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first holiday season as a married couple
We just got married in July, and we have been trying to establish ourselves as a married couple with our families. His in particular as they are having a hard time letting go. We talked about how to split up our first holiday season, and at some point decided to stay put just for Thanksgiving(we live in a different state from our families, who all live in colorado) and start a new tradition for us. We loved the idea of not having to be rushing from one house to another, in and out of airports, splitting time with friends on top of family, and being able to relish in the us-ness. Making our little two person family the priority. My parents totally supported us when I told them. His parents acted like it was a joke. I fell in love with the idea, and I thought he had too, but now he has expressed that he would be sad to be away from his family, and that it is selfish of us to focus only on what WE want. I get it. I will feel a little sad too, but I will find so much joy in him and us, and will look forward to Christmas with the extended family. I don't want the guilty feeling of spending more time with one family or the other. I want to be the one to cook my husband our first holiday meal together with out worrying about the approval of his mother. I want simplicity and freedom for US.
Do you think this is selfish? have any of you taken this road? How did it work out? How do we find a compromise? General thoughts?
Re: first holiday season as a married couple
No it is not selfish. And your ILs should realize this. I think they are being selfish by making you feel that way.
I know where you are coming from, my family is 100% supportive in us starting our own traditions (we got married in July too) but we've been together for 5 years. All other holidays were split, very badly with his family usually saying they got less time, which was never true.
This Christmas we will be several states away since we are moving next month and we won't be coming home. I'm looking forward to a stress free, travel free holiday.
You need to explain to your H how you feel and not let your ILs dictate how you spend your time. I just read you'll be there for Christmas...they really need to back off, lol.
No, it's not selfish. And I agree- they are selfish for making you all feel bad.
Point this out to him - do his parents (or yours, for that matter) rush around going to all their parents' and other families homes?
Most likely not.
At some point, every married couple has to figure out what works for them and it's going to eventually involve not going everywhere.
Yes, he'll be sad. but so will you, I'm sure, BUT you're also focusing on what you'll enjoy too. This is a part of growing up. Traditions change and you cna't always do what you did as a kid.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Being that it is your first holiday together I don?t think it is selfish at all I understand that you want to stay home, and hey next year you may want to go and visit everyone. Both of your families should understand. It is a wonderful time in your lives and you should have things the way you want. Sit down and talk to your husband and tell him exactly what you want and then call the ILs and spell it out. I hope things work out.
I agree with your decision. You have to start establishig these traditions and let it be known that you two are a family now. It gets more comlicated with kids, trust me.
Very shortly after we got married we had our little one. My DH and I decided we would stay at our house this Thanksgiving and invite both of our families to our house (none of our siblings are married). His family was very supportive and excited, my family, not so much. But hey that's our decision, and if they want to see us they will come. The sooner you start making decisions together the sooner they will respect your new family
good luck!
I like that, for some reason I never thought of it like that. We are married ADULTS and stuff can change from when we were kids. Very well put EastCoast!
I'm going to give you a little different perspective. If you stay home for Thanksgiving to relish in your new marriage and cook a big turkey dinner for your new husband all by yourself, I think you will find it very boring & just a little bit of a let-down. To be honest, for most people, holidays are about family time.
Relish your marriage Daily & cook simply & enjoy each other all the other days of the month & allow your husband to celebrate holidays at home if that's the only time he can see them. It's especially great that your family doesn't care, makes it so much easier to just visit his side.
Marriage is about compromise & sounds like he wants to see his fam.
Flame away girls!
I think you're confusing too many issues here.
First, yes, all married couples should relish their marriage, and cook simply (
) and all that jazz every day. That's beside the point here.
Second, sure he wants to see his family. As much as she wants to see her family, I'd be willing to bet. But, what it really sounds like happened is he listened to his mommy and now is going back on his commitment to his wife.
The OP and her H decided together that they were going to avoid the mess and rush of Thanksgiving day travel. They were both happy and comfortable with that plan. Only when the H's mother found out what the plan was and treated it like "a joke" did the H start with the, "I'll be sad to not see my family," business.
If the OP and her H had been debating what to do and she was all, "I don't want to travel," and he was all, "I want to see my family," then I would agree they need to try to compromise. That's not what happened though. He made a decision with her, and his mother (family) belittled it, and now he doesn't want to stick to it. If he folds on each decision they make as a married couple that his family doesn't agree with, she's in for a long, unhappy marriage.
Finally, my H and I decided (and notified our families) as soon as we were married that we would travel each year on Christmas only (we live in one state, each of our parents in a different state) and we were going to alternate where we went each year, and this would stay in effect until there were children. Last year was our first Thanksgiving. We had turkey breast, potatoes, wine, and a simply amazing Thanksgiving together. It was about family - the two of us as a family.
ETA for typo
Not a flame perse, but I don't think her family "doesn't care", but it's probably more the case that they are trying to be understanding and supportive. To be honest, if they know the plan, they're probably going to be hurt if it now changes and they see the ILs and not her family because of some perceived pouting on the part of MIL.
I deal with this, too. This is what I think you should do.
You need to have an honest conversation with your DH about YOUR family--is he always going to let mommy guilt him into doing what she wants? Is he always going to put his mom's family first instead of HIS family (which is YOU!)? I had to have this conversation with my DH right before our wedding, and it really helped him to understand where I was coming from with a lot of issues that have come up.
Second, you live in a different state. It is absolutely NOT unreasonable to stay home for Thanksgiving and travel for Christmas. I might even recommend that both sets of parents travel to see you all for Thanksgiving (which may not work if you have lots of siblings who can't travel).
It is not silly or selfish to want to create your own traditions--you MUST do that starting NOW. If you don't create boundaries with your family and IL's now, what in the world will you all do when you have kids? Save your sanity and talk to DH.
we too live far from our families. We live in NC and our families live in IL.
We decided we only go home for Christmas and do Thanksgiving by ourselves. our parents understand, travel is expensive. We just told them this is the way it is.
this year DHs grandparents are having a 65th wedding anniversary party thanksgiving weekend so of course we are going home for that.
This exactly. Our family is 8 hours away and we go through this allll the time!
Thanks everybody for your feedback. We haven't discussed it further, but I have asked him to put some thought into what HE wants, leaving out the feelings of his family, and vowed to do the same myself. What I have to do is make sure that I am listening to the needs of my husband and not just stick to our first plan purely on the principal that I don't want to cave to the pressures of his family.
Also, we weren't planning on staying home for the actual dinner, but to go to a local soup kitchen and serve the homeless and eat with them as well, and then do a nice dessert/wine at home, possibly with friends that are staying in the area. So I don't think it would be sad, lonely, or depressing.
Happy Holidays!
I was married in June and can feel your pain. My parents are very understanding and supportive of everything H and I do and his parents are...well, not. My advice would be to not create a tradition. Just do what you're doing this year and see how you feel. Don't make a be all, end all rule that Thanksgiving will be at home...you may change your mind later.
With my ILS and parents, I just use the excuse that we are newlyweds and I smile sweetly as I say we are enjoying spending time alone...hee hee I think sometimes it grosses them out because they think I mean, well, ya know....which kinda works in my favor
Bottom line is my ILS almost made my wedding weekend so horrible we almost didn't go on our honeymoon. We had to forget about them and do our own thing in order to have fun...sometimes you just have to do that. You only have one life...why waste it living it for someone else?
my H and I have been together for almost 4 years. we've been married 1.5 years. his family lives out of state and my family lives in town (my mom is super close almost in the same neighborhood). My family isn't big on holidays in that we don't have a lot of traditions, but we do try and see each other. his family (his mom especially) loves the holiday season and Christmas is her favorite.
so we alternate holidays. We spend one holiday here with my family and one with his family. This year we are doing thanksgiving here and Christmas there. Last year it was thanksgiving there and christmas here. I know his mom is disappointed she doesn't get to see H on both holidays (and new years too) but we were firm and told her we want to spend some holiday time at home. This situation works for now, but once kids come along it will probably change. I imagine since christmas isn't such a big deal to my family that we will spend them with his. My family doesn't care if we see each other on the actual day, just that we do something as a family near that time to appreciate one another.
hope this helps!
I don't think you are being selfish. Travel is expensive, and traveling for both holidays can be really hard.
That said, I know for some families change is very hard to cope with. My H's family is one of them. I'm the youngest of 6 so my side has had to deal with all of this for years, and we take it all in stride. My H is the youngest of 2, and they are the oldest "kids", even though he's an adult I feel this is how his family still sees him. He is 27 and his sister is 31. She was married before him, but has put an emphasis on her side of the family for the holidays... I don't know all of the ins and outs of their relationship, but apparently it works for them. It just didn't work for us. So, we were the first one's to "break the mold" so to speak, and it's been a rough road sometimes. We've had the calls from his mother, crying, the night before a holiday, knowing our plans, and having her guilt trip him into attending their family get together... his aunts have tried to guilt him as well. I finally told him that if he couldn't stand up to them and defend our plans, then we had some major issues to be sorting out. We always made our plans known ahead of time, they just liked to wait until the night before to change them.
After his family realized that the two of us stood by each other, and that we were doing what we were doing and they had no way of changing that, they have backed off. I will sometimes still receive snide remarks from the aunts when we are there. I just have learned to smile sweetly and say "We would love to spend Christmas day with you as well, but my family hasn't even seen us yet." And leave it at that.
I didn't understand that you had community plans with the soup kitchen. I think that makes all the difference, that's a great tradition to have-volunteering in your community or inviting others that live too far from family. I'm sure his family will understand a prior committment and that's a perfect plan. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday & enjoy your new tradition.
Our families are 1,000 miles away. H and I spent our first Christmas in our little apt., just us and our dog. We ate pie for breakfast, took funny photos opening our gifts (to send to our families), took our dog for a long hike, went to a movie, and cooked dinner together. It was amazing.
This is what I look forward to every year now (though occasionally H convinces me to get on a plane--where everyone is sneezing and coughing and travel to the cold Midwest to spend 3 days traveling like maniacs between several small towns to see an overwhelming number of people).
I don't think that you are being selfish at all - and actually love your idea of volunteering at a soup-kitchen in your area.
I was just married in Sept and this is our first Thanksgiving & Christmas to go through after 1) getting married and 2) DH was deployed in Afghanistan this time last year - SO - we have a lot of hurdles to get over with my new ILS.
I should start with - both my parents and the In-Laws live in the same town and DH & I aren't far away from them either.
Thanksgiving isn't such an issue for us - my family hasn't done a 'traditional' thanksgiving dinner in a decade (my mum is from Ireland, where a turkey dinner is only ever done on Christmas day - so she felt like she was having 2 Christmas' in the course of a month, and too much cooking to be done for our huge family) so we've got a hodge-podge day with family & friends all in the area.
Christmas is going to be the battle - my new MIL expects us to be at their churches Christmas Eve service (I'm Catholic, they are Episcopalian so it isn't quite my flavour) AND then also be at their house for opening presents first thing in the morning Christmas day and then later that night for dinner. My parents visit family friends on Christmas Eve for dinner and then only do Christmas Day dinner them selves, with presents being opened after everyone gets a chance to sleep in to a decent hour. 2 years ago we spent the entire couple of days bouncing between my friends, to church, to my friends house again on Christmas Eve, then the next day at 8am we were at the FILS (at the time) house to open presents, back to my parents house to open presents and have an early dinner and back again to his parents house to have dinner.
She can guilt as well as any Irish-Catholic (somehow without 'meaning' to do so) and my parents are so relaxed about the day that it makes it easy for my DH to give into his parents...
Sometimes I WISH we lived in Alaska rather than NJ within 2 miles of our parents...