I am not the original poster. This is a repost.

The original poster is u/thanksgiving_crisis. Originally posted on r/relationships 9 years ago.

My wife [30] refuses to come to family Thanksgiving, insists on spending it with friends instead. Can anyone help me [32] understand?

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/10fy28/my_wife_30_refuses_to_come_to_family_thanksgiving/

My wife and I just celebrated our first year anniversary. She's started her Masters' degree in September, and is very busy with school, and it pretty stressed. We live in the same city as my parents, which I'm very close with.

Her relationship with my family has always been a sore spot for us. She isn't that close with her folks, and we disagree about how much involvement they (*edit- my family) should have. I thought we'd reached a good place, but this recent fight has unnerved me.

With school, she has not been able to come out to family events. She's seen them once in the last 6 months, and missed some important milestones (grandmother's 90th, mother's birthday). I talked to her about this a few weeks ago, saying that I understood she was busy, but that I was worried about how little we've been seeing them. My folks have been asking to see her, and trying to be inclusive.

My wife mentioned she would like to spend Canadian Thanksgiving (October 8) with our mutual friends, possibly at a cottage for the weekend. However my uncle from away, and grandmother, as well as the usual parents and cousins are all coming together for Thanksgiving this year. I feel that the family would be very hurt if we didn't go.

We talked about it tonight. I explained I thought that not going would really hurt me and the family. She replied that Thanksgiving should be 'ours' because we spend Christmas with 'my' family. I said that we don't have to spend every Thanksgiving with them, but because we've seen them so little this year, we should. We fought for ~2 hours, and have no resolution.

I'm trying to understand her position, but I'm coming up short. Has anyone felt similarly? Does anyone have any advice?

TL;DR Wife wants to spend Thanksgiving with friends instead of family, and it's causing a rift.

UPDATE: Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who took the time to give me some advice. I was anxious and stressed out, but after reading these it has helped me understand some of the reasons for why she may be feeling this way. I'm in a much better head-space to discuss it with her tonight. Thanks reddit!

UPDATE 2: over 200 comments, that's much more a response than I expected! I had not idea it would be this divided, but at least it makes me feel good that I'm stressing about a complicated issue, for what that's worth. My plan is to try and approach this in a calm and supportive way, and suggest we compromise. Go to the cottage on Saturday, and come back Sunday or Monday morning (depending on out of towner's flights). Going forward, I'll propose we draw up a schedule for major holidays to try and minimize conflict.

And for those that have been hard on my wife - she's really an amazing person. Every couple has issues that are sore spots between them. She's neither selfish nor controlling. If it seems that way it's because of the limited amount of info I've provided.

Thanks all!

Relevant Comments:

• As I mentioned, we live in the same city as my folks and away from her's. Her issue is that some Holidays we visit her family, and some we visit my family. However, her choice would be to see friends, but she feels that she never gets that choice because when it's her 'turn', she feels an obligation (from her side, not from me) to see her side. Compounded by this is that her family is also not all in one place, but spread out (father and brother in one city, mother and step-dad in another). Holidays are usually a convenient time to fly and visit. My issue in general, is that it is very difficult for me to accept spending time with friends, even great friends, when family is in the same city. It is compounded in this case because we've seen them so infrequently due to being busy. To say to my side that "I know we've been busy, and haven't been able to see you in months, but we are not able to attend Thanksgiving dinner, on any of the 3 nights that you've let us choose from, because this year we're seeing our good friends Alice and Bob." would hurt them (and me) a lot. You've hit the nail on the head with our definitions of family. I love my friends, but 'family' to me means relatives (blood or not), whereas she views 'family' as those close to her. [Emphasis mine (Celany's)]
• There are no giant issues - just the usual in-law problems. No drunks, abuse or conniving. While we were dating, there were issues about how much more attention they give me than her, but we talked that out with everyone and it seems to be improving. She's not thrilled to see them, but in this case she's said "I'm not upset at your family for this, I'm upset at you. You're the one pressuring me to go, not them."
• In response to being asked how often she normally attends family events: She comes to 1/3 or 1/4 of time. I will see them maybe once a month.
• It's not just Thanksgiving, but family in general. It usually comes to a head during Holidays, as that's when it matters most to me that she attends. A random dinner is much different than Christmas Day. We've fought about family a lot, and actually came to a reasonable middle ground.
• When we started dating I saw my parents every week for dinner, and valued their option quite highly. That was a long time ago however, and up until this year it was the amount they saw her was ... acceptable? They wanted to see her more, she wanted to see them less, I was reasonably happy with the compromise. However, school has really thrown a wrench into it.

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[UPDATE] My wife [30] refuses to come to family Thanksgiving ...

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/10i9s8/update_my_wife_30_refuses_to_come_to_family/

Original story is here: My wife [30] refuses to come to family Thanksgiving, insists on spending it with friends instead. Can anyone help me [32] understand?

I did not expect to get so many and varied responses to my problem. It seems that many people and many relationships have a difficult time balancing how much involvement family has. I learned a lot about the other side of the issue, and that helped me in solving it.

My wife and I spoke last night, and it went well.

Near term: we compromised, we're going to the cottage but coming back in time to go to Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday.

Long Term: I'm going to take the pressure off of her attending family events. School is stressful, her life is stressful, and that will be her #1 priority. On her side, she will make an honest effort to see my side of the family. We will both make an effort to understand the importance of those close to us: I will try and view her close friends as her family, and she will try and understand that my family means as much to me as her close friends do to her. (ie. her old roomate coming to town for 1 night only is important. My uncle coming to town for one night only is also important. Overly simplistic, but that's the idea.)

I'm also going to set the expectation with my family that she's going to be busy, and they won't see her much. It's not about them, not up to them, and not up for debate. I am going to go to more functions alone, and she's going to be supportive of that.

Longer Term: we discussed a rotating holiday schedule, both agree in principal it makes sense, but we tabled it for another time.

Note: I want to say how much the comments helped me. Reading how strongly people feel about this issue gave me a new respect for the gravity of it. It was much easier to be understanding, as I had spent the whole day reading, thinking and empathising about it.

Thanks Reddit! I wish you all the best.

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I am not the original poster. This is a repost.

The original poster is u/thanksgiving_crisis. Originally posted on r/relationships 9 years ago.