Something Mil told Dd

[Anonymous]

I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t ever go by myself to my in-laws for a holiday. But on the times your Dh doesn’t work, you should celebrate with just your family at home.

We have a similar issue but with travel. Dh (precovid) used to travel 75% of the time. I often flew with the kids to my parents and stayed with them or drove to my grandparents. Mil was jealous but it’s not the same to go to your in-laws by yourself. That’s on her son for being too busy. And when he comes home, he would be tired and not want to travel to her house 4 hours away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's so disheartening to see women continuing to push traditional gender roles on other women. You may make a different choice but don't push your choices on others. OP and her DH have established how they will celebrate holidays. If her DH's mother has an issue with it, OP's DH should address it.

Then it’s not about gender roles at all, if OP and husband jointly decided that OP’s parents get all actual holidays.

+1

And as for pushing our choices on others. This is a message board, and mostly women responding. If OP didn’t want our opinion, why post?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you could use this as an opportunity to rethink your own views on family holidays, honestly. You clearly think of your family as yours and DH's as his, which fine, but your children are as equally your MIL's grandchildren as they are your own parents' and given the way you've written your complaint here, you don't seem to get that. It's undoubtedly hard enough that their own son isn't willing to try to make some of their larger family holiday get-togethers without a resentful, possessive DIL so aggressively privileging her birth family when there are now grandchildren involved. I get you're constantly irritated at your DH but yeah, I do think you should consider spending some actual holidays with your in-laws, even if only as a brief drop-in so they can see their grandkids, unless there are genuine other mitigating factors such as abuse.

And no, I'm not a MIL.

I do not agree with this at all. I'd never spend a holiday at my inlaws w/o my husband. It's up to your DH to work it out with his parents. Or not. You do see them for the holiday, just not ON the holiday.

As for your DH, is he Dr. Evil or something? He cannot attend ONE holiday? That would absolutely not fly with me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you could use this as an opportunity to rethink your own views on family holidays, honestly. You clearly think of your family as yours and DH's as his, which fine, but your children are as equally your MIL's grandchildren as they are your own parents' and given the way you've written your complaint here, you don't seem to get that. It's undoubtedly hard enough that their own son isn't willing to try to make some of their larger family holiday get-togethers without a resentful, possessive DIL so aggressively privileging her birth family when there are now grandchildren involved. I get you're constantly irritated at your DH but yeah, I do think you should consider spending some actual holidays with your in-laws, even if only as a brief drop-in so they can see their grandkids, unless there are genuine other mitigating factors such as abuse.

And no, I'm not a MIL.

I do not agree with this at all. I'd never spend a holiday at my inlaws w/o my husband. It's up to your DH to work it out with his parents. Or not. You do see them for the holiday, just not ON the holiday.

As for your DH, is he Dr. Evil or something? He cannot attend ONE holiday? That would absolutely not fly with me.

+1. Wtf is wrong with all of these people who expect the DIL to always travel to her ILs, with kids and no spouse, every holiday? His family, his problem. The recurring jealousy issues MIL has have surely resulted in more than just this one snide comment that alienated the DIL.

My take->OP's family should spend some of their holidays together, just them. Then move the FOO's to around but not on the actual day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you could use this as an opportunity to rethink your own views on family holidays, honestly. You clearly think of your family as yours and DH's as his, which fine, but your children are as equally your MIL's grandchildren as they are your own parents' and given the way you've written your complaint here, you don't seem to get that. It's undoubtedly hard enough that their own son isn't willing to try to make some of their larger family holiday get-togethers without a resentful, possessive DIL so aggressively privileging her birth family when there are now grandchildren involved. I get you're constantly irritated at your DH but yeah, I do think you should consider spending some actual holidays with your in-laws, even if only as a brief drop-in so they can see their grandkids, unless there are genuine other mitigating factors such as abuse.

And no, I'm not a MIL.

I do not agree with this at all. I'd never spend a holiday at my inlaws w/o my husband. It's up to your DH to work it out with his parents. Or not. You do see them for the holiday, just not ON the holiday.

As for your DH, is he Dr. Evil or something? He cannot attend ONE holiday? That would absolutely not fly with me.

+1. Wtf is wrong with all of these people who expect the DIL to always travel to her ILs, with kids and no spouse, every holiday? His family, his problem. The recurring jealousy issues MIL has have surely resulted in more than just this one snide comment that alienated the DIL.

My take->OP's family should spend some of their holidays together, just them. Then move the FOO's to around but not on the actual day.

I haven't seen a single comment suggesting that. OP never sees her in laws on holidays, and because she always travels to her own family they cannot come see the kids at her house on the day either. I don't understand the posters reacting to a grandma muttering "It's not fair" as if she called the OP every curse word under the sun. It isn't fair! It's true that it's her husband perpetuating the problem, but OP turning it into a personal slight and vendetta between her and MIL seems insane.

I bet if you lived just as close as your grandkids' other set of grandparents and they got every single holiday and you sometimes got a visit the following weekend, you'd do more than mutter about it once.

[Anonymous]

I'm generally fine with doing activities around the specific day designated as a holiday. But in my family, it's our tradition to go to Midnight Mass together on Christmas Eve. It's not like we can do that on a different day since the church is locked at midnight most days of the year. And on Easter, we go to the main Easter Mass at 10 am on Sunday. Again, you can't do that on Friday, since the church is doing the Good Friday Stations of the Cross during the day.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you have a lot a resentment towards your husband too with your "Talk to your son about his profession," comment. You need to deal with this within your marriage. What do YOU want for YOUR family unit. Do you have goals of hosting ever (either just for your family unit or your broader family or your DH's broader family)? If you do, you need to start talking to your husband. And for this year, you shouldn't be going anywhere. Seriously

[Anonymous]

My answer is based on what the MIL is doing. Does she have other children who are visiting her on the holiday? Or is she sitting at home lonely by herself? If she has other people to celebrate with, then I wouldn't feel bad. But if she is by herself, I would have some compassion and invite her over to my parents or try to go there maybe in the morning or something.

[Anonymous]

I think being the sole parent on the holiday means the OP needs to do what works for her, not what works for her MIL. If DH is solo parenting some holiday (seems unlikely but if...) he can make a different choice based on what works for him. I do not understand everyone assigning the OP additional emotional labor on behalf of...what? A metaphorical gold star from a a MIL who makes snide comments? A metaphorical gold star from her husband who *doesn’t want* to be around his family? A DD who gets to have a stressed out mother on the holiday in addition to no dad? Who are these posters trying to save here???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think being the sole parent on the holiday means the OP needs to do what works for her, not what works for her MIL. If DH is solo parenting some holiday (seems unlikely but if...) he can make a different choice based on what works for him. I do not understand everyone assigning the OP additional emotional labor on behalf of...what? A metaphorical gold star from a a MIL who makes snide comments? A metaphorical gold star from her husband who *doesn’t want* to be around his family? A DD who gets to have a stressed out mother on the holiday in addition to no dad? Who are these posters trying to save here???

On behalf of her freaking kids? Or maybe common decency?

The fact you had to turn one muttered "it's not fair" into "a MIL who makes snide comments" is telling. If OP had even one other example of her MIL disrespecting her, being ungrateful, being snide, she certainly would have presented it in any of her flailing follow-ups. Years of different treatment and complete disregard for her kids' relationships with her paternal grandparents leading to exactly one offhand comment is not a "snide MIL." If you have a leg to stand on you don't have to twist the narrative like this.

[Anonymous]

The kids get to see MIL the weekend after for the holiday. The kids have a relationship with the paternal grandparents. Its not about the kids, its what works for OP and DH. If DH is working and OP wants to spend the time with her family then so be it. The kids are not missing out on anything, they will see MIL the following weekend.

Common decency is not muttering snide comments under your breath. Who would want to spend holidays around that. No one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The kids get to see MIL the weekend after for the holiday. The kids have a relationship with the paternal grandparents. Its not about the kids, its what works for OP and DH. If DH is working and OP wants to spend the time with her family then so be it. The kids are not missing out on anything, they will see MIL the following weekend.

Common decency is not muttering snide comments under your breath. Who would want to spend holidays around that. No one.

LOL one comment in however many years. May you be spared judgment by the same standard you hold might-as-well-be-fictional MIL's to.

[Anonymous]

No I'm judging the MIL based on the fact she makes snide comments to her DIL rather than taking the issue up with her own son. This isn't on the DIL to fix. Common decency would be handling the situation with maturity and placing the blame where it belongs on her own child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No I'm judging the MIL based on the fact she makes snide comments to her DIL rather than taking the issue up with her own son. This isn't on the DIL to fix. Common decency would be handling the situation with maturity and placing the blame where it belongs on her own child.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think being the sole parent on the holiday means the OP needs to do what works for her, not what works for her MIL. If DH is solo parenting some holiday (seems unlikely but if...) he can make a different choice based on what works for him. I do not understand everyone assigning the OP additional emotional labor on behalf of...what? A metaphorical gold star from a a MIL who makes snide comments? A metaphorical gold star from her husband who *doesn’t want* to be around his family? A DD who gets to have a stressed out mother on the holiday in addition to no dad? Who are these posters trying to save here???

On behalf of her freaking kids? Or maybe common decency?

The fact you had to turn one muttered "it's not fair" into "a MIL who makes snide comments" is telling. If OP had even one other example of her MIL disrespecting her, being ungrateful, being snide, she certainly would have presented it in any of her flailing follow-ups. Years of different treatment and complete disregard for her kids' relationships with her paternal grandparents leading to exactly one offhand comment is not a "snide MIL." If you have a leg to stand on you don't have to twist the narrative like this.

I may have turned one snide comment into “makes snide comments” (and yes, I feel like talking about “getting” a holiday like people’s time and affection is her due, as well as the fact that the woman’s own son doesn’t want to spend time with her, are likely both symptoms of a larger problem personality) but the idea that it is in any way better for her kids was made up entirely from thin air. The DD already has the holiday without her Dad, I stick by the idea that it’s better if the parent getting 100% of the responsibility for making the day meaningful for the child gets to decide how to do that in a way that works for her. OP should not ruin her own Thanksgiving because her mother in law can’t be thankful for a DIL who already went further for her than her son would have.