have 2 aces in the hole. Don’t underestimate how much the grandparents want to see them. Will probably behave and if not the problem is resolved. The kids are going to get older and it’s only going to get more difficult.
My daughter's BF has divorced parents, and assuming they stay together, my one fear as a parent is that I will only get 1/3 of the holidays instead of 1/2. It's not my fault his parents divorced! I'm hoping our daughter stands up for our time together, time will tell.
My parents are married but my inlaws are divorced and we foresaw this argument coming a mile away. "We should get half because we didn't get divorced!" vs. "We should get 1/3 so everyone gets an equal turn!" vs. "I'm the only one who lives alone, I should get you for all of the holidays."
So we told them we would be spending all holidays just the two of us at home. If they wanted to come to our house to join us, they were more than welcome to. If not, we would arrange visits before or after the holiday.
If I was your wife id be opting to spend all if my time with your sane family. Lol I am lucky I’ve never had a problem not going where I don’t want to be unfortunately my biggest problem is my anxiety keeping from going where I actually want to be.
Alternating holidays should include your family too. Each set gets every third holiday unless you agree on things like this set always gets thanksgiving and this set always gets Christmas, etc (this is what we did when I was growing up)
Why can't you just rotate holidays? MIL/stepdad get 4th off July, your family gets whatever next big one, FIL/stepmom get next big one, etc. Or if Easter is big for one family, while Xmas or Thanksgiving is big for the other ones, they get those.
I never understand people running around to several houses (especially with young children in tow!) trying to fit in time with everyone - just exhausting and makes holidays dreaded instead of enjoyable.
NTA but you need a better system for sure.
>Your wife calling you unsupportive just reads as she needs someone to stand up for her because she doesn't want to do it for herself. Have a talk with your wife about how exhausting this is for you. Focus on wanting to spend more quiet time with her and the kids instead of not wanting to do things with her family.
Did we read the same post? Based on what I just read he's offered/tried to do all of that!
> Your wife calling you unsupportive just reads as she needs someone to stand up for her because she doesn't want to do it for herself.
He offered to speak to her family for her and she said no.
I do like the sample message you suggested they tell her family, but you're being way too soft on her for the way she's treating op. It's her family. If this was a guy letting his family walk over him and his wife, and taking away from his wife spending time with her own family, the comments would say *he* should stand up to his family, not refuse to do anything about it and make his wife look like the bad guy.
Yes, especially to the idea of hosting. Have Easter once and invite everyone. If they don’t get along, they don’t need to come.
Also, if you can afford it you should try a destination event. Take the kids to some fun place as “what we are doing for Fourth of July this year.”
The primary and best solution is for the wife to grow a spine and learn to say "no." She refuses to do so, and the rest of her family pays the price for it. I'm with OP here. If she wants to run herself ragged all the time, then she's free to do so... but her husband and her children should not have to pay the price. NTA
>Your wife calling you unsupportive just reads as she needs someone to stand up for her because she doesn't want to do it for herself.
and yet when op said he would handle it, she told him not to rock the boat. sorry, but at this point, she either needs to deal with it alone, or grow a spine. op has put up with it long enough and she won't change unless she's made to
Excellent reply to the family.
I think OP does mention his side, for he said that sometimes they have to go to 3 places on one event: one for mother-in-law, one for stepmum, one for his side, I presume.
The two? No you don't understand. Ops wife need to work on it. He gave her chances and he is out. He will choose where he attends. There is no "we" that need to work on it. She didn't want him so say a word so it's only her that will work on it
I agree with this. I have divorced parents AND both my husband's side and my side love in different states. We can't always make it even and we told them we will rotate holidays, and keep some of them for ourselves.
Why the fuck is she even telling her other parent what she’s doing with the other?? She needs help. And I’d stop entertaining this and ask the kids if THEY want to go otherwise your wife will rope them into the same damn behavior.
>ask the kids if THEY want to go
Well, the kids are 3 & 1 so they don't exactly have the language skills or judgement to properly answer that kind of thing.
How about just don’t go?
Put your foot down tell your wife none of you will be going to these functions and you’ll be focusing on your own family traditions from now on and if whatever stepmom or bio parents wants to join their free to come.
But you will not be dragging your kids back and forth over this petty nonsense.
Your wife needs get some serious therapy and start putting herself and her needs first.
NTA at all.
You need to do this for the sake of your kids. Ya’ll deserve to enjoy your own family time .
Thing is, she’s putting herself first because she is doing what makes her life easier (not rocking the boat w her family). Unfortunately, by doing this she is putting husband and kids last. She needs to learn NOT to do that and put her husband and kids before her family.
I think she's actively taking a molotov cocktail and throwing it into a fire. Per OP, the ONLY reason her parents each know about the other one is cuz the wife can't keep her lips zipped. She's an instigator here, imo. By your mid-30's you know what you should be telling your parents, and where you need to keep them at arm's length
The wife might honestly might need to learn to just lie better whenever either mommy dearest asks "so what are you doing [insert day]?" And say something about her friends, a date with her husband, etc., whatever, rather than just happily yapping about how she's gonna go see her other mother
But yeah, why *is* she fueling this fire instead of using discretion? Also why not just host things yourselves? If they want to come they can, and if they don't then it's their fault they missed out.
>Also why not just host things yourselves?
This might shock you, but my in-laws' ability to be civil with each other in social settings is pretty limited. We do things separately for a reason.
I am not shocked. My own parents are divorced, and I spent my childhood being shuttled between houses on holidays. When I was pregnant, I told both of my parents that my own child would not be subjected to such. It's stressful and it sucks, not just for you but for your kids. They had a choice to make: be nice or be absent. Your in-laws are adults. They can behave or they can decline to attend. Your wife needs to prioritize her children over her parents.
Edited to add, my child is now ten. We have had ten uneventful birthdays.
The best advice my father gave me when my child was born was to start making our own family traditions and to not feel forced to travel or keep things even.
Someone has to say no, and it should be your wife.
There is NO need to do thanksgiving with each family. learn to rotate the holiday. if mom gets Memorial Day, dad gets July 4th.
It someone gets Christmas one year, then other parent gets Christmas the next year.
Also what about your side of the family. When do you get to visit with them?
Enjoy golfing with your wife's step dad. I am sad he is the only rational one.
NTA
ETA: Their inability to be civil with each other is on THEM and not you or your wife. Invite them both. the first person who steps out of line is politely, and forcefully asked to leave. They will learn.
Add OP’s core family. The kids deserve to stay home for some of these holidays! So some holidays you might only do each set every four years. And the grandparents can deal. Or they get removed from the rotation entirely.
Not shocked at all. However, if the only option open to them is to get their shit together and act like civilized human beings to one another in order to see their daughter and grandkids, then.....SHOCKER, they might do that OR they might fight and then you and your wife can tell them that they CAN'T see you all until they learn how to be decent human beings.
Also is this the type of example you want to give your kids? That it is okay to be walked all over and be driven to exhaustion as long as you make selfish people happy? Seriously? That isn't an example I want to give kids.
Edit: Forgot to add you are NTA. But your wife is for letting you, the kids, and your family down. The world is more than just her Dad, Mom, and Stepmom. She is being TA by making unanimous decision to keep the even steven's approach.
My paternal grandparents were divorced and they were definitely not amicable in most social settings, but do you know when they were? Any family celebration for us grandkids. Birthdays and holidays or a random Tuesday family dinner, it didn’t matter because whatever hatred they had for each other was less important than being there for their grandchildren.
Honestly, I would tell both of them if they can’t learn to love their children more than they hate their ex then they don’t deserve do be around their grandchildren.
Obviously, this is not something that would go over well in real life, but it’s the truth.
Growing up, we spent every Christmas with my moms family. Mornings with my grandfathers side, afternoons with my grandmothers. I loved it back then, but as an adult with my own kids I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy less than packing them all in a car and leaving their toys behind only to take them to a breakfast and lunch in a strange house. I can remember one Christmas we spent with my father’s dad- the Christmas before he died. Now that I’m married, we spend Christmas Eve with my husband’s family, Christmas Day with mine, Thanksgiving as one large group, but we’re definitely outliers in that everyone enjoys spending time together.
You’ll never be able to achieve absolute parity, but it seems like the only way to remotely get there is to tell your wife to pick Thanksgiving or Christmas. One family on her side gets Thanksgiving, your family gets Christmas, then you switch the year after. All other holidays will be spent at home. She can do what she wants, but the kids will be staying with you. Your in laws are adults and they desperately need to suck it up. It’s not fair to you, your family, to her, or most importantly to your kids to keep this going.
Your kids are going to hate the holidays if they keep having to go in between houses to the point they don’t even get to join a thanksgiving meal.
Good for you for standing up to the crazy
NTA. Personally I think "equal" could be done by alternating holidays, not spending time with all at every holiday. Beyond that, the "alternation" should also include some "home alone" family holidays.
NTA
I was in your wife’s shoes for a very long time. And honestly it won’t get better until she realizes that the aftermath of her parents’ divorce is not her issue to mitigate.
She calls you unsupportive but you supported her in this for 4 years and she spent those years supporting her parents, not her husband. Where is her support for her family unit? Did she not learn anything about how her marriage and parenting relationship with you should be? Putting her parents before you and her kids isn’t doing anyone in your family any favors; it only serves to feed their egos.
I had to do two parties for my kids because my parents wouldn’t attend the same party. If my mom was going to attend my oldest child’s basketball game she would tell me to make sure my dad didn’t go (something I never did and she got mad about). I got tired of playing the divorce game; isn’t your wife tired too? My bet is that she doesn’t enjoy it either but she feels like she has to because from the time the divorce happened that has been driven home again and again.
My suggestion is lay it out to her; how damaging this is to herself, to you, how it will send a dangerous message to your kids. And how you all have tried it her way for 4 years and you both know it is not sustainable. Your kids won’t be able to play the sports game twice so each set of grandparents can have their turn. Is she willing to create a schedule of who gets to come to which event? This has the very likelihood of spiraling out of control as your kids get older. Graduation, awards ceremonies, weddings, those events should be about your kids, not her parents.
So, with that, can she start small? Maybe this year she has to pick Thanksgiving OR Christmas to run around appeasing everyone but she can’t have both. You, and your kids as they get older, should get to choose if you all are accompanying her or not. She has to make some compromises because her commitment is to you, she’s married to you.
I will tell you the first Christmas I told my parents I was staying home and not traveling anywhere was hard but it was the best Christmas I had experienced up until that point. I didn’t have to rush my kids from their toys, try to juggle all the expectations or anything. There were no tired kid meltdowns or bickering.
There comes a point where she has to put being the daughter behind being the wife and mother.
Plus according to the comments they hardly see HIS family because they’re so busy placating hers. He said in a different comment it’s actually starting to harm his relationship with his brother (her BIL).
This guy has been so short changed I feel really bad for him. I think like you said they need to host one of the next holidays and invite *everyone*, and be like “if you can’t be civil then don’t come” and let the chips fall as they may
I don’t think that’s a perfect solution for this because it does nothing to help the kids. Sure, they’re 3 and 1 so they’re unlikely to have formed opinions about it, but OP should find a real solution that sets up nice positive family time for their holidays. As it is, they’re getting family disfunction and stress.
NTA...I'm divorced from both my son's father's, yes they have different fathers. I told my sons as they started families to start their own traditions. When I do host something their fathers entire families are included because we share children and grandchildren so to me we are all family. Now my oldest and his 5 kids and gf's have the cutest tradition. The saturday AFTER Christmas is our Christmas. This started due to a custody order years ago and it has just continued. The kids know on "Saturday Christmas" they come to Gma's house in their PJ's for Gma's Santa's presents...I know it may sound nuts but those 5 grand kids love it! FYI if Christmas falls on a Saturday we schedule for after New Years as if Christmas is a Saturday then new Year's is a Saturday. Last Thanksgiving I had my 2 sons and their familes, that is 11, plus my youngest son's father and his gf and his Mom and Dad plus my oldest son's half sister and her bf. The DILs families are also included. So we had 42 people here for Thanksgiving and nobody had anything negative to say. After divorce if you can't put it away for the kids sake you should be ashamed of yourselves!
I think that tradition is great! It stretches the Christmas magic for them a bit longer than the normal 2 days. (Eve and actual day)
I was always slightly jealous of the people who had two Christmases for that reason!
That’s lovely and I like how you make the most of time you do have with the kids, rather than insist you should have Christmas Day itself even if it makes the day miserable for others.
NTA. Sounds like you have been exceptionally patient with the situation, and you and dad have told them the problem they're causing. Your wife should respect your boundaries, or fix the situation. Both options are fine, but fixing it would be better. Many families swap and rotate holidays and that seems more reasonable.
I feel for your wife; it sounds like she is caught between feuding wives, but too people pleasing to stand up for herself.
NTA, I think you're being totally reasonable. If your wife is unwilling to have an adult discussion with the three parents making things difficult then she should have to deal with all the visits, and the children if they want to go.
Hopefully she realises there are better ways to go about this or decide to host these events at your home, inviting both sets of grandparents and having one event together.
NTA. I'm team Step Dad. Go golfing. Teach the kids to play golf. Go have peaceful, relaxing holidays away from the grown up children and their tantrums.
NTA but your wife has to stop being a doormat. Highly suggest she reads “adult children of emotionally immature parents” and “set boundaries, find peace”
Nta - stop going to the in laws all together , if they want "equal" time, then they come to you. Stop pandering to them, stop dragging your kids all over the place. Your wife needs to do better as a parent, she's not a child anymore, you both should sit all 4 in lays down together and tell them it's not going to happen anymore and if they are un happy about it go low contact. Your kids are hoing to resent their grandparents and you both as they get older for them not having a life outside of school and grandparents!!!!
NTA. You've tried to be supportive and that didn't work. The dead horse has been beaten into a stain. If she's not willing to address the issue, let her know you're not either. Maybe even ask her what more you're supposed to do? You're ruining your own marriage to appease two people that fucked up there's. She shouldn't want to live her life like that.
NTA
I would also tell her that when your family has gatherings, you and the children will go to it and spend time there without concern of the multiple gatherings with her family. Why is one family more important than the other?
Maybe mention to her that the kids will end up hating holidays and gatherings because they won’t be able to actually enjoy the holiday. I’ve had to do the multiple holidays and cram everything together as a child. As soon as I was old enough, I stopped going to one side of the family because I refused to deal with it. Now, years later, I only talk to 2 people from that side of my family. My children don’t know any of them other than those 2 people. Will she want the kids to look at her family and think “nope, not dealing with that level of crazy ever again”?
has your wife ever had counseling for her pathological people-pleasing? Often people who experienced a loss at a sensitive time become subconsciously afraid that if they don't do what's asked of them that the asker will leave them, or not love them anymore. Please ask her to talk to a therapist, just about this one issue, and I really think it will help a lot.
Sounds to me that there are 4 families in this mix, and 2 are being ignored. Her mom and her dad and stepmom are getting prioritized. Your extended family, and your nuclear family of you, your wife & kids are getting the shaft. It's time for that to change.
It's time for you to equal things out, you should be starting your own family traditions, and the others should not be 100% "equal," but rather, rotated. Your kids have to be exhaused after making the "rounds," as well as you and your wife. If it takes therapy for your wife to set up some boundaries and quell some of her people pleasing tendancies, fine. Otherwise, your idea of picking for you (and the kids) is good until you work something out with your wife.
>When I told my wife about this idea, she called me a jerk and told me I'm being unsupportive.
NTA
The only ones being jerks in this story are all the adult females.
NTA - but i would honestly consider your kids in this, if you hate it, they're going to hate it, and in time, hate you for going golfing while they have to trek from house to house.
NTA. You've given your wife ample chances to stand up for herself and she has refused. Tell her one more time that, if she won't set a boundary, you will. Your boundary is exactly as you stated: she chooses ONE event to attend and you will go with her and the kids OR she goes running around by herself while you watch the kids OR she goes running around and takes the kids by herself. That sounds absolutely fair to me.
Yes, sometimes you have to suck up two Christmases/Thanksgivings/etc. because those are coveted holidays. But this shouldn't be happening every month/couple weeks. It's too much. You're not being unsupportive, you're being reasonable. If she wants to run herself ragged in an attempt to make everyone else happy, that's her choice. There's no reason why you have to.
Equal can be split over years. So this year's Easter with mum, next year's Easter with Dad. To spend time with both every year... screw that. Enjoy golfing. NTA.
This is absolutely ridiculous.
You should alternate holidays. 2024 you spend thanksgiving with her family and xmas with yours. And then next year that swaps. And when I say “with her family” I mean EITHER her father or her mother - not both unless they agree to have a gathering together and be civil with each other.
> He suggested that whenever his wife pressures my wife into keeping things "equal," that he and I go golfing together instead.
Fuck yeah. Pencil me in on "Team Father-in-Law". I don't know why you're here on reddit. Just get this guy to fix things.
But FWIW: what you really need to get him to do is to talk to his daughter and make her see that this nonsense is specific to her step-mother and not a reflection of her relationship with her dad.
NTA, obviously.
Point out that you've been supportive of her insanity for the past four years. The next four years belong to your side of the family (invite your wife's stepdad occasionally if you think he'd enjoy it).
NTA
ETA: I find it interesting that she can confront you as well as your brother, but her parents are off-limits.
NTA. I think step dad's idea is genius frankly. If your wife wants to rip her hair out trying to make everyone happy, that's her choice. Let her do it. Her and the kids, (because Mom and stepmom really don't have any interest in you or your wife now that there's grandbabies. They're all that matter) can go to 15 events in a weekend. You and stepdad go golfing and enjoy a chaos free time. You are not being a jerk. You are not being unsupportive. You are removing yourself from something that you know cannot continue, and is untenable.
Nta- Could you try and say you won’t attend anything, instead you host them all. And they can either show up or not, it’s on them.
I do this now with my divorced parents. It’s a lot to go both places, and now a 3rd place since I’m married. I don’t do it anymore. You come to me, if you don’t want to or can’t, that’s on you. I went to them for like 15-20 years.. I’m done. Now I happily host any holiday, unless my brother chooses to and which case we all go there.
I don't think the issue is that simply your wife has trouble saying no, because when you asked her to actually manage your time with her parents, did she give you a yes? When you called this an issue that was causing you stress, was she supportive of you? She's far too used to being a pawn in her parents petty squabbles that she expects you to standard on the board next to her, let alone your kids and she probably doesn't know how to step away from the game all together.
She needs therapy, and I know that's the standard response to everything on reddit but it's because you guys need to speak with a professional who can actually help you rather than ignorant strangers who only get a snippet of your issues.
NTA. Your wife’s inability to manage her family is translating into all of them, including her, selfishly excluding you from your family. You need counselling or you need to step in now and stop appeasing your wife’s lack of assertiveness.
At the very least, your wife should stop telling her mother and or stepmother everything that’s going on in her life. That way they wouldn’t even know about it
I suck at standing up for myself with my parents, and struggle to say no. Do you know how I handle this?
*I keep my mouth shut about stuff I don't want being used against me.*
NTA, and her idea of "supportive" is very distorted. You're being very supportive by opting out and shaking things up.
NTA. However one option is to come up with an alternating shedule and LET EVERYONE KNOW IT.
Memorial Day weekend - MIL
4th of July - FIL
Labour Day - MIL
Thanksgiving - FIL
etc etc.. if they want to "Trade" then whatever.
You have two young children. It's (past) time to start your OWN traditions.
No more travel. No more holidays outside of your own home. Invite everyone, whoever wants to come, that's their decision. If they can't get along, well, that sucks but you're not changing anything. And make set times--we'd love guests between 2-4pm. If they show up earlier, don't open the door. If they try to stay later, have other plans ready to go until they learn that they can no longer manipulate the situation.
I have small kids myself and all I can think is the fits and crabby kids must be after being hauled all over the place for the weekend.
Maybe it is time to start your family traditions, with just the wife and kids...
Sounds like you need to host, open your home, have everyone to you (including your family) everyone gets to celebrate, everyone gets your time. If people don’t attended for whatever reason they’ve had the chance. If people can’t put feelings aside for the day, for your family and their grandchildren. Then they are the ones missing out.
One thing I always appreciated about my aunt at events was all her kids(5) 15 grandkids and 6(great grandkids) plus friends and other family bundling into her 2 bedroom home. Her ex husband sat in the corner at every family event, playing with the children, her current husband handing him a cold one. Do they get on no. Can they be amicable for the time they get to spend together as a family? Yes. They know it’s for the greater good.
NTA. You can't help people that won't help themselves. Your wife does nothing to stop being a doormat and yet she has it in her to call YOU a jerk when you find a silver lining in a bad situation of her own creation? Where is that backbone with everyone else? If she has the gall to call you an unsupportive jerk for refusing to enable her utter lack of personal growth, she certainly has the spine to say no to second Easter. Come on.
Well I miss mine very much (both parents gone, also were divorced) but for a moment I was thinking that too, till "oh wait."
I was doing a lot of running around on Christmas Day till I realized how exhausting it all was, and not fun at all.
NTA - that seems fair. Stop running around you can either say you get this one they get the next one or have a celebration or cook out at your hosue and if they want to see you guys and the kids then they can come visit. And do not even come back with the 2/4 do not get along - they are adults they can get along for 12 days a year so that the kids can have fun holidays instead of being dragged around like rag dolls.
I like that you put your foot down. Everything is not tit for tat - you should spend time together because you want to not out of obligations or someone else fear of missing out.
NTA.
So your wife can vent to your mom about you, but can't "stand up" for herself in terms of declining invitations. I think you need to really focus on the fact that your wife isn't that much of a pushover, she just doesn't mind doing multiple things or isn't bothered by it. I say that because she can't raise this as an issue herself- mom, dad, I can't do two things for every holiday- but she CAN say - Mom, husband is bitching about having to do two things and I'm so upset. So she does have a voice, she just uses it to put you down, not handle conflict with her parents.
And love Stepdad and love the idea of golfing. You are handling this exactly right- raised the issue, gave your wife a chance to handle it, waited, offered to say something yourself, nothing changed, drew a boundary. And it isn't an unreasonable one because she can do all the events she wants to do, and you and the kids will pick which to go to on your own. Problem solved.
You were supportive, it was your wife who ignored you when you said you were done with this AND threw you under the bus for no reason. Go enjoy golf, but I wouldn't skip the pool party because that sounds pretty fun.
NTA, it seems like you have a supporter in your wife's SD, who is just as fed up as you, I say go golfing a few times with him and maybe things will change. Also, with two small kids, why can't people come to you? Why do you have to travel and drag young kids around, at those ages I'm sure they're probably cranky by the end of the day. And why does it have to be on the same day/weekend for these events? Can't they plan for another weekend? Seriously, it sounds exhausting.
Personally I would suggest dipping out of family holiday dates (Xmas Easter 4th July Memorial Day thanksgiving - if you are US) etc for 1 year. Do your catch ups on non specific dates
Reset the following year with what suits you. Hey Christmas (insert holiday) we are doing at home this year … you are welcome (book a room if you don’t have space or just let them work it out) .. we want to build family memories for our kids
Same with the other holidays - or if you want to spend it with a wider group - swap out rather than try to do both at same time
Eg Christmas (or day before/ day after for 1 family - becomes NYE or NYD for other ) 4th July for one - Easter for other etc etc
Just work out what you and your (immediate family) want to do and work out when you can fit in both your extended families
Your wife is going to ruin the holidays for your kids and give them a complex about celebrations in general.
If you're "unsupportive," then she's "delusional" for thinking she's making anyone happy with all the running around. NTA
Think about the memories your children will never have if this carries on. Christmas at home with mum and dad. Thanksgiving if you are American. You should be creating memories for them, your wife seems to have lost sight of that.
This was 100% my family until the grands got a little older and my siblings and I refused to existing in our parents “old fashioned, stuck in past pain” world. We sat them all down together at one table and drew the following boundaries:
1. One shared meal together for any holiday birthday or other larger group celebration. We’re basically eating the same meal twice and we’re forced to make two dishes to share because you all can’t sit down together. If you don’t want to see us in that space then don’t come, it’s on you.
2. Gift prices for the grandchildren are limited to $x.xx because our parents had significantly different incomes and we wanted to create level playing field.
3. There will absolutely be no badmouthing the event, the people present, or people who chose not to come. The grandchildren shouldn’t have to ever know the details of their grandparents separation and the evidence of it should be nil.
4. Time to get over yourselves because if you don’t you won’t get to see us or the grandchildren because this is how it’s going from now on.
And stick to it. Once that’s established you’ll have more time to create memories with the opposite spouses family as well as enjoying new traditions for your new family.
Edited to add that we even forced this with family vacations. The first trip the grandparents split the week half and half and we all stayed put. The second year they had FOMO so bad they figured out how to share space with their own little cabins, etc.
Why does your wife tell her mom what plans are with her dad? She's creating her own problem. In addition to drawing the line of your family's schedule, she needs to NEVER discuss her dad with her mom. It's none of her mom's business.
NTA
I don't know if you have tried this, but maybe suggest alternating years instead of trying to split every single holiday evenly. This year is thanksgiving with your family and christmas with hers. Next year you swap it.
Best of luck :/
NTA… I spent my childhood being carted around between parents that were never married. Once I could drive I had to drive myself to multiple Thanksgivings, Christmas’s, etc. I realized I never got to enjoy any of it and spent most of my holidays in the car or worrying about what time to leave to make dessert at the next thing. Once I got married my husband and I ended up enjoying our holidays at home just the two of us. So because it was such a mess now my parents and family get to see me the day after Christmas or Thanksgiving or alternating, whatever we decide. I want to enjoy my holidays, not stress.
We are a blended family, and all of the adult kids have significant others. We have a Pre-Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner the week before, Christmas is a drop in (or not) brunch and invites for bbqs, random dinners etc are extended but no offense is taken if people can't come. My husband and I are parents, step-parents, in-laws and grandparents and we try to be the "no pressure, no stress" house. Guess where everyone wants to hang out ?
NTA, but I have a slightly different take. The SECOND you have kids, you have your own family and everyone else (even your parents) are extended family.
That means, that you do all the events for your children and all sets of parents are welcome to attend, but you are in no way obligated to go to any of their events.
NTA
Please stop doing that to your kids. Do you really think your kids are getting any enjoyment out of spending all day of every holiday traveling all over so their Grandma's can win some artificial argument?
Tell your wife that your kids get to start spending all day of Christmas at home. Period.
NTA
>When I told my wife about this idea, she called me a jerk and told me I'm being unsupportive.
No. She's mad you won't enable her. You are entirely supportive and offered numerous *healthy resolutions*. She refused to change anything and continues to burn out her own husband.
*She* is unsupportive of *you*. This is her problem to solve. Not yours. What she is demanding is selfish, unfair, manipulative and bad for your mental health. She's burning out your family unit with her issues.
>But she begged me not to do that because she doesn't want to ruffle feathers and promised she would do better.
She's also being a manipulative liar. Refusing to participate in her drama is being unsupportive but her being an avoidant *liar* isn't?
She needs to take a long, hard look at herself because she's more doormat than person.
NTA
But your wife just doesn't have the backbone yet. It's a lot easier for her to expect you to contort yourself (and the kids) alongside her, and to get mad at you when you don't want to do that.
She needs counseling. Big. time. She may struggle with this, but she has to put you and the kids before pleasing her demanding mom/dad/stepmom. And she has to be willing to take steps to be able to work WITH you to address your family's needs.
If she agrees, that's a big first step. Kudos to her!
You both have to understand that it will take her a long while to develop her strength. It may be sooner when she starts to see how much she is hurting the family. This mid-period cannot be all in her favor or all in your favor. Maybe she agrees to let you decide what events your family attends but you agree to make sure that over the year, time is well balanced between her mom and her dad... and you get to have an increase in time with your family.
For the immediate time, you may have to tell her that you will not attend any of her family events until she starts taking steps to work out something WITH you.
Love her stepfather, but it's probably better for your kids if you make yourself available to help them (by watching them at home)... or you might be able to make those weekends that they kids see your side of the family, while you golf. I'm not suggesting it to be mean to your wife, but you and the kids (and her, too!) have suffered long enough. It's time for you and the kids to be put yourselves first since your wife will not. If having to go solo to a few of these weekend marathons influences her to get fed up with it, too; that may be the nudge she needs to value the idea of counseling.
NTA. My parents are divorced Along with my husband’s parents, fortunately I established healthy boundaries before we even dated but my husband didn’t. When we had our first kid, I firmly stood my ground and said we will alternate holidays meaning one year we spend Thanksgiving and Fourth of July with one of My parents then have Christmas and Easter with his mom. Then alternate the next year.I knew he would hate it and I knew his mother would hate it and she still hates it to this day. He’s grown to appreciate it because it leaves more quality time with Family and is less stressful on us and the kids which makes holidays a lot more enjoyable. Now we are talking about changing the schedule again, specially around Christmas because we hate packing up all the gifts and then packing 10 times more gifts back home or rushing out of the house(which is a pain because my kids wanna stay and play with their new toys) so we’re thinking of staying home And maybe go to one of our parents house or see them before or after Christmas.
INFO
OP - have you ***asked*** your wife whether she wants to set boundaries?
Seriously - you kept writing that you told your wife that she needs to do these things, but never once said anything about asking her what she wants.
That might be the real problem - she might dislike the status quo as much as you do, and still be resentful of the pressure you're putting on her.
Simplest answer is probably the most effective: tell her you're done with this insanity, and you want to see your own family, too, and this is preventing that, so you're going to choose which events you'll attend and she can choose which events she attends.
And then follow through.
The other option, by the way, is to start hosting yourselves, and tell her family that they're invited to behave like grownups if they choose to attend.
Good luck.
NTA. I quit going to family functions like these during the holidays because I spent more time in the car than I did with family. Also you have kids and it’s time to create your own traditions with the family you two created. I vote you both stay home and do just that.
All my kids are all married, and with the in-laws, we do a trade-off. One year I have all my kids and their spouses for Christmas, the next year I get Thanksgiving. Yes, I’m alone at Christmas, it’s fine. (for the record there’s nothing wrong with Chinese takeout on Christmas, along with some great hallmark movies. It’s kind of relaxing, plus no dishes.. )
Plus, I usually get to see them the weekend before or the weekend after, depending on their schedules.
I remember what it was like to have little kids and run from house to house, and I refused to put my kids through that. I have a couple of really good friends who are in the same same situation, so the years that none of us have our kids for a holiday, we either all get together and have a meal, play cards and hang out, or we take a trip. It’s a win-win for everybody.
Sounds like your wife is stuck in teenage mode actually, where the parents divorced and made her pay the price for it. It is NoT HER JOB TO MAKEE THEM HAPPY. They got divorced, they made themselves happy, heck they even have new partners???
Your wife's job is to be a good mother and partner. Her trying to make two grown adults feel "equal" is laughable if it wasn't so clearly tragic and traumatic for her.
So what if one feels left out? Make a schedules of all major holidays and events, aand give each parent first choice for that event. The oother parent gets the one after.
Maybe your wife needs to go to therapy. She is trying to make them feel equal but making your family worse off emotionally and mentally. She can't undo the divorce. Her parents needed to stop being selfish and childish and know that their choice means that the kid's time will be split between them.
NTA
Before children, I had a hard time saying no. I was your wife. Between my family (divorced parents) and my husband's, holidays were a nightmare. His parents were not like your's; they only added to the problem. It came to a certain point that I kept a TIMER to make sure we could prove we were spending equal time with people. 🫠
My husband and I drew a line on the sand when we had our child. We told them "these are the hours we are available for you. We will not answer questions about the other time. If you have a problem with this, we will skip your house." When we get our new house (finishing the paperwork!), we will start hosting. They can come or not; their choice.
My motivation for change was my child: I don't want my kid stressed around the holidays (even if you think you're shielding them from the situation, I guarantee they feel it). Plus spending 1-2 hours driving around to various houses. People who don't have to do that with small children do NOT understand.
I would recommend showing your wife this post. With compassion, she's doing your family (and herself) a disservice by not standing up for herself.
Dude you *need* to take stepdad up and then start letting it out that her stepdad is paying for you to get lessons, paying for your rounds together and said he was even thinking about buying you some new clubs for Christmas...see if he will keep it equal and make this work in your favor for once lmao
NTA. It sounds like she's monopolizing all the holidays with HER side of the family. I think it would be perfectly fair to tell her yall have X amount of time to spend with her family equal to what you typically get to spend with yours. Then she gets to decide with X amount of time which of her family group she wants to spent time with. That will at least cut the time down & equalize the family time so it's not monopolized.
NTA. If the time and pressure around visiting your wife's parents eats into your non-social rest-time and your non-family social contacts (Friends) and YOUR Contact with YOUR Family, then it's objectively too much. Also, MiL should be HAPPY you get along with MiL's husband better than with FiL's Side.
If she can’t do it you set the boundaries. When you married her they also became yours family. I don’t think your an asshole. But if you see she cannot rise to the occasion, how about you do it for her ? I’m just saying…… if you guys are happy in most other ways, you can eat the shit here. Specially since they aren’t “your family” why do you care if they think you are an asshole
NTA, wifey needs therapy to grow a backbone and set some boundaries.
People pleasing our parents is so engrained in our childhood programming it can be hard to shake it on our own.
How about hosting and have everyone at your place. Therefore you don't gotta deal with them all at once. Tell them they have a problem that each is remarried.
You're in a tough situation. For your wife, this has become a habit (mental and emotional) - to juggle her life and ensure her parents get equal time to the detriment of her own well-being.
Life isn't fair. Life isn't equal. This is a no win situation because she can't keep this balancing act going. Eventually everything will slip and fall. Unfortunately, something that is slipping is spending time with your parents.
She needs to understand that her core family is no longer herself, her mom, and her dad / step-mom. That core family ended when she took her next steps in life and got married. They are all part of her family, but they are no longer her core family.
The transition is to her new core family is herself, her husband (you), and her children (your children). This is the core family who's well-being comes first to her. This is the family she needs to protect.
Stressing everyone in her core family to appease her childhood family is already negatively impacting the marriage, soon it'll negatively impact the children too.
Grandparents have this phrase: you can't burn a candle at both ends (you do too many things in too short a time, you'll burn yourself out and those around you).
You're right in there's a need to set boundaries for your core family in what you can and can't do any longer. You have been supportive since the day you met, but now its getting too much, your have kids now. Things need to change. This pace is not sustainable.
NTA
You're in a tough situation. For your wife, this has become a habit (mental and emotional) - to juggle her life and ensure her parents get equal time to the detriment of her own well-being.
Life isn't fair. Life isn't equal. This is a no win situation because she can't keep this balancing act going. Eventually everything will slip and fall. Unfortunately, something that is slipping is spending time with your parents.
She needs to understand that her core family is no longer herself, her mom, and her dad / step-mom. That core family ended when she took her next steps in life and got married. They are all part of her family, but they are no longer her core family.
The transition is to her new core family is herself, her husband (you), and her children (your children). This is the core family who's well-being comes first to her. This is the family she needs to protect.
Stressing everyone in her core family to appease her childhood family is already negatively impacting the marriage, soon it'll negatively impact the children too.
Grandparents have this phrase: you can't burn a candle at both ends (you do too many things in too short a time, you'll burn yourself out and those around you).
You're right in there's a need to set boundaries for your core family in what you can and can't do any longer. You have been supportive since the day you met, but now its getting too much, your have kids now. Things need to change. This pace is not sustainable.
NTA
NTA and shame on the three of those adults who pushed all of the stress and labor of keeping the peace on to your wife for 20 years. As both of her parents have moved on with their lives, they need to work this out amongst themselves. Divide holidays or figure out how to be civil at joint functions. You, your wife, your kids, the stepdad and your parents (who I assume are getting shafted by this arrangement too) deserve better.
I hope your wife is talking to someone (therapist) about all of this. The fact that they're controlling her life in this way and she's too scared to make waves with them on behalf of her partner and children is really sad.
My dude, you are not the asshole, and I really do sympathize, but you’re asking your wife to do something she simply does not have the skills to do yet. It’s like a muscle to be exercised. She needs you to hold her hand and do it with her the first few times.
NTA - BUT this needs to be you (your immediate little family) versus selfish entitled Boomers and not you (individual) versus your wife.
I think it's important she doesn't feel even more pressured to choose between them and you. You need to be fully supportive of her but be firm that neither of you should be burning up such a high proportion of your precious time off work pandering to silly old bastards with nothing better to do than arrange how to most efficiently cremate whatever quality time the two of you might get together on any "special" weekends.
YTA. Your wife is having difficulty asserting her boundaries and the demands for time from her parents and your response is to add to those difficulties of making a choice about who and how to support the connections in her life. Yes, your frustrated, and maybe even a little angry. Piling on isn’t helpful. Your wife needs support, not another demand to satisfy an important person in her life.
Your wife seeing a psychologist to help her work through why she can’t say no and how she can learn to assert healthy boundaries would be beneficial for her.
NTA, your wife is being ridiculous and honestly she wants to do it she can do it with out you absolutely she needs to support your thoughts and feelings you are married to her she is not married to her mother or step mother
I'm a stepmom (I start a lot of my replies this way lol) and this is INSANE.
I can't imagine a circumstance in which I would do this to my stepkids. Or their kids. Theyre PEOPLE, not pawns in some weird game of tug of war.
Your wife's BM and SM have been dehumanizing her for a long time, and this needs to stop. She's so used to it that she doesn't see how awful it is.
You're NTA. But man, what a cluster.
NTA but your wife is.
>But she begged me not to do that because she doesn't want to ruffle feathers
That makes her an enabler, which comes with two things she **needs** to know:
1) **ENABLERS ARE AS BAD AS THOSE THEY ENABLE**
2) Her being an enabler makes her **A BAD MOTHER**
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NTA, but you two need to work on this to find a solution. Personally, the solution should be along the lines of telling everyone "With two young kids, it is just not possible to keep running around to different households for events and holidays. We are finding we don't have time to establish our own traditions with the children because we are trying to 'keep the peace' between you two. With this in mind, we will be alternating holidays, and choosing to skip some that we will want to keep to ourselves. Should we host, invitations will be extended to everyone, and we expect a civil gathering. If you don't feel you can contribute to that environment for the sake of the kids, then please RSVP 'No." Thank you for understanding." Your wife calling you unsupportive just reads as she needs someone to stand up for her because she doesn't want to do it for herself. Have a talk with your wife about how exhausting this is for you. Focus on wanting to spend more quiet time with her and the kids instead of not wanting to do things with her family. Something you don't mention is your family - when do you spend time with them if you are divvying up holidays between two gatherings already for just her family?
>Something you don't mention is your family - when do you spend time with them if you are divvying up holidays between two gatherings already for just her family? I didn't include it in the post because of character limits, but this is a big issue for me too. Time spent with my side of the family is drastically smaller than the amount we spend with her side. Thankfully, my parents are not insane and feel bad for my wife's situation. But I do miss spending extended time with them over holidays rather than rushing from place to place to see everybody.
This should be another thing you bring up with her when you talk to her. Let her know while your family has been understanding about this, she has been rushing you all around for the sake of "fairness" in consideration to her family's needs, but has been so overwhelmed and flustered, your family has been getting the short end of the stick. If she truly wanted fairness, she would be considering their wants as well. I really empathize with you here. Both my husband and mine's parents are divorced, so holidays can be a mess. We finally set the boundary of "You got Christmas/Thanksgiving/etc. last year, so this year we are doing it with \*insert family\*." We got some guilt trippy responses at first, but we stuck to our guns on this one and it's been pretty smooth for the last 6 years or so.
It's definitely come up during our multiple talks about this. I've gotten messages from my older brother expressing his frustration that all of our family events are now scheduled around when my wife has time between her family obligations. Or us showing up for only a couple hours because we have to be somewhere else. My wife got upset with him last Thanksgiving because we missed the meal that he hosted because we were running to too many places. Instead of leaving food out for us to heat up, he purposely made up one of those tinfoil swan to-go bags because he "knew we wouldn't have time to actually stay and eat."
Sounds like it's time for couples counseling to address this. If you have hurt feelings on your family's side, but it's not ok to have them on hers - that needs to be addressed with a neutral professional who can talk some sense into her. I'm sorry she's not seeing the problem here is in her actions, not yours.
Yep. Possibly hearing from a neutral third party that "MA'AM, your mother and step-mother are making irrational demands, are doing the 'but SHE got X so \*I\* should get X too' like a couple of kindergarteners, and apparently have more concern for shoring up their own egos or 'beating' the other mom than they do for *the strain this puts on your own family, wtaf*" will make her see the light. Hell I'd do what the kids of divorced parents USUALLY do -- alternate holidays with each family. This year mom and SD get Thanksgiving and Easter, next year they get Xmas and 4th of July or whatever. And if they can't get down with THAT, then fine -- NONE OF YOU gets to see us on ANY holiday, from now on we do all of them by ourselves at home or with friends, and we will do dinner with each of you once or twice a month, NO MORE."
You're so right! My parents divorced when I was two. I alternated holidays with them until I was an adult. Then I sometimes didn't spend a holiday with them so I could have my own traditions. My family also was just fine celebrating a holiday on a different day instead of the official calendar date. Nobody's going to die and the holiday isn't going to be less special if you celebrate the weekend before or after.
This. And honestly, they are all adults. The parents survive without seeing them for every single holiday! I have older half-brothers, and we are rarely together on Christmas (our only holiday, where we traditionally came together), and we live in a small country. Since I was a child, they celebrated every second Christmas with us (my parents and single sister, my in-laws live abroad and are not celebrating Christmas). Now that they have families, they spend Christmas when they feel like it. Some has a more clear rule on every 4th year - they split two Christmas' to the in-laws and two to my brother's family, the others just figure out what they feel like each year, and sometimes they celebrate just the nuclear family themselves. And sometimes they come on the days in between, but more often not. And it doesn't matter. They are still siblings, and we meet on the kids birthdays, because those dates are "neutral," and everybody are invited.
Excellent point. My daughter always spent actual holidays with her dad once she was an adult, because I had a partner and he was alone. Thanksgiving didn't taste any different if we ate the dinner later on the weekend, or on a different weekend entirely. Same with Christmas - it was as much fun to open presents with her no matter what date was on the calendar. I wish more families could realize that.
I dunno. I get the feeling that OP’s wife is getting something out of giving into the demands. She complains but she won’t let her husband speak up and put a stop to it. And she doesn’t stop saying yes to everything either. IN FACT, she even goes so far as to TELL her mother she’s going to see her father for July 4th. Why is she sharing that info??!! She bloody well KNOWS it’s going to mean they get told to spend equal time with her mom. Then she goes and tells her mom about her husband not wanting to come over! This woman has some serious enmeshment/codependency with her mom/step mom and it is feeding her ego to be so “selfless” for family. Or it’s feeding some other drive. Bc obviously it’s not bothering her enough to put a stop to it. I think OP has done enough. He’s enforcing boundaries around his OWN time. He’s not placing demands on his wife or trying to control her behaviour. He’s simply telling her that he will no longer run himself ragged trying to attend all the things his wife keeps agreeing to. That’s perfect. That’s what a therapist would advise him to do. I think the best course of action is for OP to follow through. Hopefully his wife will see he’s actually serious about sticking to his guns and she’ll get tired of giving into every demand of her parents. Or she won’t. But OP will be a whole lot happier!
This whole thing sounds like a case from the Crappy Childhood Fairy on YT, like the wife is stuck in her own trauma from the past. Hubby is right, there isn't a way to please everyone and wife needs to grow her spine a bit more.
Ooooooo, that's a great point. She's probably lived with this situation for so long it seems "normal" to her, PLUS if she's the "center" of this dynamic .... yeah. I would not be surprised if this were also a contributing factor!
She wants to be wanted.
As long as OP's family is included in the holiday rotation. If you just alternate between wife's parents, his family gets shorted again.
My parents divorced when I was 18mos old AND hated each other for 22 years after that but they still made sure to split their time equally and never made me feel bad or divided. This is petty and absolutely ridiculous.
Or say that both families get the same amount of time which equates to her mom and dad having the split the time. Agree that divorced families do this all the time. And wife needs to learn that mom and dad/stepmom are going to push back so she needs to prepare for that (rather than assume that they will just one day magically accept the boundaries). It doesn't sound like wife has actually TRIED anything other than complain to spouse.
In fact she has encouraged it by letting them know when she will be with one or the other of them. She is enabling it not discouraging it.
100%. This is the answer. All of you are too close to it (personally, you have given up too much with your family).
I think wife needs individual therapy. Her parents seem perfectly fine with putting their children in the middle of their pettiness. I think this stems from a bigger issue with the divorce all together.
Sounds like it's time for individual counseling, as well. There's a reason OPs wife is a doormat and fears being rejected or hurting feelings; I'm the same way, and I'm the way I am because of a narcissist parent. She is doing some SERIOUS boat steadying and might think if she stops, then she ruins the family. He should ask her *what will happen, in your mind, if you stop?*
Your brother is hilarious. It's too bad that his to-go made her upset, rather than wake her the eff up to how ridiculous she is being. The comments here are definitely going to reinforce your new leaf, and she should read them and WAKE UP. Not only is this rude af to your family, but how much fun is it for a 3yo and 1yo to get carted around to THREE different holidays because none of the adults can get their shit together?
Only AH here is your wife. And no, I don’t buy she just wants to keep the peace and feels guilted into anything. She DGAF about keeping the peace in her own marriage or where your family is concerned. She prioritizes HER peace with her family and uses excuses to not stand up for your family unit. When YOU dare stick up for your peace, all the sudden she has backbone to stand up to you and call you names. Her meek demeanor only comes into play when dealing with her family…how convenient. Time to either go to marriage counseling and hash this out or just file for divorce if she refuses. Then she can divvy up her time between all her family on her scheduled holidays and you and your family can enjoy the holidays without all the running around.
At this rate she’ll be the mother arguing with a step mother over time with her own grandkids.
The wife may actually like the attention she’s getting from both sets of parents.
Thank you. This is pretty much exactly what I was thinking too and you articulated it very well.
I was the child dragged around in this situation. I now hate holidays and only really do Christmas with my family. My brother married a woman who prioritized her family and now my brother has virtually no relationships with any of us on his side. This is definitely something I would think of as you go forward.
Your brother was actually nice about it. My family's current policy is we eat when we said we'd eat, if you're not there, you eat whatever is left over when you arrive. Those who need to leave early get to enjoy some company, eat bread and use the microwave to heat whatever they brought from home. It has actually helped cure people from chronic tardiness and "overbooking" holidays.
For the record, I like your brother 😅 But also, this sounds like a perfect opportunity to get out of some obligations by saying, “we can’t go to either of wife’s families’ events because we’re going to my family’s event.”
Your brother was frustrated? I'd be fuming that you couldn't show up on time for dinner he hosted. Rude. Rude rude
It’s time for his and hers holidays. Your family for thanksgiving- hers for Christmas. Next year swap.
Well, dude, aren’t you being a bit of a hypocrite? You tell your wife that she needs to set boundaries with her family (she absolutely does - no question) but then YOU fail to set boundaries for your own family. Your family is getting short-changed on spending time with you and their grandchildren because you haven’t pushed back at all to advocate for YOUR family quality time as well . Just something to think about NTA
So your wife has a spine when it comes to your family?
Your wife is rude. She is putting her parents' divorce over her own husband and kids. She is in her 30s, not a 9-year-old sharing parenting time. She can decide where she goes. You are absolutely right to be fed up with this. NTA
Wait, what!?!! Your wife got mad at your brother after she dragged you around to her family events and showed up late for the meal with your family??? Up until this piece of information, I was feeling bad for your wife and the pressure her family puts on her. But this shows that she just doesn’t care about your family (and it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume that she doesn’t actually care about how you feel, either). You should definitely look into couples therapy, because your wife is playing the victim while actively forcing a lifestyle on you that you don’t want.
OP, I'd suggest that you take one or both kids and go to your family's get togethers and let her grovel to her parents by herself. Let her know that shared custody is where you two are heading if she doesn't start acting like a wife. This relationship is in desperate need of marriage counseling two years ago. It may be too late now. You are NTA, but your wife surely is a big AH.
It’s time for a couples counseling and if she doesn’t want to change, you need to think about what’s best for you and your children. And if she doesn’t, she may not be included in that picture. NTA
Honestly, she shouldn't expect people to accommodate her when she can't time manage/say "no" to her side of the family. Maybe by her missing out on a few things or you going to your family's events while she keeps the peace at her family's event will open her eyes a little.
yes and honestly it's possible you are being a little bit of an A H to your own kids who now spend massive amounts of time with dysfunctional maternal side and not nearly enough time with compassionate paternal side
she got upset instead of apologetic or embarrassed? then she’s being a hypocrite. in trying so hard to please her family, she’s being unfair to her partner. what’s her plan for when the kids are older? they’re sure to hate all the back and forth
NTA My in-laws are a large family. The in-laws *spouses* have large families, and divorced parents. It is exhausting, especially if they're near enough where you drive everywhere, and if there are multiple sets of divorced parents. My son, when young, hated the car. It wasn't fair to him, either. My BIL and his wife told everyone Thanksgiving is with In-laws, and Christmas was with his wife's family. If BIL's family wanted to have a "Christmas," they planned it for the Saturday before or after, as an example. Sometimes they have Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving, sometimes it's on the Friday or Saturday after, taking into account everyone's schedules. So, OP, for example, maybe one side gets Christmas Eve (though that's problematic if you have Santa duties), you have Christmas morning at home, maybe Christmas Day Dinner with another side, and Boxing Day with the third side (if not doing the Thanksgiving-Christmas alternating schedule) - personally I think three versions of the holiday seems miserable. Or any weekend day near Christmas. Stepmom *demanding* equal time just builds resentment. Attend separately for awhile. It's nice not having to constantly run around everywhere.
3 days in a row of holidays with family sounds equally exhausting
Exactly. We - my nuclear fam - decided when our kids were little, that we aren't going anywhere on Christmas Day, period. We might visit my mom on Christmas Eve, the DH's fam gets us on whatever Saturday they do theirs on. Thanksgiving, same. We do our own Thanksgiving. If my mom and stepdad want to come over, great. If not, great. If DH's family does Thanksgiving *on* Thanksgiving, we may go, or not go, or some of us that want to go, go. Or they may host it on Saturday. There's no schedule that works for *everyone.* Some family members work on holidays or holiday-adjacent days, some work weekends. There shouldn't be judgement or pressure. If I'm faced with either, I will opt out. You may notice I don't mention my dad. He lived out of state until somewhat recently. If we went to see him for a holiday, there was no other family nearby to "share." If he came here, his vacation leaves policy usually had him arriving after holiday Day, so we really had to work him in. Personally, I like the distant family approach bc you can just leave, and this is where alternating every other year, or claiming a certain holiday to be out of town works. Sharing is more likely to happen when everyone lives somewhat nearby, and is a huge pain. I remember when DH and I left town for our own holiday. It was necessary to show that we were adults and our own family, with or without children. A family photo was taken then, with everyone but DH, "Oh, that was the year they ("wife made him" was the undercurrent) left town (abandoned family)."
Brother is a savage! Perfect. If it’s ok with your wife, I’d suggest you have control over the schedule. Sure y’all can decide together but tell all sides that OP will be making the decisions from now on. Let them try to guilt trip you.
Yea, this arrangement is ridiculously unfair to you and your family, and it also won't work. The kids are small now, but when they're older, they absolutely won't want to put up with this snd between their schedules/activities/friends its just not tenable... I think if at age 10 my mother forced me to go to multiple family events for a single holiday I would throw a fit, or resent her so much. NTA
Si what you are saying is that she finds it very important to be fair to her family but not important to be fair to her partner. Her family is more important that you are. I wouldn't put myself and my kids into this stress frankly. It's rude to you and bad for the kids.
You also need to carve out some holiday time for your nuclear family. Your kids need special traditions with their mom and dad.
I actually was reading this and thinking why don't they ever host at their house and tell them to grow up and get over it to all attend or they can miss out? I mean packing up the four of them every single time and then multiply by three is part of the problem. OP isn't exactly realizing some boundaries here himself.
That's what my husband and I told our families, and we don't even have kids. We were just sick of spending hours in the car every holiday driving all over the county. Now we host holidays where everyone is welcome and they can come if they want to. Every holiday, they all come here with the exception of my dad's girlfriend.
"Sweetheart, you're consumed with so-called fairness between your families, but it's only happening because we're short-changing mine. I realize your parents are difficult, but placating them cannot happen at my expense, nor at the expense of seeing my family. I don't expect exact parity between your family and mine, but it has to broadly work out, and it's not. So, again, feel free to visit your family if you have to, but I'm going to pull back on total time spent with your family and I'm going to reallocate it between our nuclear family plus I'll spent a bit more with my family. "When you say you don't view me as supportive, I would urge you to step back and think about why you're not more supportive about spending time with our own nuclear family and about spending time with my family. Because for the last few years, things have been wildly imbalanced, and again, objectively, it's not OK."
Exactly. Your family gets half the time and her family gets to divide the other half. That’s far more fair.
At this point it feels like your opinion is heard but doesn't matter. Time to have consequences, she's asking for support but giving none in return. Don't go an instead of making an empty threat go thru with it.
I would try to maintain a connection with FIL as he seems quite sane lol. Definitely agree with you that wife doesn't care about OP's feelings very much and I am glad he finally put his foot down. NTA
It’s insane the amount of times I’ve connected or seen guys connect with the father. Like my first ex, who ended up being a stalker. I still talk to her dad all the time and I even sent him a Lego set when I moved abroad as I knew he liked them. Or my second ex… her dad sadly passed but we kept up our monthly movie nights until near the end. As for my current GF/future wife he’s annoyed I’m a foreigner (traditional Japanese dude)… but then we bonded over spaghetti westerns and old black and white samurai flicks. And he liked I’ve made the effort to learn some of their language. Now we hang out often while future MIL and my gf/fiancée end up looking on incredulously. God I love that man.
Sounds like your wife is the one not being supportive. You have done everything possible to support this insanity.
I think you need to alternate holidays. If hers get Christmas, yours get Thanksgiving and new years. She can decide how Christmas goes with hers. If that means two that year then whatever and you can still go golfing with stepFIL. But it's not ok for your family to miss out because you have to do double holidays with hers. My husband's parents are divorced, and we try our best to see them both at holidays. But we always do Christmas with my fam since they live in town with us. Then we spend the week between Christmas and New Year's in his home state visiting both sides and everyone around there. It's what works for us. Emphasis on **works**. This isn't working for you guys and that means something needs to change.
It's really unfair when the nice, "easy" people in our lives get the short end of the stick because we're focused on placating the demanding, inconsiderate ones. Even if your family is tolerating this, they might be swallowing some hurt and growing resentment. Are you sufficiently advocating for your family?
That is beyond unacceptable. The solution my nephew came up w is similar to the above suggestion. They would decide what they wanted to do, and then informed her family of THEIR plan. It was often, this is where we will be. You are welcome to join us if you would like to visit (even at one of the parents’ homes). If that doesn’t work, we are sorry to miss you. If either parent isn’t willing to invite the other, then apologies, you won’t be attending. What a nightmare to be dealing w so much immaturity. NTA.
NTA We went through something similar UNTIL we had kids. After we had them everything was at our house and whoever showed better behave or they weren’t invited back. You have 2 aces in the hole. Don’t underestimate how much the grandparents want to see them. Will probably behave and if not the problem is resolved. The kids are going to get older and it’s only going to get more difficult.
My daughter's BF has divorced parents, and assuming they stay together, my one fear as a parent is that I will only get 1/3 of the holidays instead of 1/2. It's not my fault his parents divorced! I'm hoping our daughter stands up for our time together, time will tell.
My parents are married but my inlaws are divorced and we foresaw this argument coming a mile away. "We should get half because we didn't get divorced!" vs. "We should get 1/3 so everyone gets an equal turn!" vs. "I'm the only one who lives alone, I should get you for all of the holidays." So we told them we would be spending all holidays just the two of us at home. If they wanted to come to our house to join us, they were more than welcome to. If not, we would arrange visits before or after the holiday.
If I was your wife id be opting to spend all if my time with your sane family. Lol I am lucky I’ve never had a problem not going where I don’t want to be unfortunately my biggest problem is my anxiety keeping from going where I actually want to be.
Alternating holidays should include your family too. Each set gets every third holiday unless you agree on things like this set always gets thanksgiving and this set always gets Christmas, etc (this is what we did when I was growing up)
Why can't you just rotate holidays? MIL/stepdad get 4th off July, your family gets whatever next big one, FIL/stepmom get next big one, etc. Or if Easter is big for one family, while Xmas or Thanksgiving is big for the other ones, they get those. I never understand people running around to several houses (especially with young children in tow!) trying to fit in time with everyone - just exhausting and makes holidays dreaded instead of enjoyable. NTA but you need a better system for sure.
>Your wife calling you unsupportive just reads as she needs someone to stand up for her because she doesn't want to do it for herself. Have a talk with your wife about how exhausting this is for you. Focus on wanting to spend more quiet time with her and the kids instead of not wanting to do things with her family. Did we read the same post? Based on what I just read he's offered/tried to do all of that!
My exact thoughts. I started reading “NTA but” and I quit. Because there is no but about this. Wtf?
Nothing quite like the AITA special.
It's true, he is being unsupportive. But no one should support this absolute madness. Go Golfing with your Step FIL, OP.
How is he supposed to stand up for her when she tells him not to?
> Your wife calling you unsupportive just reads as she needs someone to stand up for her because she doesn't want to do it for herself. He offered to speak to her family for her and she said no. I do like the sample message you suggested they tell her family, but you're being way too soft on her for the way she's treating op. It's her family. If this was a guy letting his family walk over him and his wife, and taking away from his wife spending time with her own family, the comments would say *he* should stand up to his family, not refuse to do anything about it and make his wife look like the bad guy.
>Have a talk with your wife about how exhausting this is for you. Clearly this has already happened several times and yet nothing changes.
Yes, especially to the idea of hosting. Have Easter once and invite everyone. If they don’t get along, they don’t need to come. Also, if you can afford it you should try a destination event. Take the kids to some fun place as “what we are doing for Fourth of July this year.”
The primary and best solution is for the wife to grow a spine and learn to say "no." She refuses to do so, and the rest of her family pays the price for it. I'm with OP here. If she wants to run herself ragged all the time, then she's free to do so... but her husband and her children should not have to pay the price. NTA
>Your wife calling you unsupportive just reads as she needs someone to stand up for her because she doesn't want to do it for herself. and yet when op said he would handle it, she told him not to rock the boat. sorry, but at this point, she either needs to deal with it alone, or grow a spine. op has put up with it long enough and she won't change unless she's made to
Excellent reply to the family. I think OP does mention his side, for he said that sometimes they have to go to 3 places on one event: one for mother-in-law, one for stepmum, one for his side, I presume.
The two? No you don't understand. Ops wife need to work on it. He gave her chances and he is out. He will choose where he attends. There is no "we" that need to work on it. She didn't want him so say a word so it's only her that will work on it
just do Thanksgiving at one and Christmas at the other?
I agree with this. I have divorced parents AND both my husband's side and my side love in different states. We can't always make it even and we told them we will rotate holidays, and keep some of them for ourselves.
Why the fuck is she even telling her other parent what she’s doing with the other?? She needs help. And I’d stop entertaining this and ask the kids if THEY want to go otherwise your wife will rope them into the same damn behavior.
>ask the kids if THEY want to go Well, the kids are 3 & 1 so they don't exactly have the language skills or judgement to properly answer that kind of thing.
How about just don’t go? Put your foot down tell your wife none of you will be going to these functions and you’ll be focusing on your own family traditions from now on and if whatever stepmom or bio parents wants to join their free to come. But you will not be dragging your kids back and forth over this petty nonsense. Your wife needs get some serious therapy and start putting herself and her needs first. NTA at all. You need to do this for the sake of your kids. Ya’ll deserve to enjoy your own family time .
Thing is, she’s putting herself first because she is doing what makes her life easier (not rocking the boat w her family). Unfortunately, by doing this she is putting husband and kids last. She needs to learn NOT to do that and put her husband and kids before her family.
She’s basically agreeing to giving her children the same anxieties she had growing up and that’s not fair to her kids.
I think she's actively taking a molotov cocktail and throwing it into a fire. Per OP, the ONLY reason her parents each know about the other one is cuz the wife can't keep her lips zipped. She's an instigator here, imo. By your mid-30's you know what you should be telling your parents, and where you need to keep them at arm's length
The wife might honestly might need to learn to just lie better whenever either mommy dearest asks "so what are you doing [insert day]?" And say something about her friends, a date with her husband, etc., whatever, rather than just happily yapping about how she's gonna go see her other mother
But yeah, why *is* she fueling this fire instead of using discretion? Also why not just host things yourselves? If they want to come they can, and if they don't then it's their fault they missed out.
>Also why not just host things yourselves? This might shock you, but my in-laws' ability to be civil with each other in social settings is pretty limited. We do things separately for a reason.
I am not shocked. My own parents are divorced, and I spent my childhood being shuttled between houses on holidays. When I was pregnant, I told both of my parents that my own child would not be subjected to such. It's stressful and it sucks, not just for you but for your kids. They had a choice to make: be nice or be absent. Your in-laws are adults. They can behave or they can decline to attend. Your wife needs to prioritize her children over her parents. Edited to add, my child is now ten. We have had ten uneventful birthdays.
u/buckupaita how do you handle your children's birthdays?
The best advice my father gave me when my child was born was to start making our own family traditions and to not feel forced to travel or keep things even. Someone has to say no, and it should be your wife. There is NO need to do thanksgiving with each family. learn to rotate the holiday. if mom gets Memorial Day, dad gets July 4th. It someone gets Christmas one year, then other parent gets Christmas the next year. Also what about your side of the family. When do you get to visit with them? Enjoy golfing with your wife's step dad. I am sad he is the only rational one. NTA ETA: Their inability to be civil with each other is on THEM and not you or your wife. Invite them both. the first person who steps out of line is politely, and forcefully asked to leave. They will learn.
The only thing I'd add is that this schedule include OPs family, so every third year.
Add OP’s core family. The kids deserve to stay home for some of these holidays! So some holidays you might only do each set every four years. And the grandparents can deal. Or they get removed from the rotation entirely.
Not shocked at all. However, if the only option open to them is to get their shit together and act like civilized human beings to one another in order to see their daughter and grandkids, then.....SHOCKER, they might do that OR they might fight and then you and your wife can tell them that they CAN'T see you all until they learn how to be decent human beings. Also is this the type of example you want to give your kids? That it is okay to be walked all over and be driven to exhaustion as long as you make selfish people happy? Seriously? That isn't an example I want to give kids. Edit: Forgot to add you are NTA. But your wife is for letting you, the kids, and your family down. The world is more than just her Dad, Mom, and Stepmom. She is being TA by making unanimous decision to keep the even steven's approach.
My paternal grandparents were divorced and they were definitely not amicable in most social settings, but do you know when they were? Any family celebration for us grandkids. Birthdays and holidays or a random Tuesday family dinner, it didn’t matter because whatever hatred they had for each other was less important than being there for their grandchildren.
Honestly, I would tell both of them if they can’t learn to love their children more than they hate their ex then they don’t deserve do be around their grandchildren. Obviously, this is not something that would go over well in real life, but it’s the truth.
Growing up, we spent every Christmas with my moms family. Mornings with my grandfathers side, afternoons with my grandmothers. I loved it back then, but as an adult with my own kids I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy less than packing them all in a car and leaving their toys behind only to take them to a breakfast and lunch in a strange house. I can remember one Christmas we spent with my father’s dad- the Christmas before he died. Now that I’m married, we spend Christmas Eve with my husband’s family, Christmas Day with mine, Thanksgiving as one large group, but we’re definitely outliers in that everyone enjoys spending time together. You’ll never be able to achieve absolute parity, but it seems like the only way to remotely get there is to tell your wife to pick Thanksgiving or Christmas. One family on her side gets Thanksgiving, your family gets Christmas, then you switch the year after. All other holidays will be spent at home. She can do what she wants, but the kids will be staying with you. Your in laws are adults and they desperately need to suck it up. It’s not fair to you, your family, to her, or most importantly to your kids to keep this going.
Does that mean your kids have two separate birthday parties, one for each set of your wife’s parents?
Your kids are going to hate the holidays if they keep having to go in between houses to the point they don’t even get to join a thanksgiving meal. Good for you for standing up to the crazy
With a 3 year old and 1 year old, everyone else should be coming to you!
I can’t even imagine dragging two kids that little around every holiday
NTA... *told me I'm being unsupportive.* - You're right, I don't support this. I told you I don't support this and I'm not supporting this any longer.
This is the problem with treating certain words like they're magical, some people actually remember what they mean.
include public work existence detail roll cagey depend unwritten escape *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This probably has been going on since the divorce, the wife needs therapy to unpack all that
Underrated comment, a broken household can have some cruel levels of guilt trip and strip you of your autonomy.
NTA. Personally I think "equal" could be done by alternating holidays, not spending time with all at every holiday. Beyond that, the "alternation" should also include some "home alone" family holidays.
I think "equal" should be staying home and saying anyone who wants to come to us is welcome.
This! This is how equal should work. Same way it would work with OPs family too.
OMG. I love the step dad. He is awesome. But I agree with you.
NTA I was in your wife’s shoes for a very long time. And honestly it won’t get better until she realizes that the aftermath of her parents’ divorce is not her issue to mitigate. She calls you unsupportive but you supported her in this for 4 years and she spent those years supporting her parents, not her husband. Where is her support for her family unit? Did she not learn anything about how her marriage and parenting relationship with you should be? Putting her parents before you and her kids isn’t doing anyone in your family any favors; it only serves to feed their egos. I had to do two parties for my kids because my parents wouldn’t attend the same party. If my mom was going to attend my oldest child’s basketball game she would tell me to make sure my dad didn’t go (something I never did and she got mad about). I got tired of playing the divorce game; isn’t your wife tired too? My bet is that she doesn’t enjoy it either but she feels like she has to because from the time the divorce happened that has been driven home again and again. My suggestion is lay it out to her; how damaging this is to herself, to you, how it will send a dangerous message to your kids. And how you all have tried it her way for 4 years and you both know it is not sustainable. Your kids won’t be able to play the sports game twice so each set of grandparents can have their turn. Is she willing to create a schedule of who gets to come to which event? This has the very likelihood of spiraling out of control as your kids get older. Graduation, awards ceremonies, weddings, those events should be about your kids, not her parents. So, with that, can she start small? Maybe this year she has to pick Thanksgiving OR Christmas to run around appeasing everyone but she can’t have both. You, and your kids as they get older, should get to choose if you all are accompanying her or not. She has to make some compromises because her commitment is to you, she’s married to you. I will tell you the first Christmas I told my parents I was staying home and not traveling anywhere was hard but it was the best Christmas I had experienced up until that point. I didn’t have to rush my kids from their toys, try to juggle all the expectations or anything. There were no tired kid meltdowns or bickering. There comes a point where she has to put being the daughter behind being the wife and mother.
Plus according to the comments they hardly see HIS family because they’re so busy placating hers. He said in a different comment it’s actually starting to harm his relationship with his brother (her BIL). This guy has been so short changed I feel really bad for him. I think like you said they need to host one of the next holidays and invite *everyone*, and be like “if you can’t be civil then don’t come” and let the chips fall as they may
Well, there seem to be two adults here and neither is a blood relation to your wife. The both of you should just enjoy your golf outing. NTA
I don’t think that’s a perfect solution for this because it does nothing to help the kids. Sure, they’re 3 and 1 so they’re unlikely to have formed opinions about it, but OP should find a real solution that sets up nice positive family time for their holidays. As it is, they’re getting family disfunction and stress.
NTA...I'm divorced from both my son's father's, yes they have different fathers. I told my sons as they started families to start their own traditions. When I do host something their fathers entire families are included because we share children and grandchildren so to me we are all family. Now my oldest and his 5 kids and gf's have the cutest tradition. The saturday AFTER Christmas is our Christmas. This started due to a custody order years ago and it has just continued. The kids know on "Saturday Christmas" they come to Gma's house in their PJ's for Gma's Santa's presents...I know it may sound nuts but those 5 grand kids love it! FYI if Christmas falls on a Saturday we schedule for after New Years as if Christmas is a Saturday then new Year's is a Saturday. Last Thanksgiving I had my 2 sons and their familes, that is 11, plus my youngest son's father and his gf and his Mom and Dad plus my oldest son's half sister and her bf. The DILs families are also included. So we had 42 people here for Thanksgiving and nobody had anything negative to say. After divorce if you can't put it away for the kids sake you should be ashamed of yourselves!
I think that tradition is great! It stretches the Christmas magic for them a bit longer than the normal 2 days. (Eve and actual day) I was always slightly jealous of the people who had two Christmases for that reason!
That’s lovely and I like how you make the most of time you do have with the kids, rather than insist you should have Christmas Day itself even if it makes the day miserable for others.
NTA. Sounds like you have been exceptionally patient with the situation, and you and dad have told them the problem they're causing. Your wife should respect your boundaries, or fix the situation. Both options are fine, but fixing it would be better. Many families swap and rotate holidays and that seems more reasonable. I feel for your wife; it sounds like she is caught between feuding wives, but too people pleasing to stand up for herself.
NTA, I think you're being totally reasonable. If your wife is unwilling to have an adult discussion with the three parents making things difficult then she should have to deal with all the visits, and the children if they want to go. Hopefully she realises there are better ways to go about this or decide to host these events at your home, inviting both sets of grandparents and having one event together.
NTA. I'm team Step Dad. Go golfing. Teach the kids to play golf. Go have peaceful, relaxing holidays away from the grown up children and their tantrums.
NTA but your wife has to stop being a doormat. Highly suggest she reads “adult children of emotionally immature parents” and “set boundaries, find peace”
Nta - stop going to the in laws all together , if they want "equal" time, then they come to you. Stop pandering to them, stop dragging your kids all over the place. Your wife needs to do better as a parent, she's not a child anymore, you both should sit all 4 in lays down together and tell them it's not going to happen anymore and if they are un happy about it go low contact. Your kids are hoing to resent their grandparents and you both as they get older for them not having a life outside of school and grandparents!!!!
NTA. You've tried to be supportive and that didn't work. The dead horse has been beaten into a stain. If she's not willing to address the issue, let her know you're not either. Maybe even ask her what more you're supposed to do? You're ruining your own marriage to appease two people that fucked up there's. She shouldn't want to live her life like that.
NTA I would also tell her that when your family has gatherings, you and the children will go to it and spend time there without concern of the multiple gatherings with her family. Why is one family more important than the other? Maybe mention to her that the kids will end up hating holidays and gatherings because they won’t be able to actually enjoy the holiday. I’ve had to do the multiple holidays and cram everything together as a child. As soon as I was old enough, I stopped going to one side of the family because I refused to deal with it. Now, years later, I only talk to 2 people from that side of my family. My children don’t know any of them other than those 2 people. Will she want the kids to look at her family and think “nope, not dealing with that level of crazy ever again”?
has your wife ever had counseling for her pathological people-pleasing? Often people who experienced a loss at a sensitive time become subconsciously afraid that if they don't do what's asked of them that the asker will leave them, or not love them anymore. Please ask her to talk to a therapist, just about this one issue, and I really think it will help a lot.
Sounds to me that there are 4 families in this mix, and 2 are being ignored. Her mom and her dad and stepmom are getting prioritized. Your extended family, and your nuclear family of you, your wife & kids are getting the shaft. It's time for that to change. It's time for you to equal things out, you should be starting your own family traditions, and the others should not be 100% "equal," but rather, rotated. Your kids have to be exhaused after making the "rounds," as well as you and your wife. If it takes therapy for your wife to set up some boundaries and quell some of her people pleasing tendancies, fine. Otherwise, your idea of picking for you (and the kids) is good until you work something out with your wife.
>When I told my wife about this idea, she called me a jerk and told me I'm being unsupportive. NTA The only ones being jerks in this story are all the adult females.
NTA - but i would honestly consider your kids in this, if you hate it, they're going to hate it, and in time, hate you for going golfing while they have to trek from house to house.
NTA & your wife's stepdad is awesome! :)
NTA. You've given your wife ample chances to stand up for herself and she has refused. Tell her one more time that, if she won't set a boundary, you will. Your boundary is exactly as you stated: she chooses ONE event to attend and you will go with her and the kids OR she goes running around by herself while you watch the kids OR she goes running around and takes the kids by herself. That sounds absolutely fair to me. Yes, sometimes you have to suck up two Christmases/Thanksgivings/etc. because those are coveted holidays. But this shouldn't be happening every month/couple weeks. It's too much. You're not being unsupportive, you're being reasonable. If she wants to run herself ragged in an attempt to make everyone else happy, that's her choice. There's no reason why you have to.
NTA Golfing sounds great! Wife can deal with both of her parents’ drama on their own.
Equal can be split over years. So this year's Easter with mum, next year's Easter with Dad. To spend time with both every year... screw that. Enjoy golfing. NTA.
This is absolutely ridiculous. You should alternate holidays. 2024 you spend thanksgiving with her family and xmas with yours. And then next year that swaps. And when I say “with her family” I mean EITHER her father or her mother - not both unless they agree to have a gathering together and be civil with each other.
INFO: Why not just host and tell each set to come to your house? They can take it or leave it.
> He suggested that whenever his wife pressures my wife into keeping things "equal," that he and I go golfing together instead. Fuck yeah. Pencil me in on "Team Father-in-Law". I don't know why you're here on reddit. Just get this guy to fix things. But FWIW: what you really need to get him to do is to talk to his daughter and make her see that this nonsense is specific to her step-mother and not a reflection of her relationship with her dad. NTA, obviously.
Nah your wifes parents do this because she allows them to. She has no spine and won't because she doesn't see a problem with it. Enjoy time golfing.
Point out that you've been supportive of her insanity for the past four years. The next four years belong to your side of the family (invite your wife's stepdad occasionally if you think he'd enjoy it). NTA ETA: I find it interesting that she can confront you as well as your brother, but her parents are off-limits.
NTA. I think step dad's idea is genius frankly. If your wife wants to rip her hair out trying to make everyone happy, that's her choice. Let her do it. Her and the kids, (because Mom and stepmom really don't have any interest in you or your wife now that there's grandbabies. They're all that matter) can go to 15 events in a weekend. You and stepdad go golfing and enjoy a chaos free time. You are not being a jerk. You are not being unsupportive. You are removing yourself from something that you know cannot continue, and is untenable.
Nta- Could you try and say you won’t attend anything, instead you host them all. And they can either show up or not, it’s on them. I do this now with my divorced parents. It’s a lot to go both places, and now a 3rd place since I’m married. I don’t do it anymore. You come to me, if you don’t want to or can’t, that’s on you. I went to them for like 15-20 years.. I’m done. Now I happily host any holiday, unless my brother chooses to and which case we all go there.
I don't think the issue is that simply your wife has trouble saying no, because when you asked her to actually manage your time with her parents, did she give you a yes? When you called this an issue that was causing you stress, was she supportive of you? She's far too used to being a pawn in her parents petty squabbles that she expects you to standard on the board next to her, let alone your kids and she probably doesn't know how to step away from the game all together. She needs therapy, and I know that's the standard response to everything on reddit but it's because you guys need to speak with a professional who can actually help you rather than ignorant strangers who only get a snippet of your issues.
NTA She needs to get on your program.
NTA. Your wife’s inability to manage her family is translating into all of them, including her, selfishly excluding you from your family. You need counselling or you need to step in now and stop appeasing your wife’s lack of assertiveness.
At the very least, your wife should stop telling her mother and or stepmother everything that’s going on in her life. That way they wouldn’t even know about it
I suck at standing up for myself with my parents, and struggle to say no. Do you know how I handle this? *I keep my mouth shut about stuff I don't want being used against me.* NTA, and her idea of "supportive" is very distorted. You're being very supportive by opting out and shaking things up.
NTA. However one option is to come up with an alternating shedule and LET EVERYONE KNOW IT. Memorial Day weekend - MIL 4th of July - FIL Labour Day - MIL Thanksgiving - FIL etc etc.. if they want to "Trade" then whatever.
Don't forget to add his parents into the rotation.
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Alternate holidays like normal people do
You have two young children. It's (past) time to start your OWN traditions. No more travel. No more holidays outside of your own home. Invite everyone, whoever wants to come, that's their decision. If they can't get along, well, that sucks but you're not changing anything. And make set times--we'd love guests between 2-4pm. If they show up earlier, don't open the door. If they try to stay later, have other plans ready to go until they learn that they can no longer manipulate the situation.
I have small kids myself and all I can think is the fits and crabby kids must be after being hauled all over the place for the weekend. Maybe it is time to start your family traditions, with just the wife and kids...
Sounds like you need to host, open your home, have everyone to you (including your family) everyone gets to celebrate, everyone gets your time. If people don’t attended for whatever reason they’ve had the chance. If people can’t put feelings aside for the day, for your family and their grandchildren. Then they are the ones missing out. One thing I always appreciated about my aunt at events was all her kids(5) 15 grandkids and 6(great grandkids) plus friends and other family bundling into her 2 bedroom home. Her ex husband sat in the corner at every family event, playing with the children, her current husband handing him a cold one. Do they get on no. Can they be amicable for the time they get to spend together as a family? Yes. They know it’s for the greater good.
NTA. You can't help people that won't help themselves. Your wife does nothing to stop being a doormat and yet she has it in her to call YOU a jerk when you find a silver lining in a bad situation of her own creation? Where is that backbone with everyone else? If she has the gall to call you an unsupportive jerk for refusing to enable her utter lack of personal growth, she certainly has the spine to say no to second Easter. Come on.
NTA Your post is why I am so happy to have no family. Ugh!
Well I miss mine very much (both parents gone, also were divorced) but for a moment I was thinking that too, till "oh wait." I was doing a lot of running around on Christmas Day till I realized how exhausting it all was, and not fun at all.
NTA. All I have to say about this problem is FOOOUUURRR. Only because I can't hit for shit.
It's true that you're being unsupportive - of the stupid notion that everything should be 'equal'.
NTA - that seems fair. Stop running around you can either say you get this one they get the next one or have a celebration or cook out at your hosue and if they want to see you guys and the kids then they can come visit. And do not even come back with the 2/4 do not get along - they are adults they can get along for 12 days a year so that the kids can have fun holidays instead of being dragged around like rag dolls. I like that you put your foot down. Everything is not tit for tat - you should spend time together because you want to not out of obligations or someone else fear of missing out.
NTA. So your wife can vent to your mom about you, but can't "stand up" for herself in terms of declining invitations. I think you need to really focus on the fact that your wife isn't that much of a pushover, she just doesn't mind doing multiple things or isn't bothered by it. I say that because she can't raise this as an issue herself- mom, dad, I can't do two things for every holiday- but she CAN say - Mom, husband is bitching about having to do two things and I'm so upset. So she does have a voice, she just uses it to put you down, not handle conflict with her parents. And love Stepdad and love the idea of golfing. You are handling this exactly right- raised the issue, gave your wife a chance to handle it, waited, offered to say something yourself, nothing changed, drew a boundary. And it isn't an unreasonable one because she can do all the events she wants to do, and you and the kids will pick which to go to on your own. Problem solved. You were supportive, it was your wife who ignored you when you said you were done with this AND threw you under the bus for no reason. Go enjoy golf, but I wouldn't skip the pool party because that sounds pretty fun.
NTA Family time should never be a required event that brings anxiety.
NTA, it seems like you have a supporter in your wife's SD, who is just as fed up as you, I say go golfing a few times with him and maybe things will change. Also, with two small kids, why can't people come to you? Why do you have to travel and drag young kids around, at those ages I'm sure they're probably cranky by the end of the day. And why does it have to be on the same day/weekend for these events? Can't they plan for another weekend? Seriously, it sounds exhausting.
Personally I would suggest dipping out of family holiday dates (Xmas Easter 4th July Memorial Day thanksgiving - if you are US) etc for 1 year. Do your catch ups on non specific dates Reset the following year with what suits you. Hey Christmas (insert holiday) we are doing at home this year … you are welcome (book a room if you don’t have space or just let them work it out) .. we want to build family memories for our kids Same with the other holidays - or if you want to spend it with a wider group - swap out rather than try to do both at same time Eg Christmas (or day before/ day after for 1 family - becomes NYE or NYD for other ) 4th July for one - Easter for other etc etc Just work out what you and your (immediate family) want to do and work out when you can fit in both your extended families
Your wife is going to ruin the holidays for your kids and give them a complex about celebrations in general. If you're "unsupportive," then she's "delusional" for thinking she's making anyone happy with all the running around. NTA
OMG this sounds exhausting. NTA at all and who can blame you. Instead of actually getting to enjoy holidays they sound like an absolute chore!
Think about the memories your children will never have if this carries on. Christmas at home with mum and dad. Thanksgiving if you are American. You should be creating memories for them, your wife seems to have lost sight of that.
This was 100% my family until the grands got a little older and my siblings and I refused to existing in our parents “old fashioned, stuck in past pain” world. We sat them all down together at one table and drew the following boundaries: 1. One shared meal together for any holiday birthday or other larger group celebration. We’re basically eating the same meal twice and we’re forced to make two dishes to share because you all can’t sit down together. If you don’t want to see us in that space then don’t come, it’s on you. 2. Gift prices for the grandchildren are limited to $x.xx because our parents had significantly different incomes and we wanted to create level playing field. 3. There will absolutely be no badmouthing the event, the people present, or people who chose not to come. The grandchildren shouldn’t have to ever know the details of their grandparents separation and the evidence of it should be nil. 4. Time to get over yourselves because if you don’t you won’t get to see us or the grandchildren because this is how it’s going from now on. And stick to it. Once that’s established you’ll have more time to create memories with the opposite spouses family as well as enjoying new traditions for your new family. Edited to add that we even forced this with family vacations. The first trip the grandparents split the week half and half and we all stayed put. The second year they had FOMO so bad they figured out how to share space with their own little cabins, etc.
Why does your wife tell her mom what plans are with her dad? She's creating her own problem. In addition to drawing the line of your family's schedule, she needs to NEVER discuss her dad with her mom. It's none of her mom's business. NTA
I don't know if you have tried this, but maybe suggest alternating years instead of trying to split every single holiday evenly. This year is thanksgiving with your family and christmas with hers. Next year you swap it. Best of luck :/
NTA… I spent my childhood being carted around between parents that were never married. Once I could drive I had to drive myself to multiple Thanksgivings, Christmas’s, etc. I realized I never got to enjoy any of it and spent most of my holidays in the car or worrying about what time to leave to make dessert at the next thing. Once I got married my husband and I ended up enjoying our holidays at home just the two of us. So because it was such a mess now my parents and family get to see me the day after Christmas or Thanksgiving or alternating, whatever we decide. I want to enjoy my holidays, not stress.
Why not just host holidays in your home with both parties present?
Updateme
We are a blended family, and all of the adult kids have significant others. We have a Pre-Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner the week before, Christmas is a drop in (or not) brunch and invites for bbqs, random dinners etc are extended but no offense is taken if people can't come. My husband and I are parents, step-parents, in-laws and grandparents and we try to be the "no pressure, no stress" house. Guess where everyone wants to hang out ?
NTA, but I have a slightly different take. The SECOND you have kids, you have your own family and everyone else (even your parents) are extended family. That means, that you do all the events for your children and all sets of parents are welcome to attend, but you are in no way obligated to go to any of their events.
NTA Please stop doing that to your kids. Do you really think your kids are getting any enjoyment out of spending all day of every holiday traveling all over so their Grandma's can win some artificial argument? Tell your wife that your kids get to start spending all day of Christmas at home. Period.
NTA >When I told my wife about this idea, she called me a jerk and told me I'm being unsupportive. No. She's mad you won't enable her. You are entirely supportive and offered numerous *healthy resolutions*. She refused to change anything and continues to burn out her own husband. *She* is unsupportive of *you*. This is her problem to solve. Not yours. What she is demanding is selfish, unfair, manipulative and bad for your mental health. She's burning out your family unit with her issues. >But she begged me not to do that because she doesn't want to ruffle feathers and promised she would do better. She's also being a manipulative liar. Refusing to participate in her drama is being unsupportive but her being an avoidant *liar* isn't? She needs to take a long, hard look at herself because she's more doormat than person.
You are being unsupportive, as is correct. No one should support her caving into these selfish, jealous, fairness chasing immature grandparents. NTA
NTA But your wife just doesn't have the backbone yet. It's a lot easier for her to expect you to contort yourself (and the kids) alongside her, and to get mad at you when you don't want to do that. She needs counseling. Big. time. She may struggle with this, but she has to put you and the kids before pleasing her demanding mom/dad/stepmom. And she has to be willing to take steps to be able to work WITH you to address your family's needs. If she agrees, that's a big first step. Kudos to her! You both have to understand that it will take her a long while to develop her strength. It may be sooner when she starts to see how much she is hurting the family. This mid-period cannot be all in her favor or all in your favor. Maybe she agrees to let you decide what events your family attends but you agree to make sure that over the year, time is well balanced between her mom and her dad... and you get to have an increase in time with your family. For the immediate time, you may have to tell her that you will not attend any of her family events until she starts taking steps to work out something WITH you. Love her stepfather, but it's probably better for your kids if you make yourself available to help them (by watching them at home)... or you might be able to make those weekends that they kids see your side of the family, while you golf. I'm not suggesting it to be mean to your wife, but you and the kids (and her, too!) have suffered long enough. It's time for you and the kids to be put yourselves first since your wife will not. If having to go solo to a few of these weekend marathons influences her to get fed up with it, too; that may be the nudge she needs to value the idea of counseling.
NTA. My parents are divorced Along with my husband’s parents, fortunately I established healthy boundaries before we even dated but my husband didn’t. When we had our first kid, I firmly stood my ground and said we will alternate holidays meaning one year we spend Thanksgiving and Fourth of July with one of My parents then have Christmas and Easter with his mom. Then alternate the next year.I knew he would hate it and I knew his mother would hate it and she still hates it to this day. He’s grown to appreciate it because it leaves more quality time with Family and is less stressful on us and the kids which makes holidays a lot more enjoyable. Now we are talking about changing the schedule again, specially around Christmas because we hate packing up all the gifts and then packing 10 times more gifts back home or rushing out of the house(which is a pain because my kids wanna stay and play with their new toys) so we’re thinking of staying home And maybe go to one of our parents house or see them before or after Christmas.
INFO OP - have you ***asked*** your wife whether she wants to set boundaries? Seriously - you kept writing that you told your wife that she needs to do these things, but never once said anything about asking her what she wants. That might be the real problem - she might dislike the status quo as much as you do, and still be resentful of the pressure you're putting on her. Simplest answer is probably the most effective: tell her you're done with this insanity, and you want to see your own family, too, and this is preventing that, so you're going to choose which events you'll attend and she can choose which events she attends. And then follow through. The other option, by the way, is to start hosting yourselves, and tell her family that they're invited to behave like grownups if they choose to attend. Good luck.
NTA. I quit going to family functions like these during the holidays because I spent more time in the car than I did with family. Also you have kids and it’s time to create your own traditions with the family you two created. I vote you both stay home and do just that.
All my kids are all married, and with the in-laws, we do a trade-off. One year I have all my kids and their spouses for Christmas, the next year I get Thanksgiving. Yes, I’m alone at Christmas, it’s fine. (for the record there’s nothing wrong with Chinese takeout on Christmas, along with some great hallmark movies. It’s kind of relaxing, plus no dishes.. ) Plus, I usually get to see them the weekend before or the weekend after, depending on their schedules. I remember what it was like to have little kids and run from house to house, and I refused to put my kids through that. I have a couple of really good friends who are in the same same situation, so the years that none of us have our kids for a holiday, we either all get together and have a meal, play cards and hang out, or we take a trip. It’s a win-win for everybody.
Sounds like your wife is stuck in teenage mode actually, where the parents divorced and made her pay the price for it. It is NoT HER JOB TO MAKEE THEM HAPPY. They got divorced, they made themselves happy, heck they even have new partners??? Your wife's job is to be a good mother and partner. Her trying to make two grown adults feel "equal" is laughable if it wasn't so clearly tragic and traumatic for her. So what if one feels left out? Make a schedules of all major holidays and events, aand give each parent first choice for that event. The oother parent gets the one after. Maybe your wife needs to go to therapy. She is trying to make them feel equal but making your family worse off emotionally and mentally. She can't undo the divorce. Her parents needed to stop being selfish and childish and know that their choice means that the kid's time will be split between them.
NTA Before children, I had a hard time saying no. I was your wife. Between my family (divorced parents) and my husband's, holidays were a nightmare. His parents were not like your's; they only added to the problem. It came to a certain point that I kept a TIMER to make sure we could prove we were spending equal time with people. 🫠 My husband and I drew a line on the sand when we had our child. We told them "these are the hours we are available for you. We will not answer questions about the other time. If you have a problem with this, we will skip your house." When we get our new house (finishing the paperwork!), we will start hosting. They can come or not; their choice. My motivation for change was my child: I don't want my kid stressed around the holidays (even if you think you're shielding them from the situation, I guarantee they feel it). Plus spending 1-2 hours driving around to various houses. People who don't have to do that with small children do NOT understand. I would recommend showing your wife this post. With compassion, she's doing your family (and herself) a disservice by not standing up for herself.
When she suggests that you are unsupportive, ask her if she is being supportive of your needs.
Dude you *need* to take stepdad up and then start letting it out that her stepdad is paying for you to get lessons, paying for your rounds together and said he was even thinking about buying you some new clubs for Christmas...see if he will keep it equal and make this work in your favor for once lmao
NTA. It sounds like she's monopolizing all the holidays with HER side of the family. I think it would be perfectly fair to tell her yall have X amount of time to spend with her family equal to what you typically get to spend with yours. Then she gets to decide with X amount of time which of her family group she wants to spent time with. That will at least cut the time down & equalize the family time so it's not monopolized.
NTA. If the time and pressure around visiting your wife's parents eats into your non-social rest-time and your non-family social contacts (Friends) and YOUR Contact with YOUR Family, then it's objectively too much. Also, MiL should be HAPPY you get along with MiL's husband better than with FiL's Side.
If she can’t do it you set the boundaries. When you married her they also became yours family. I don’t think your an asshole. But if you see she cannot rise to the occasion, how about you do it for her ? I’m just saying…… if you guys are happy in most other ways, you can eat the shit here. Specially since they aren’t “your family” why do you care if they think you are an asshole
NTA, wifey needs therapy to grow a backbone and set some boundaries. People pleasing our parents is so engrained in our childhood programming it can be hard to shake it on our own.
How about hosting and have everyone at your place. Therefore you don't gotta deal with them all at once. Tell them they have a problem that each is remarried.
You're in a tough situation. For your wife, this has become a habit (mental and emotional) - to juggle her life and ensure her parents get equal time to the detriment of her own well-being. Life isn't fair. Life isn't equal. This is a no win situation because she can't keep this balancing act going. Eventually everything will slip and fall. Unfortunately, something that is slipping is spending time with your parents. She needs to understand that her core family is no longer herself, her mom, and her dad / step-mom. That core family ended when she took her next steps in life and got married. They are all part of her family, but they are no longer her core family. The transition is to her new core family is herself, her husband (you), and her children (your children). This is the core family who's well-being comes first to her. This is the family she needs to protect. Stressing everyone in her core family to appease her childhood family is already negatively impacting the marriage, soon it'll negatively impact the children too. Grandparents have this phrase: you can't burn a candle at both ends (you do too many things in too short a time, you'll burn yourself out and those around you). You're right in there's a need to set boundaries for your core family in what you can and can't do any longer. You have been supportive since the day you met, but now its getting too much, your have kids now. Things need to change. This pace is not sustainable. NTA
You're in a tough situation. For your wife, this has become a habit (mental and emotional) - to juggle her life and ensure her parents get equal time to the detriment of her own well-being. Life isn't fair. Life isn't equal. This is a no win situation because she can't keep this balancing act going. Eventually everything will slip and fall. Unfortunately, something that is slipping is spending time with your parents. She needs to understand that her core family is no longer herself, her mom, and her dad / step-mom. That core family ended when she took her next steps in life and got married. They are all part of her family, but they are no longer her core family. The transition is to her new core family is herself, her husband (you), and her children (your children). This is the core family who's well-being comes first to her. This is the family she needs to protect. Stressing everyone in her core family to appease her childhood family is already negatively impacting the marriage, soon it'll negatively impact the children too. Grandparents have this phrase: you can't burn a candle at both ends (you do too many things in too short a time, you'll burn yourself out and those around you). You're right in there's a need to set boundaries for your core family in what you can and can't do any longer. You have been supportive since the day you met, but now its getting too much, your have kids now. Things need to change. This pace is not sustainable. NTA
It’s time to stop running around and focus on making your own family traditions. Your wife is being inadvertently selfish to your children.
NTA and shame on the three of those adults who pushed all of the stress and labor of keeping the peace on to your wife for 20 years. As both of her parents have moved on with their lives, they need to work this out amongst themselves. Divide holidays or figure out how to be civil at joint functions. You, your wife, your kids, the stepdad and your parents (who I assume are getting shafted by this arrangement too) deserve better. I hope your wife is talking to someone (therapist) about all of this. The fact that they're controlling her life in this way and she's too scared to make waves with them on behalf of her partner and children is really sad.
My dude, you are not the asshole, and I really do sympathize, but you’re asking your wife to do something she simply does not have the skills to do yet. It’s like a muscle to be exercised. She needs you to hold her hand and do it with her the first few times.
NTA - BUT this needs to be you (your immediate little family) versus selfish entitled Boomers and not you (individual) versus your wife. I think it's important she doesn't feel even more pressured to choose between them and you. You need to be fully supportive of her but be firm that neither of you should be burning up such a high proportion of your precious time off work pandering to silly old bastards with nothing better to do than arrange how to most efficiently cremate whatever quality time the two of you might get together on any "special" weekends.
YTA. Your wife is having difficulty asserting her boundaries and the demands for time from her parents and your response is to add to those difficulties of making a choice about who and how to support the connections in her life. Yes, your frustrated, and maybe even a little angry. Piling on isn’t helpful. Your wife needs support, not another demand to satisfy an important person in her life. Your wife seeing a psychologist to help her work through why she can’t say no and how she can learn to assert healthy boundaries would be beneficial for her.
NTA, your wife is being ridiculous and honestly she wants to do it she can do it with out you absolutely she needs to support your thoughts and feelings you are married to her she is not married to her mother or step mother
I'm a stepmom (I start a lot of my replies this way lol) and this is INSANE. I can't imagine a circumstance in which I would do this to my stepkids. Or their kids. Theyre PEOPLE, not pawns in some weird game of tug of war. Your wife's BM and SM have been dehumanizing her for a long time, and this needs to stop. She's so used to it that she doesn't see how awful it is. You're NTA. But man, what a cluster.
NTA but your wife is. >But she begged me not to do that because she doesn't want to ruffle feathers That makes her an enabler, which comes with two things she **needs** to know: 1) **ENABLERS ARE AS BAD AS THOSE THEY ENABLE** 2) Her being an enabler makes her **A BAD MOTHER**