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

Originally posted by u/8987600 3 years ago on r/relationships.

light editing for clarity.

Is my (24F) mother (56F) overreacting about me wanting to spend Christmas as a newlywed with just my husband (27M), or am I in the wrong? [Dec 21 2018]

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/a88m1g/is_my_24f_mother_56f_overreacting_about_me/

I’m using a throwaway account since my main account is known by my family and friends.

I got married in September of this year to my boyfriend of 5 years. We chose to ‘elope’ (legally it was more of a blessing owing to the differences between marriage laws in our home country and this one) while on holiday in one of our favourite countries. We then returned home and had a ‘ceremony’ where we signed all of the official documents and legally became husband and wife. This was attended by our parents and siblings, so 7 people in total (I promise this is all related to the overall issue). This wasn’t at all a spur of the moment decision, we wanted a ‘wedding’ exactly like this, something that everyone knew about and was seemingly on board with.

For as many years as I can remember, I’ve wanted to spend my first Christmas as a married couple (with the proviso that I/we had our own place). By this I mean the day itself - cooking together, potentially burning the meal together, napping in front of the tv when the Queen’s speech is on - it’s something I’ve always envisaged. I told my boyfriend about it years ago, and he loved the idea as much as me. To clarify, this would just be the day itself, not the whole festive period. This was something that mine and my husband’s family were made aware of, and both said they initially understood. We live around 80 miles from my family, and 170 miles from my husband’s family - the initial plan was to see my boyfriend’s family over this coming weekend, and my parents on Boxing Day.

As Christmas has come closer, it’s become clear that my family, namely my mother, has become increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that we’re not going to be spending Christmas with either her or my husband’s family. To give you an idea of past Christmases, for the first 3 years of our relationship we spent Christmas apart, then spent Christmas with my family the year after, and last Christmas with my husband’s family. My mother started by making comments that they are going to miss out on seeing me on Christmas for two years in a row, while my husband’s parents are only missing out on a year. I pointed out that if we go to visit my parents next Christmas, then his parents won’t have seen him for two years and so they’ll be ‘even’, but that it wasn’t a competition in the slightest. To highlight family structures, Christmas with my family is with my parents, my brother and his girlfriend on alternate years (they are with them this year though) and my uncle (mother’s brother) and his husband. My husband’s family is his parents, his two brothers, and his mother’s brother. So it’s not as if either family is having a distinctly smaller Christmas if we are not attending. My mother has been asking if it’s better to just post us our presents, and implying that we won’t be making the trip down to see them on Boxing Day. Again, I’ve shut her down about this. The reason I am posting is that we rang my mother in law yesterday to confirm plans for visiting over the weekend, and she said that my mother had been in contact with her to ask if we were secretly spending Christmas with them and lying to my family about it. She told my mother that as far as she knew we were sticking to our original plan of Christmas together, and we definitely weren’t going to them. It hurts that my mother thinks we’re trying to get out of seeing them.

My mother has recently been raising the point that since our wedding that she disagreed with our choice to elope, and that spending Christmas ‘alone’ is an extension of that. In the past few days she has said that she thinks we’re alienating ourselves from the rest of the world. I disagree - we love spending time with both of our families, and our choice to elope was due to a combination of cost and overall need; we don’t have thousands of pounds to spend on just one day so that random cousins one or other of us have never met can get loaded from an open bar. This was something that once again my mother said she completely understood. I just want to get the wider perspective to see if what I’m doing is out of line. As a final note, I do browse this sub, and usually whenever anyone posts about their parents the advice is to go to specific subreddits and to call the parents abusive narcissists - I don’t believe at all that my mother falls into that category. I believe that she is openly sharing her personal opinion and feelings with me, and she is completely justified in doing that without being at all narcissistic. I just want to see if I’m the one in this situation who acting in the wrong.

TL;DR - It’s always been my new husband and I’s plan to spend our first Christmas Day just us - my mother initially had no issues, but recently has become annoyed about the situation and is suggesting that we’re alienating ourselves and no longer see ourselves as part of the family owing to this and our previous decision to elope. Who is in the right?

EDIT: Thank you for all the comments and messages I've received offering guidance - the first thing I'm planning on doing is talking to my mother to reaffirm why we want to, and are, doing this. Hopefully that will be a positive first start. Also I've received messages criticising my choice to elope and our reasons for deciding to do that - that's obviously not something we can change, so please don't send me something telling me I'm a horrible daughter over it, because it won't get any kind of response.

UPDATE - Is my (24F) mother (56F) overreacting about me wanting to spend Christmas as a newlywed with just my husband (27M), or am I in the wrong? [Dec 28 2018]

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/aa98fn/update_is_my_24f_mother_56f_overreacting_about_me/

So Christmas has been and gone, and there was a bit more drama than I wanted. After my original post I contacted my mother to reaffirm to her the reasons we wanted to spend Christmas Day itself on our own, and she said that she understood, and said she looked forward to seeing us on Boxing Day. However, a few hours later I got a call from my father asking why my mother was crying and saying that I’d rung her up screaming and shouting about her interfering with our life. I said that nothing like that happened, and that it hurt that she was accusing me of that when I was just trying to be mature about the situation. My father sympathised, and said he’d try to talk to her about it.

I checked in frequently in the days up to Christmas, but my mother read and ignored my messages. Whenever I spoke to my father he said that she was telling him I hadn’t been in contact and she was waiting for me to apologise, but he had seen that I was in her call and text history. He advised that visiting on Boxing Day might not be the best idea, but if it got to that stage he would visit us alone since none of this was our doing.

We had our own private Christmas Day, during which we found out that I was pregnant! We had started trying for our first child in secret a few months ago, but didn’t suspect anything until I felt sick at the smell of turkey! We’re going to keep this our little secret for the next few weeks at least with everyone, my husband’s family included. I texted my mother to wish her a Happy Christmas in the morning, and sent another text in the evening asking if she still wanted us to go up to visit tomorrow - I got a one word reply, ‘no’. We took my mother at her word and we didn’t visit the following day - I think she was expecting me to grovel at her feet begging for forgiveness, but that’s not going to happen anymore. I called my father and told him that she had decided that we weren’t visiting and it definitely wasn’t on our end. He visited in the afternoon and brought the dog, and we all went for a walk instead of worry about what my mother was doing or saying to other people about it. Apparently a horde of her friends have been told that I shredded her Christmas card and posted it back to them among other things, but I’m done worrying about what my mother says. I’m not at this stage going to completely cut her off or say she can’t see her future grandchild, but our relationship is definitely strained.

TL;DR - Mother tried to act like I was cutting her out when in reality she shut down and ignored me before telling me not to visit on the expected day. Had our own Christmas, and unexpectedly found out we were expecting our first child instead of sitting through an awkward day.

editor's note: OOP has not posted to this account since the update.

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

Originally posted by u/8987600 3 years ago on r/relationships.