Family holiday drama forever
DEAR AMY >> Since last year, I’ve been asking my wife to take a different approach to the holidays, and to just focus on our small immediate family.
Every single year, without fail, there’s some major disappointment, family conflict or travel debacle, typically with her extended family. She walks away exhausted, angry, frustrated or hurt.
Last year, she said she was “done” after a big fight between her aunt and cousin that got very heated.
She says she does not want them around, but she feels obligated to host these big family holiday parties, because otherwise, they would not see each other.
My wife finally said she was not going to host this year. I was thrilled and told her we would find ways to make it special for us and our son.
Soon after, my wife started to tell me that she was getting “rude” or “hurtful” responses from her family, saying that they were disappointed in her. She began to secondguess our decision. She told me that her family began to assume that I did not want them around, and she did not know why they thought this.
I found out through another family member that my wife had actually blamed me for forgoing the holiday party this year, and she had told her family that she really wanted to have it, but I was against it.
Amy, how can I get my wife to understand “quality” over “quantity” with familial relationships? I don’t want to see my wife in this constant cycle of anxiety and stress.
What do you recommend? DEAR HUSBAND >> Your wife’s family members took advantage of her passivity for years, and now she is basically throwing you under the family bus in order to escape their reaction to this change. (Understand that your insistence that she change things is also probably stressful for her.)
But hey — she is halfright. You are the one forcing this issue, and you should be willing to take one for the family team. You are inoculated against this bullying because you likely don’t care all that much what these people think of you. The beauty of being an in-law is that you get to make all the pronouncements, with very little personal consequence.
I hope you will take the lead and plan some holiday-centered plans that your immediate family can enjoy together, in the hope that these will become traditions. Attend your local theater’s production of “A Christmas Carol.” Make and decorate cookies to deliver to neighbors. Go ice skating together.
It isn’t fair, and it isn’t right, but you should be prepared for the possibility that even with a lovely, low-key holiday, your wife will feel pressured, guilty and as if she is missing something important. She will have to find the best balance for her.