Holidays
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How To Handle Thanksgiving - HELP!
My fianc? and I are getting married in 6 months and with Thanksgiving quickly approaching, we are faced with having to decide which family to spend Thanksgiving with. If we didn't spend Thanksgiving with my parents, they would likely be alone, which makes me feel guilty. Plus, my parents have been very generous in helping us pay/plan for the wedding. In December we will be spending Christmas (2 weeks total) with my fianc?'s parents in his hometown. Is it fair to request that we spend this Thanksgiving with my parents? He was hoping to spend it with his family and neither one of us wants to separate, since we've spent every holiday together. I feel it would be hurtful to my parents to tell them we weren't going to spend it with them. And his family so far, has not invited my family to their Thanksgiving.
Re: How To Handle Thanksgiving - HELP!
Ditto the pp.
However, you are not married yet. I am of the mindset that, until I was married, I spent the holidays with my family. My boyfriend/fiance (now DH) could do whatever he wanted, which was to spend the holidays with my family. We still spend all holidays with my family, though.
When my sister was engaged, her fiance (now-DH of many years) asked her, "what are we going to do for Christmas?" to which she replied, "I don't know what you're doing, but I'm spending it with my family." She and I are a lot alike.
If your fiance makes a big deal about wanting to spend Thanksgiving with his family when you will be seeing them for TWO WEEKS at Christmas, I think you should re-consider the marriage. He seems very selfish. The fact that YOU are even questioning this makes me think he chose you b/c you are a pushover and people-pleaser.
What more does your fiance want? You are spending 2 weeks with his family for Christmas (the major of the two holidays). LOL
As married people, you have to figure out a way to compromise and split. You can't spend every holiday with the other's family.
Yeah... I'm w/ Wahoo. He sounds really selfish and you sound like a pushover.
Good luck w that. Marriage isn't going to magically change him. Just remember that so when this crops up again (and it will), you can't be stunned when he's still selfish.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I agree with this response, and this is definitely something you should figure out now. We definitely discussed splitting holidays before marriage. Here's our solution (which I think is very common): We trade off.
One year, we do Thanksgiving with his family, and Christmas with mine. The next year, we switch. Since his family lives nearby, we just go over there on the day of, but we end up spending more time with them overall. With my family, we spend the weekend of Thanksgiving, and longer with Christmas.
I have to ditto this. I'm not looking for an answer here, but ask yourself, are YOU really happy with this compromise? It sounds like he's not giving as much as you are. Personally, and I know you didn't ask what I would do, I would tell him where you are going to be (at your parents for the entire duration that you want) and if he doesn't want to be away from you then he's more than welcome to join you. I don't think splitting holidays is something to separate over like a PP mentioned, but you do need to stand your ground before you get married, it might show him that you're going to stand up for what you want. Why does his family get so much more time than yours?
I would even go as far as to recommend seeing a pre-marital counselor to take care of this small issue before it becomes a big issue.
Ditto this. This is not at all fair for you or your family and you call this compromise?
It's amazing how well your H bulldozed you into getting EXACTLY what he wanted by throwing you the bone of ONE FREAKIN' DAY!
Are you seriously okay with spending like 17 days with your IL's and ONE day with your family?! Does that sound right and fair to you?
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
What's going on here? I can only hope that your parents are local, his are long-distance and that your family "gets" Mother's Day, Father's Day, Easter, and the 4th of July.
Otherwise, I agree that he is pretty selfish. Don't expect him to change once you get married. If you want more holiday time with your family, it needs to start now. Tell him you'll be spending the entire holiday with your folks, and he can visit his on his own.
There has to be more to this story. Like is your family more aloof while his clings to him for dear life? How far do both of them live from you? Is your family just your mom and dad while your husband's is this big close knit group?
My siblings and I all come from a small family that is very aloof and all have SO with HUGE very involved familes. So we spend more time with our SO's family vs. our own but we still compromise more than you two are. And it changed to more of half and half when kids came into the picture. You need to show more of an effort with your family.
Something just isn't clicking. You need to evaluate if this is how you want to split all your family events. Which would be 5% to your family and 95% to his. Do you really want to do that? And what about when kids come? Is your FI willing to adjust to your family's want to see their own little ones? Or will he get even more clingy about his family, leaving the scrapes for yours?
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That's not really much of a compromise.
Whoa what the others are saying... that is NOT a compromise. Two WEEKS at Christmas with his family? That's well and good, but your family sure as heck should get the entire Thanksgiving weekend then PLUS some other holidays!
We have howlers in my family over how DH and I split up holidays... my family gets the actual holiday (Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve... Christmas Day is just us), and his family gets Friday - Sunday of Thanksgiving and two days sometime after Christmas (they live 3+ hours away so they have to be an overnighter anyway). We happily do that so they don't feel shafted by never getting the actual holiday... but it's only an extra day or two as opposed to two extra WEEKS. (My sister freaks out about those couple of days, but she hates my MIL and would like to pretend MIL doesn't exist.)
I have to agree that there is something missing to this story. I do not feel that you guys are truly compromising when the holiday time is that lopsided. Your family is just as important as his, even if it is only your parents. The way you have presented this situation does not show that your FI is willing to compromise more then that.
However, I'm not going to say that you are a push over or that you are selfish because I certainly have no idea what is really going on in this situation. Maybe you are completely okay with this because you aren't very close to your parents and you feel obligated to spend the day with them because otherwise they will be alone. I don't know. Best of luck.