Reply to Christmas...and ONLY Christmas

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Christmas...and ONLY Christmas"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP,

It sounds like there's a LOT of mental rigidity come from at least one of your husband's parents. Having autistic traits in my family and my husband's family, I wouldn't be surprised that one of your in-laws is high-functioning autistic. Which would also explain the rigidity and irrationality you see elsewhere: wanting to draw up a contract for Christmas visits, not wanting to sight-see, booking tickets or buying gifts without consulting you because they can't put themselves in other people's shoes, etc.

You have to be very blunt and direct with such people, because they get confused with diplomatic phrasing and won't know exactly what you mean. They don't understand other people's stress, since they don't understand their own emotions very well, so it may not be productive to talk about how stressed you are. You need to keep things at a very concrete, pragmatic level. Your husband can just say: "We cannot host you for Christmas this year. It's too much work. We'll see you at some other time."

His parents will have a tantrum. And that's OK.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics