I’m not sure if I am being an asshole or not in this situation:.
Basically I (30F) am estranged from all of my family members. This means that even on holidays I have no contact with them. I have kind of created my own way of celebrating the calmness of these days while everyone is with their family.
Now that I am in a relationship this is becoming a problem. Naturally, if both my partner and I had families of out own then we would "take turns" with spending holidays alternating between our respective family celebrations. But unfortunately that’s not the case.
My partner thinks that this means that we should spend every single holiday with her family, because as she puts it I "have nobody to let down" by not showing up. I think that we should alternate choosing where we spend holidays together because that is the equal thing to do.
This is not just me being selfish. There are real reason why I don’t want to spend every holiday with their family: the biggest is that every single time I go there, some aunt or cousin it someone starts asking me questions about my most traumatic moments as if it was small-talk. Also I have always hoped to form my own family traditions and this is just not how I want to spend my holidays.
~~N A H~~, I think. Just an incompatibility. You want different things out of the holidays, and neither is really wrong.
Edit: You know, I’ve changed my mind because the more OP explains, the worse it gets. YTA. It’s one thing to have different preferences about holidays, but OP seems determined not to find any compromise other than one that always involves one partner being miserable. I guess if she can’t enjoy holidays, no one can.
NTA. But your title is very misleading. Try to compromise. You can still take turns. Just that your turn isn’t with your family but your own traditions and celebrations you’ve came up with over the years. That would be fair for both of you. If that’s not a option then you’re both not compatible
NAH. Both of you have valid reasons for how you wish to celebrate holidays. If you can’t work it out you may not be compatible in the long run.
INFO: Have you explained why you don’t want to spend every holiday with your partner’s family? If so, what was their response?
NTA. However, she’s NTA either. (The family poking around with questions are AH though)
Unfortunately, you want different things from holidays. I get it – I have only a parent remaining in my family and VERY low contact with them. While my partner has a larger family with plenty of visits planned.
What do we do? About 1/2 the time, I stay home while she visits her family. They always ask where I am, but she tells them the truth, without judgement or hesitation – I am an adult and chose to stay home. Ask your partner to advocate for you, and stay home and enjoy the peace & quiet. They have learned to expect it, and now it’s a non-issue.
NAH. You also don’t need to spend every holiday with your SO, though. Perhaps each year, look at the big holidays and split them. She can choose where to do half and you can do the other half. If that isn’t agreeable then you can suggest you each simply make your own holiday plans. You can opt to spend them with her or not.
OP is definitely TA. They’ve said “It’s not that I want to stay home — that wouldn’t be an issue. I want my partner to stay home with me.”
So the partner has said OP is fine not to attend but OP is like “no. I want you to forego seeing your family for a quiet evening at home with me.”
Yeah, the more OP explains, the more I’m having a hard time with this. I’m all about rotating holidays between families/traditions, but OP is asking their partner to sit at home and do nothing when all of their family is together celebrating.
I get that, in theory, that’s a fair, 50/50 compromise, but practically, I think it’s asking a lot of someone to just give up 50% of their holidays. Like, not to celebrate differently, but to simply give them up.
You can decide what you want to do for the holidays, but you cant decide for your SO. Let her go without you.
NTA. Holidays with a partner should be discussed and decisions shared.
One option is to not spend a holiday together. My husband likes to ski. I hate cold. For two years in a row, he spent NYE with a group of friends in a cabin in upstate NY while I hung out with other friends 400 miles south. We have split up on other holidays over the years as well, because of child / pet needs.
It’s all fine. We’re still together, 25 years and counting. No one has died because one of us didn’t show up. If they have questions, that’s their problem, not yours.
But you and your partner do have to be able to talk about it without being dismissive of each others’ choices. You know, like “I want you to spend whatever time you like with your family! I just am not going to be up for it every year, so some times I will be staying home. I’ll be fine on my own, I will \[insert your thing here\], because that’s what I like.”
Idk, it sounds like your partner values spending the holidays with family and it also sounds like you don’t. That’s a major incompatibility issue. Neither is wrong, but it is a major issue
YTA for the following reasons:
1. You stated “traumatic questions” in your post but then clarified that the questions are polite small talk like “where do your parents live?” Or “do you have any siblings?”. You claim these “would force a person to either lie or trauma-dump” when you can simply say that you don’t have a relationship with your family.
2. You’re not open to compromise. The best solution would be that you simply do your own thing on the holidays but you’ve stated “It’s not that I want to stay home — that wouldn’t be an issue. I want my partner to stay home with me.”
3. You don’t want to do anything on the holidays, make any new traditions or have any personal celebrations. You just want to sit at home – which, any other day of the year is probably what you do anyway. But forcing your partner to do the same on what is meant to be a special time of the year is just miserly.
The comments are where OP reveals that she is being childish and is the ahole. Its not that she wants to have a relaxed holiday at home with her partner it sounds like she want to just ignore the holiday and sit on the couch. I get why her partner would not want this.
Lowkey holidays can be great, I loved the one year my sister, her kids and I all had COVID and had a low key Christmas, but we still did a fun dinner and tried to make new traditions. It doesn’t have to be stressful, but it sounds like OP doesn’t want to put any effort into creating new holiday traditions. I get why their partner wants to see her family.
And her responses about answering people’s questions just seem purposefully obstinate.
YTA I would understand if you wanted to spend 50% of the time with her family and the other 50% of the time doing a special tradition yourself, but looking through your OP and other comments it just sounds like you just want to spend 50% of the time AWAY from HER family. Obviously her family is very important to her, and once you hit 30, you never know when the last time you’ll see a family member again. If holidays and family don’t mean much to you, you shouldn’t force your partner to not participate so that you can get a two year break from seeing her aunts and uncles. It’s a couple of hours a year. Be a good partner.