In our family, everyone went to their families of origin until they were married. After marriage, the holiday negotiations started.

Anonymous wrote:This site is bonkers. I have no idea why the people above are ganging up on you.

First - depending on age, 3 years is completely reasonable to be dating. I met DH at 22, we dated for 3.5 years before he proposed, and have been happily married for 25 years. Those 3.5 years did not feel remotely long or dragged out at the time.

Second - yeah, your girl friend is being selfish. At some point you figure out how to spend the holidays together, and that means sacrificing some of your time with your family. Splitting the holiday between your family and hers isn't reasonable, given how far away your family is. But it is totally reasonable to spend every second holiday with your family.

With all that said, I'm guessing you guys are mid 20s, and I don't think it's unusual for someone with close ties to their family to be really emotionally tied up with visiting family for the holidays. The first couple years I had to do things without my family at the holidays I was devastated. Like tears and depression. And I'm a pretty stoic person. We are lucky in that we ultimately ended up somewhat close to both our families so don't have to split things. But my point is that holidays can bring out really strong emotions in some people, and her reaction - while not particularly rational - is not unusual for your age either. So assuming she's otherwise not selfish, I'd try and get through this year without holding a grudge against her. Then you get engaged this year, and before next year you come up with a plan for the long term - like alternating holidays.

Perfect advice. I hope op hasn't been a ared away from this thread. By the first page of bonkers replies.

Anonymous wrote:3 years why haven’t you proposed yet

This is the better question.

My husband’s family sucked, so it was easy. His parents never did much for the holidays, zero traditions and they were a mess. Divorced and dysfunctional and dad was an alcoholic, cheater.

My family has great holidays. Great food, great fun, great company and tradition. It was clear what we wanted our kids to experience.

I sucked it up to be fair early in our relationship. We flew out on Xmas day a few times and did some Thanksgivings, but soon he didn’t want to go without my saying a word because he really loves my family and how happy, loving and fun it is.

Our kids love all of the tradition and still get excited for the holiday season in their teens. If you want your kids to want to come back as adults, you do it right throughout their childhood/teen years.

A few things:

(1) Is she talking about all Christmases forever or just like THIS Christmas? I would clarify with her. If she's really saying forever then yes, she is being selfish and also incredibly unrealistic. Unless you marry someone with no family at all, it's unlikely that you will never spend Christmas away from your parents. And if you have kids, that shifts things too. We do Christmas at home because we don't want to travel with our kids on Christmas, and our families won't travel to us so we don't see them. And it's more than fine -- we see them at other times during the year and I'm more focused on giving my kids a special Christmas and creating memories and traditions with them than trying to relive my own childhood with my parents.

(2) But also, if you live 11 hours from your family, how often do you currently see them? That's a lot of travel. My parents are about 7 hours away by plane, but it takes more like 13-15 hours of total travel time because there are no direct flights and with layovers and drives to and from the airport, it adds up. Before my DH I visited them twice a year, and after we married that became once a year because we also want to take family vacations just us, plus visit his family (who is closer, so we visit them twice a year). Pre-marriage, I devoted about half or even more than half of my vacation time to visiting my parents, now it's much less because I have more people in my life and that would not be reasonable. If you want to get married, these are things you should think about. Your parents are very important to you now but if you have a wife, they will become less important by comparison. I know people struggle with that but it's just how it is. When you have kids, the shift away from your parents is even bigger.

(3) If you get married, another thing to factor in is how much either set of parents will visit you guys. Especially once you have kids. One thing you will discover is that your relationships to parents will depend at least partially on the effort THEY are willing to put in. Regardless of distance, you eventually grow resentful of always being the ones to travel to them. Especially when they are retired and you have young kids. You will wonder "Why are we flying to Mom & Dad when they have nothing but time and we are juggling school schedules, limited vacation time, and have to entertain two kids under 6 on an airplane for 10 hours?" And your spouse will feel this even more strongly. I would talk to your families about this because a lot of parents of adult kids don't understand this give and take. They expect to be catered to and then are surprised when their kids stop visiting more frequently because they haven't put in reciprocal effort to maintain that relationship.

Anonymous wrote:This site is bonkers. I have no idea why the people above are ganging up on you.

First - depending on age, 3 years is completely reasonable to be dating. I met DH at 22, we dated for 3.5 years before he proposed, and have been happily married for 25 years. Those 3.5 years did not feel remotely long or dragged out at the time.

Second - yeah, your girl friend is being selfish. At some point you figure out how to spend the holidays together, and that means sacrificing some of your time with your family. Splitting the holiday between your family and hers isn't reasonable, given how far away your family is. But it is totally reasonable to spend every second holiday with your family.

With all that said, I'm guessing you guys are mid 20s, and I don't think it's unusual for someone with close ties to their family to be really emotionally tied up with visiting family for the holidays. The first couple years I had to do things without my family at the holidays I was devastated. Like tears and depression. And I'm a pretty stoic person. We are lucky in that we ultimately ended up somewhat close to both our families so don't have to split things. But my point is that holidays can bring out really strong emotions in some people, and her reaction - while not particularly rational - is not unusual for your age either. So assuming she's otherwise not selfish, I'd try and get through this year without holding a grudge against her. Then you get engaged this year, and before next year you come up with a plan for the long term - like alternating holidays.

I think this is something that OP and GF need to be aware of, and GF will have to move on from having to do every holiday and Dad's birthday with them.

Anonymous wrote:I’m in a similar situation with the distance and we alternate years for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So it looks like this:

2022 Thanksgiving: Mine
2022 Christmas: His
2023 Thanksgiving: His
2023 Christmas: Mine

He did not love this when it started because Christmas is his favorite holiday, but add in kids and real life commitments (ie we have jobs and can’t take weeks off work to drive 10 hours) and this is the best option for us.

+1

This is what we do. Exhausting since none of us live in the same city. No one comes to us because we are the ones who moved to a new city, and our respective extended families have all stayed put. So we travel to them in alternating years.

I would discuss all of this upfront before marriage. Basically, if you are the ones always traveling, that means you never develop your own traditions in your own home with your kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She's right. My family is 8 hours away, in Paris, and we don't spend Christmas with them. 11hrs away? What are you smoking, OP? I would never travel that far for a boyfriend's Christmas.

Unless you're married, in which case you can negotiate more equity in family visits, you are totally in the wrong here. And even then, you'd have to propose something very interesting in exchange for a miserable 11hr trip to see your parents at Christmas.

Presumably they would not be going for one day. Why not make a vacation out of it? You're weird, you must hate your parents.

No, my kids only get a short Christmas break and I refuse to deal with jet lag as a family of 4. My parents can come if they want. They're retired and healthy. They came ONCE in 20 years. We visit them in the summer.

It’s her dad’s birthday and he’s getting older. Have a heart. You guys can celebrate any other day. Why are you being so selfish about this yourself?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is she basically saying she will never willingly be away from her family on Dec 25? Only you can decide if that’s a dealbreaker. In my family we can have “Christmas” on whatever day people can get together, so it doesn’t really matter whether it happens on the 25th or closer to New Years. Maybe she’s being selfish and irrational, but also maybe it doesn’t actually matter that much.

If she said she’s fine with going Christmas Eve I don’t see what’s the big deal.

The big deal is that bc of the distance to his family, splitting Christmas isn’t an option.

Anonymous wrote:She's right. My family is 8 hours away, in Paris, and we don't spend Christmas with them. 11hrs away? What are you smoking, OP? I would never travel that far for a boyfriend's Christmas.

Unless you're married, in which case you can negotiate more equity in family visits, you are totally in the wrong here. And even then, you'd have to propose something very interesting in exchange for a miserable 11hr trip to see your parents at Christmas.

Presumably they would not be going for one day. Why not make a vacation out of it? You're weird, you must hate your parents.

It's weird that she insists on spending daddy's birthday with him. How old is she? She needs to cut the cord. My SIL is like this. Everything is about daddy, daddy, daddy. She's 40 and single though.

Anonymous wrote:It's not objectivelyrics reasonable of her to get dibs on Christmas day every year. For a milestone birthday, perhaps, but Christmas is extremely important and Wirth more than all other holidays for some people.

There's no right or wrong answer in how you decide to split the holidays, Some people alternate and some divy up holidays. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you both come to some sort of agreement and no one resents the other. Do not get married if you cannot agree on some sort of resolution. Splitting holidays only becomes a bigger issue over time, not smaller.

*objectively
**worth

It's not objectivelyrics reasonable of her to get dibs on Christmas day every year. For a milestone birthday, perhaps, but Christmas is extremely important and Wirth more than all other holidays for some people.

There's no right or wrong answer in how you decide to split the holidays, Some people alternate and some divy up holidays. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you both come to some sort of agreement and no one resents the other. Do not get married if you cannot agree on some sort of resolution. Splitting holidays only becomes a bigger issue over time, not smaller.

This site is bonkers. I have no idea why the people above are ganging up on you.

First - depending on age, 3 years is completely reasonable to be dating. I met DH at 22, we dated for 3.5 years before he proposed, and have been happily married for 25 years. Those 3.5 years did not feel remotely long or dragged out at the time.

Second - yeah, your girl friend is being selfish. At some point you figure out how to spend the holidays together, and that means sacrificing some of your time with your family. Splitting the holiday between your family and hers isn't reasonable, given how far away your family is. But it is totally reasonable to spend every second holiday with your family.

With all that said, I'm guessing you guys are mid 20s, and I don't think it's unusual for someone with close ties to their family to be really emotionally tied up with visiting family for the holidays. The first couple years I had to do things without my family at the holidays I was devastated. Like tears and depression. And I'm a pretty stoic person. We are lucky in that we ultimately ended up somewhat close to both our families so don't have to split things. But my point is that holidays can bring out really strong emotions in some people, and her reaction - while not particularly rational - is not unusual for your age either. So assuming she's otherwise not selfish, I'd try and get through this year without holding a grudge against her. Then you get engaged this year, and before next year you come up with a plan for the long term - like alternating holidays.