Couples, how do you compromise between family and in-law events?

I think if there are family things as often as twice a month, missing half of them isn’t a big deal. When they ask where your boyfriend is, they simply might be just indirectly acknowledging or saying he is welcome and they value your relationship.

Half of my married life we have lived out of state from our parents, so spending time with them was only twice a year and it rarely threatened to overlap, so it wasn’t a big deal.

My exboyfriend, who I dated for many years, his family had more events, so we did more with his family than mine.

Have you talked to him about it? Explained how you feel? Men generally don’t worry about what other people are thinking like women do. So, if part of your worry is how it appears to your family, he probably wn’t care as much as you do. But, if it is simply you miss him, enjoy his company, and want him there, then if you explain that maybe he will do it more often for you. I’m guessing he also might have some sort of sense of obligation to his family, especially after you have told us how his mom and sister are. He might feel the burden of making them happy. A terrible burden. Maybe he will explain to you where he is coming from if you talk to him and you might get surprised what he thinks about everything.

I feel obligated to always go to my family events though. Like I said its not often…so since I see his family a lot I will spend time with my family instead of seeing his. Sometimes I try to make both. I guess he does the same thing, he tries to go if there’s time but like I said he has a lot of events so he misses out a lot on the very few my family has.

When there isn’t a scheduling conflict does he happily attend your family functions? I know,that you can’t really do this with the upcoming birthday celebration, but is there any way the two of your could,be involved in scheduling. If his schedule is pretty tight, perhaps you could work with your family to schedule events at a time when he can join you.

I can. It just sucks sometimes because he will say “Maybe.” And I’ll ask why and he will respond “I might have something to do that day” as if he’s waiting for something else to come up. He stopped that after numerous times I had to get it through his head lol.

this month is busy with his car event, our anniv, his cousins late grad party, etc.

But seriously, I’m curious to know how you split Christmas or thanksgiving? Those days we go like 3 different places: his moms, his dads, mine. So much traveling

Obligated, or you want to go?

Both JLeslie. Not often we spend time together so I want to be there and I also feel I need to because it looks bad if I just don’t feel like going and everyone else has.

@chelle21689 I did that going to a bunch of places thing for years and I never stopped loathing it. I finally put my foot down and we either hosted both families or worked out some other plan that did not include us bending over backward to accommodate their schedule. I know when you are the couple without kids everyone expects you to be flexible but that does get old after a while.

I never had to split Christmas, my family is Jewish, his Catholic. Still, sometimes we don’t make it to Christmas with his family, and you know what, too bad. His mom tries to lay on the guilt though. A lot of families do Christmas Eve with one set of family and Christmas day with the other. It works out easier if one side traditionally celebrated Christmas Eve and the other Christmas Day and no one has to feel they compromised, I know couples who run around like lunatics trying to satisfy their parents on the holidays and I think it is ridiculous. Thanksgiving my parents usually come to my house, because it is important to my dad. I recently asked him if he would do passover instead of Thanksgiving, but he is stuck on thanksgiving. It’s annoying to me. A couple times we have done thanks giving with my husband’s parents. They aren’t American, but they have lived here for over 15 years, and they always “celebrate” it.

I don’t have kids, if I had kids I would worry a little more about them having an extended family experience on the holidays. Without kids it mostly feels like a lot of obligation, complying with Hallmark, and letting the hospitality industry, gas companies, and airlines take advantage of people.

@SuperMouse lol hopefully we reach a point like yours

@JLeslie my family always celebrated Christmas Eve not Christmas Day. His family would celebrate Christmas. But now his mom got married and tries to change it to Christmas Eve which threw everyone off schedule lol cuz of her in law

I just took initiative and trying to plan a kickball and cookout this Sunday. I hate planning lol because everyone changes mind and you are responsible

@chelle21689 And, what does your bf want to do? Does he care about going to Christmas with your family? Maybe this Christmas just take a holiday cruise just you and him and avoid the families altogether. LOL. I think you both just need to decide as a couple what you want to do, and then discuss it with your families and see what compromises can be made so no one is very bent out of shape. Do you do the gifts and the whole hooplah with both families? Will your family invite his family to Christmas or vice versa?

He wants to make me happy. He skipped Christmas Eve with friends to make it to mine so he can make it to both family.

We get gifts and do secret Santa with both families. I doubt they would invite my family vice versa cuz it’d be so huge altogether. Maybe if I have my own big place one day hahaha but I can see them being separated which is understandable.

We were so bored on Cheistmas alone with nothing to do. Sucks that none of our family have celebrated that day.

Christmas Day can be the most boring day of the year. It always was for me when I was younger. Everything is closed, most of my friends were doing things with their families. Now that I am older and married I like the day off, especially back when I was working full time, and when I lived in FL we sometimes went to the beach. We still sometimes go for Chinese food Christmas Day (a Jewish tradition).

I agree with ya there

You both need to break away from a dependence on family. It isn’t healthy (you’re upset just talking about it!) and you don;t have an independent life. Why in the world would you double date with his sisters? Are you dating them too?

If I were you I would limit it to one family event a month for his side and one for your family, and you both go to both. And no more his choosing others over you. You should be the most important to him, and he should be most important to you.

We compromise. If my mom has an event on the day after the holiday, my husband’s mom may have one the day of the holiday.

@zenvelo He’s close to his sisters I guess. He always invites them, lol.

@chelle21689 Why doesn’t he want to be with you exclusively? And why do you allow them to tag along? Do they watch you two have sex? Do they let you get intimate?

Uh…I don’t know? He doesn’t think it’s much of a big deal. I don’t have a problem with it really, it can be slightly annoying sometimes but if I wanna be alone then I let him know. Those are sickening questions.

Our families are too far apart to go to one house for part of the day and the other for the other part of the day so we try to arrange the big holidays so that we have an opportunity to celebrate with each family (such as being with one family the weekend before and the other the weekend after) if we aren’t hosting the get-together at our house. If we can’t arrange to see each family for the holiday for whatever reason, then we alternate holidays each year (so if we went to my family this year, we would go to his family next year).

Christmas day is a day for staying home for us because of our children. If someone wants to see us or our children on Christmas day, they have to come here.

As for other events, we go when we can. If both families are having an event on the same day, we weigh each option and pick one to go to. When we weigh each option, we look at things like:
– how long has it been since we’ve seen each family
– are their certain family members that are going to be at one event that we haven’t seen in a long time
– when will we all be together again

We don’t split up and go to our own respective family events, we go as a family (or couple if our children aren’t coming with us). Even if our families were close enough to split days, I wouldn’t want to do it. I like to go to one place and relax without watching the clock for when I have to leave.

Some families trade off Thanksgiving at one relative and the Christmas with the other. Next year they flip it. I forgot about that in my first answer.

Between you and your boyfriend, you’re talking about family events 2 or 3 times a month, right? That seems like a lot, given that there are only 4 weekends each month (usually). If a lot of them feel like obligations, I’d work hard to cut that down to one per month. Alternate families, or choose which event is more ‘important’ in special cases. Your families may not be thrilled with that, but this is your life.

My ex-husband and I had four families to accommodate, since both sets of our parents were divorced (and some had remarried). I can’t imagine what we’d have done if each set of parents had family events that often! For us, even just the major holidays were troublesome. Even though he’s Jewish, both his parents celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah, and my family is Christian…so we had Easter and Passover, Christmas and Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, etc.

When we were first together, we did the ‘visit everyone on every major holiday’ thing for a few years, and it was awful. After that, we started rotating holidays (this year my mom, next year yours, etc.) Every time, someone complained or threw a guilt trip on us, so it wasn’t much better, to be honest. As soon as we had kids, we started hosting every holiday and inviting ALL of the parents to our house. That sorted itself out fairly quickly, with some opting not to mingle with others, and settling for a different day to celebrate.