My fiancé and I have been invited on a vacation with his parents and siblings over Christmas. I’ve done more local trips with them before, and have felt pretty uncomfortable during them. I have some dietary restrictions that his family often forgets about so I’m often feeling hungry and awkward at meal times.
I also don’t love the idea of being away from my family for Christmas. I’m an only child with older parents, and Christmas is one of the only times I get to see my extended family during the year. WIBTAH if I didn’t go on the trip with them? His family is truly wonderful, but I don’t know if I necessarily want to spend my Christmas holiday with them so far from my own family
NTA. But have a conversation about what holidays you’ll be splitting. You might have to commit to thanksgiving or Easter to balance it out
I was thinking something similar. There’s gonna have to be a compromise somewhere.
NTA, as someone with dietary restrictions I can completely relate to that feeling. I may be reading more into it then there is but I find your fiancé to be the AH if he isn’t trying to accommodate you when you go with his family. If they cared about you, its not something thats easy to forget.
NTA but you will need to work this out going forward.
YWNBTA those reasons sound extremely reasonable for declining the invitation
Forgeting about a guests dietary
Restrictions and having no options isn’t “truly wonderful”. It is middling. Does your fiancé advocate for you when they don’t take your restrictions into account?
NTA, two excellent reasons for staying. Just be aware you need to figure this all out with him and his family so there’s no hurt feelings.
YWNBTA. It’s completely fair to want to spend the holidays with your own family. You should probably have a discussion with your partner about big holidays such as Christmas and how you guys want to split them.
About the dietary restrictions, does your partner also not do anything to accommodate the same? While I do think people should largely manage their dietary needs and provide for themselves, rather than depending on other folks, loved ones such as your partner should definitely care enough to be cognizant of the same and accommodate your needs.
I am a cynic so when I read about people forgetting about allergies I always think, nope, they didn’t forget, they don’t care or think the other person is faking/lying. Since your fiance can’t be bothered to remind their family about the allergies or reprimand them when they do, they probably think you are faking it or they just don’t care. Either way, you have a fiance problem.
NTA but are you sure you want to marry him and be forgotten by his family during events for the rest of your life? You need to have big boundaries now and fiancé needs to be enforcing them with you and not letting his parents run over you and leave you with no food.
Just let him go and tell your future ILs that you are not sure how many Christmases you will be able to share with your parents.
We have a future DIL, too, and we perfectly understand that she has her own family. We’ve given our son up graciously so they can to to her home (far away) occasionally. We just change our Christmas day to another time so we can still all celebrate together. I hope your future ILs can understand as well.
I personally don’t like to travel during the holidays. There are people I miss but my parents are gone and my siblings all do different things so I basically spend the holidays quietly at home. It’s nice you still have a family to see and I think that that is a good idea for you to do.
NTA. I think the focus of your reasoning should be just they you were planning to spend time with your parents and extended family since you usually only see some of them once a year. Then talk with you fiance about holiday expectations moving forward and how to make sure everyone feels like they’re getting equal family time.
INFO: Has your fiance spent Christmas with you and your extended family?