This makes me so happy for you!!!
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Someone I admire for her healthy boundaries AND great relationships with her siblings and kids once told me a story about an inlaw sibling (similar to yours but with more chapters, obnoxious comments and ridiculous demands) and I asked “how did you handle it?” And she said “this is not my circus and these are not my monkeys”. I persisted… “How was it resolved?” And she said “I have no idea” and smiled.
So I think the answer to “what’s the plan for Thanksgiving?” Is "husband is working and I’m serving dinner at a soup kitchen. Let’s catch up soon ".
You are not the director of recreation for a cruise line where the happiness of every passenger is your problem. You get to sit home with a cup of tea and miss your mom and enjoy the quiet with no guilt whatsoever!
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Great idea. Followed by, what are your plans? (Perhaps)
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You are not a horrible person and I bet I know what your therapist will say, and it won’t be you are a horrible person. To be blunt, why should you put up with people with things you wouldn’t from anyone else because they are family? Yes, I realize that is common culture, especially in some veins of religious thought, blood is thicker than water, but know who uses that? People who are some of the worst offenders.
I have written about my own family experience in another thread, and I won’t go into the detail, but (mysteriously) with myself I was supposed to bend over backwards to family members (this came from my dad), this being my dads family or as an adult, my siblings, yet funny thing, it was not reciprocated. I remember once they planned a family get together at the place I was living in with my wife at the time, and didn’t tell us until like the week before, then got their nose bent out of joint when I got pissed off. This went on all the time, I had a boat, and people would show up on the weekend, literally unannounced, saying they wanted to go out on it and I was expected to accomodate it.
The kicker was one Christmas (there already were huge strains the family , this was when my son was little and after a horrible time with my mom dying and a bunch of other stuff). My brother calls me heading to the airport on a Friday in the holiday season, telling me (not asking me) he was coming into town to visit family and friends, and said he wanted to see us and wanted to get together for Sunday breakfast or brunch. We had plans for Sunday afternoon and I told him that. Meanwhile, he told me that he had arranged the whole visit, made plans with people weeks before this, and this was the only time they had (!!!). I told him it had to be early Sunday, because we had to leave like by 11:30 at the latest.
Sunday morning, he calls me at like 9:30 or 10, telling me they were getting a late start (my SIL’s sister lives in the same town we do), and it would be a while. I told him that it wouldn’t work, that we had other plans we couldn’t break and had to leave by 11:30, but he wouldn’t take no, wouldn’t listen.
We went to the event that we had paid for and planned weeks before (it was a solstice celebration a friend was running) so we didn’t want to give it up, I told my brother we had to go, but as usual in my family, he didn’t listen and said they would be there, I told him we were going and we would leave gifts for them all when we left.
We went, we left gifts in a bag on our front steps for them with a note once against explaining our plans and expressing regret we couldn’t be there. We got this long voicemail from my sister in law, telling us what horrible people we were (we heard her kids crying in the background), that we disappointed their kids (!), they had been looking forward to this, you name it…like, you tell us when we are meeting, I tell you what we can do or not do given the notice, and you pull this kind of thing? grrr. But that is family entitlement and as the elder brother I am sure my brother was told by my dad (or taught) that was his due…like, consideration for me and my family? Forget it. You have as much right to do what you want as they do, if a friend said he wanted to get together and i said we sadly were busy, he would understand.
So no, you aren’t the bad person, your SIL is manipulative and entitled. And quite honestly, even if it is your family, why celebrate a holiday with people who make you miserable? I have friends who are LGBT or otherwise different, and they had trouble during the holidays because they were expected to attend family gatherings because it was family, but were also expected to be made uncomfortable by family members who openly didn’t approve of them or have people treat partners/spouses badly and bear it in silence, which is ridiculous. Put it this way, if someone is a guest in my home everyone better treat them with respect and courtesy at the very least, you don’t want to abide by my rules, please leave. That family members would host an event and expect people to experience bad behavior and have them suffer it are terrible hosts and aren’t worth the name ‘family’ IMO.
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I thought I would be self indulgent and update on my original post. And to ask how others holiday went? Did it go better than you expected? Or about the same? I find that my expectations are worse than the actual situation.
My mom decided to go to Florida so we visited her a month before this trip. She lives 400 miles away, tried to talk me into going to see her in Florida but I quashed that right away.
Gone one week, 4 different places or hotels we stayed. 1600+miles driven. It worked, we saw everyone separately, which was fine. The granddaughter was adorable. The kids were good. My husband and I even golfed one day and spent a night at a lovely resort. It was not out of the way so it was a nice break in the middle of the trip.
My daughter made a delicious thanksgiving dinner.
My only hiccup was I think I ate something bad at the resort and had a gastrointestinal issue when arriving at daughter’s. It was not fun and I slept pretty much one day but was fine afterwards so not too much of an issue.
We drove the last 800 miles in one day, 13.5 travel day.
The husband and I agreed that not doing this again at Christmas was the correct decision. We are exhausted physically and mentally from this marathon of a trip. We will go out for our granddaughter’s birthday in February so going in December we just cannot do.
Granddaughter and her parents say that they are coming after Christmas. My dil was trying to see if we would come to their house but I didn’t volunteer. They can decide not to come that is their choice but we are not. My other kid, the one who has no PTO off is going to a resort for Christmas with a couple friend of theirs. She says she can work remotely. So we wouldn’t see them at all since they will be gone.
The only person who seemed unhappy was my mil who seemed disappointed that we didn’t stop to see them, they were mile 700 of the 800 mile travel day. She is very put out that her family holidays are not what they were but we deserve to see our children. Enough of that nonsense!
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We had a lovely day/weekend. All our teams won, and we had no visitors. My sister sent us pics from DC, and I never heard from my brother or his wife.
I went back and reread some of this thread and now realize that when I told people that I am not a cruise director responsible for everyone’s happiness that that was something I got from @blossom! Oh, and I only said that to my friends, not my siblings!
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Well, can we start whining about Christmas now??
Christmas Day itself should be fine. We are going to gather at my sister’s-in-law who now lives in the same town as my mother-in-law, and we and ds will stay at mil’s while we visit. Nephew lives only 30 minutes away from there, but will spend the night Christmas Eve with his mom, my sil.
The struggle is going to be Christmas Eve. Dh and I had not planned on going down until Christmas morning, arriving at sil’s for our scheduled noon-time meal. We would like to spend Christmas Eve attending our own church’s service. In the past, we have been in mil’s town and attended her church with her.
Here is the struggle: in order to circumvent the gay marriage issue, mil’s large church voted two weeks ago to have NO weddings AT ALL at her church. She is in a denomination which now allows its clergy to perform gay marriages, but her lead pastor doesn’t want to. Within the denomination, pastors are given the discretion without repercussion from higher ups to refuse to perform gay marriages. Two other pastors at the church are willing to perform gay marriages. Sorry - I’m getting too specific. The point is that while this policy is not patently discriminatory, the latent intent is to keep gay marriages from happening in the church. And, this is what her church council voted to do. Ban all weddings.
Nephew is a trans man. Sil and nephew will not attend mil’s church because of this recent decision. We won’t either. Mil was put out with all of us when the Christmas gathering discussion happened over the TG weekend. She doesn’t like driving by herself after dark. She really wants one of us to drive her and attend with her. The contemporary service is in the afternoon, but she doesn’t like the style of music and that there is no choir (which is what makes the service so, “magical.”). The reality is she doesn’t even understand that going to the contemporary Christmas Eve service (whose pastor was one of the two who would have done gay weddings were they allowed) really isn’t enough of a mitigating factor for the church’s stance as a whole. She really wants to attend the traditional service as a passenger princess. But, no one is going to do that for her.
She can do what she wants - obviously, but she is completely missing the message that continuing to attend that church at all is an affront to her grandson (my nephew). And reads, “I am choosing what I want to do over your feelings.”
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No major disasters, but it’s always painful to watch the offspring try (or not try) to find common interests and topics. Wedding related conversation revealed some land mines but that’s for the other thread.
As introverts, we are exhausted by the effort to be engaged,chipper, and happy 24/7 over the past 4 days of 6 guests. Two days to go. I sat in the bathroom this morning and cried from the strain 
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Is she missing the message or has nobody GIVEN her the message?
I think expecting an elderly person to read the tea leaves on an issue so complicated is asking a lot. Can someone (not the nephew) tell her directly " We are no longer in synch with the stated position of your church on Gay marriage. We love you; we hope you can find a neighbor or another congregant to drive you back and forth to the service you want to attend. But we can’t in good conscience attend your church given its stance. We’ll see you for lunch on Christmas afternoon and look forward to seeing you!"
I’m finding more and more that setting out explicit boundaries (with a brief explanation why) is solving so many family/social issues. Instead of the teeth grinding “Why doesn’t he get it?” it’s a one way message (i.e. not a debate, not a “but the pastor is such a good person” argument) with your “why” (disagree about X) and your boundary (can’t attend, can’t drive, won’t participate, but will be happy to see you on Y or Z occasion/location.
I feel fifty lbs. lighter…
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Good point about if anyone has flat out had the frank discussion with her.
Perhaps the best you can offer is to come the night before and drive her to church and pick her up but be firm that you cannot attend because of the church’s policy and in support of your nephew (thank you for supporting him!). She should reach out to any church friends and determine someone she can sit with so she is not alone. No one at church (or not one SHOULD be!) taking attendance as to who is alone or not alone.
Either that or you come Christmas morning for noon time. I understand that this means you give up your own church service - you should tell her that as well!
The purpose of going to church (IMO) is to give and get support for your beliefs, not just to punch the clock or check it off the list (sat in a church over the Christmas holidays 
!). Let her know that if needed.
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I would not drive her to the church, I would not travel there so she gets to do what she wants. At the expense of your trans nephew and his parents.
My mad emoji was for the church’s stance and your mil’s stubbornness to ignore the obvious!
Said as a person who’s family has ignored the church’s policies for their own benefit.
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My inlaws want S1 and FDiL to honeymoon at the Florida home. FDiL has a trans sibling.
Repeated polite vague responses were not heard. DH said “none of us feel good about supporting this state in any way, especially now because of their treatment of people like Sibling” and the inlaws have never mentioned it since.
My sibling and spouse have lobbied hard to host a shower for FDiL; I finally stepped in and said given their support of certain laws and politicians, that would not happen. They were unaware of FDiL’s sibling and then tried to backwalk their stance “we didn’t know she was trans” and I said no, still not happening.
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I once was introduced to someone as a Jewish person (I am not) who was saying horrible antisemitic things.
They said, oh I wasn’t talking about Jews like you! As if I shouldn’t be offended. I was offended.
This feels like the equivalent.
They did shut up, that was the objective. To get them to stop talking
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You are my spirit animal! We breathed a sigh of relief that we didn’t have to be happy and non confrontational anymore.
And why we could not stop at my mil’s and pretend to be engaged
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My sil said to her, “I will not go to that church with you.” But, then she started back peddling about maybe she could drop her off and then pick her up.
Or, we (meaning sil and her son) can come over to your house and bring pizza after you watch the live stream. Mil - “It’s not the same as going in person.” I texted sil later NOT to accommodate mil for the church bit. I think she doesn’t want mil alone on Christmas Eve.
Mil has a friend she usually sits with in church. Not sure of her plans for the evening. Idk her situation for Christmas Eve.
Dh and I had chatted with sil about what to do with mil before this all came up with mil on Friday evening. All other friends and neighbors of hers we know of all have Christmas Eve plans.
I really like your wording - thank you
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Help her get an Uber or Lyft account and let her set up her own rides.
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It’s the back peddling that always bites you in the rear end!
My experience- set the boundary, maintain the boundary, and before you know it, you’ve got a workable plan. Once the lines start to blur (" I know you won’t walk in so you can just wait outside" which quickly becomes " JUST come in to say hello to Mrs. Smith who always asks how you are doing" which then becomes “Don’t sit but you can stand in the back to hear the choir because Arlene the organist is to talented”) before you know it, EVERYONE is angry. The folks who compromised feel manipulated, the folks who essentially won feel “What was the big deal about coming to church if they’re going to stand in the back to hear Arlene, greet Mrs. Smith and of course wish the pastor a Merry Christmas because otherwise they’re just being rude”.
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She has Uber. Or she used to. She and fil (who is now deceased) had to use it to get from the airport to their hotel for ds’s college graduation weekend in 2018 because they didn’t listen to me re: their flight scheduling and arrived at a time we couldn’t get them because of PBK initiation. Which they missed.
To my knowledge, that’s the only time she has scheduled a ride herself. She’s now nearly 86 years old. We mentioned Ubering, but she seemed reluctant/resistant to use it.
She can drive at night. She just doesn’t like/want to.
Part of this is kind of a, “reality discipline,” moment for me. If this is the choice she makes, I think she has to figure it out herself.
I’m hopeful she will switch churches. But, this is convenient and familiar to her. Sometimes the easy button isn’t the right/best choice, though.
If she’s been at the same church for over a decade, I’ve got to believe there’s a group of folks in their 40’s and 50’s who are already giving the elderly members rides to activities, programs, etc. She will need to take some initiative though- since they know she’s still driving, they may not be aware that she’s no longer comfortable behind the wheel after dark…
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Our Thanksgiving was pretty chill. No relatives came over and we didn’t travel to see relatives. Although my self-absorbed 78 yr old
dad said to me at the end of our phone call that he and his wife love me. 
Please…his wife doesn’t love me. She can’t stand any of us. She’s rude, passive aggressive, manipulative, nasty, and doesn’t want anything to do with us. We never speak to each other unless it’s absolutely necessary. Hey Dad…just because you say something doesn’t make it true.
We did have some friends come visit from out of state and this weekend has been very relaxing and fun with them.
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