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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It seems like this is a situation created by the parents.  If this young person had so much trauma around shared custody, that he can't handle negotiating this, then that's the parents' fault.  So, putting on him to fix isn't fair.

I can't imagine what it would be like being a little kid and not knowing what the holidays would be like.  That sounds really terrible, and yet your DH clearly created that situation, since it's not that hard to create a predictable custody schedule.   It sounds like both adults put their need to conflict over the need of a young child.  Now, when they're dealing with a small fraction of what he went through they're whining?  [/quote]

I tend to +1 this.

I grew up with joint custody, and in thinking back, by the time I was in high school, the holiday plans were solid and the same every year. Thanksgiving with Mom and her family. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Dad, Fake Christmas the next day with mom. We'd been doing that for like a decade. I'm sure that at one point it was contentious, but not for years and years and years. So once I went away to school, we just continued on, and eventually, as I got older and moved and had fewer vacation days, it fell to me to talk to my parents and adjust as needed. I stopped traveling for Thanksgiving, for example, and started seeing my mom over easter. Christmas now alternates with my husband's family. But these all became 1:1 conversations between me and the parent I was changing things on.

But it sounds like you guys never got into a groove - you were still fighting (or at least negotiating) holidays when your kid was a teenager, even though the divorce was over a decade ago. So OF COURSE your kid didn't want to step into the fighting!

So my question would be - why on earth haven't you guys long since landed on a standard schedule? If you had that, something long term everyone agreed to, then you'd do that a few years, and any future changes would of course be handled by (and probably driven by!) your stepson as his life and needs change.

But no, it's not fair to have him step in and handle a contentious issue.

So why is it still changing every year??[/quote]

OP here. That really sounds amazing. Just to be clear, I am the step mom in the situation, so the logistics have never been up to me. Thinking back, I think it evolved this way because both my husband and his ex like to travel during the holidays combined with the fact, ex celebrates Christmas and we don't. So the holidays were a really complex formula based around her getting Christmas every year and the longer period of time that either did or did not include Christmas alternating. This all went out the window during Covid as this was right around the time DSS went to college. And they've never gotton back in a groove, so every year is a crazy negotiation.

I totally understand DSS not wanting to get in the middle of this, but, I also wish my husband would just drop the ball on squabbling with his ex about it too. Seems like we could invite DSS to join us either locally or on a trip (trips are not a huge deal recently and we are willing to fly him in and out separately as he likes) rather than engaging in protracted negotiations [/quote]

PP here. It’s not fair for your husband to drop the ball without working something out. If HE can’t work it out, why should he expect his son to be able to do so? Have him call his ex and say, “look, all this squabbling is silly. Why don’t you take Christmas every year, we’ll alternate Thanksgivings, and we’ll take (some minor holiday you like that wouldn’t be contentious - if you’re Jewish maybe Passover?) - and as a gesture of goodwill, why doesn’t DS coming to your house for Thanksgiving this year to start?

Then: you’re done forever. And once all the animosity and back and forth with your husband and his ex is over, and you have a few calm years, you can step back and any future changes your DSS can handle. [/quote]

This. You need a routine. It's burdensome and annoying for everyone to have to plan every year from scratch. Give up Christmas and take 4th of July or something. Your stepson will be relieved.[/quote]

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