Not exactly a family acting like a family
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Anonymous
| My two kids are older and my husband and I don’t really get along. My husband is always sick. Of coarse today - he’s sick. The kids want to do their own thing today. So I let them open a gift today when he was in the bathroom and now he’s pissed he missed it. He says it was his favorite family thing to do when he was a kid. I didn’t know that. Sigh. I’m not sure how bad I’m supposed to feel. We just don’t function as a close family anymore. |
Anonymous
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You’re not functioning like a family at all. Seems really weird to open gifts early and do it when dh is in the bathroom.
How old are the kids? Maybe try to act like a family this year and see if things improve? Pretend you like your dh? |
Anonymous
|
Someone who always is “sick” when there’s extra work and childcare and emotional attention to be paid is probably not sick but is hiding from life, and then being manipulative and whiney about it. You probably sort of already know that. As an outsider, I see a DH who is being a manipulative jerk who’s trying to recenter the holiday in him and his feelings while not putting in the work.
If you chime in and tell me he has a chronic illness or cancer or something then I will change my tune, but otherwise I am standing firm in my conviction. This is a form of emotional abuse, just so you know. |
Anonymous
Disagree, it’s normal in many families for small children who usually open gifts on Christmas Day to get to choose one gift to open on Christmas Eve to alleviate the wait. Anyone who has dealt with the overwhelming anticipation of little kids waiting for Santa knows the feeling of how impossible it would be to say “let’s wait until daddy is done with his 5 minutes to 3 hours of fake diarrhea and phone time and then you can open the present”. |
Anonymous
Op said her kids were “older”, so presumably old enough to wait out dad in the bathroom. |
Anonymous
These aren’t small children. I’m sorry OP. Are they his kids also? I can’t tell from your question. I would not be happy if my husband allowed my kids to open presents early and without me. I mean, would you like it if roles were reversed? Can you just apologize for that and move on? |
Anonymous
NP and she said “a gift”. Like the other PP said, it is ok and normal for a kid of any age to open ONE present before Christmas. It is not normal for a grown man to throw a tantrum about it. |
Anonymous
Also if they are older, then it’s not like it’s Baby’s First Christmas and the Op stole a special moment from the DH. He disappeared. Is the family supposed to pause their lives and just gather patiently by the bathroom door until he’s better? If he’s regularly ill, then it’s important for everyone to go about their lives or else the kids will lose their childhood to waiting on dad to feel better. It’s better for him to miss a present here and there than for kids to spend holidays in a state of suspended animation. |
Anonymous
| Did he select, buy and wrap the gift? Then he has a say when it’s opened |
Anonymous
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OP that is a really weird thing to do. He didn't even know they kids were going to open a gift and you did it without him? Why not just wait a few mins?
DH may have his own issues and it sounds like a bad dynamic but the example you have doesn't really make any sense. I personally would be really peeved about this if it happened in my house! |
Anonymous
| Very weird to do gifts when one parent is in the bathroom. I would be very annoyed at my husband if he let the kids open a gift when I had gone to the bathroom. |
Anonymous
| OP, you were spiteful. |
Anonymous
| You are the problem. |
Anonymous
|
The real dysfunction here is that everyone gets upset over such small details: he gets upset, you get depressed, your kids walk all over everyone...
If there's a tacit rule not to open gifts early, then you don't change that rule without consulting your spouse first. And I say this as someone who grew up in a culture where ALL gifts are opened on Christmas Eve! But in my culture, it's expected and comes as no surprise. Surely you should have known your husband's traditions in that quarter... But it's also unreasonable for him to be *very* upset over this incident. Maybe you do this often and he's just over it? Do you perhaps have difficulty understanding other people's social cues and unspoken social rules? |
Anonymous
| That was pretty rude - opening the gift with DH in the bathroom. You couldn’t have waited a few minutes? But that doesn’t negate your marriage/family woes. It’s just that the example you gave did not reflect poorly on him. |