My family are so mad at me for not spending Christmas with them

That's absolutely ridiculous, and quite selfish of your family I feel.

So he's got 35 hours between work, subtracting 8 hours sleep for both the 24th and 25th that leaves 19 hours, the drive for the way to your parents house and back takes up 12 hours, so then you'd both only have 7 hours to spend with them. And that time excludes everything else from traffic, eating, showering, general getting ready, and who the **** only sleeps for 8 hours around Christmas, 7 hours is the maximum time?

Oh wait does that even work out? So let's put an actual realistic timescale on this....
Boyfriend gets home on xmas eve at 10, sleeps from 11-6am (thinking of an 8hrs min.), you both leave at 7am after getting ready for the 6 hour drive, arriving at 1pm, then blah blah christmas stuff. But he's got to be at work for 7am, so working backwards, get up at 6am for getting ready and travelling to work, 8 hours sleep means he needs to be in bed by 10pm, 6 hour drive means you'd need to leave at 4pm. So you'd have 3 hours in between.

If any of those calculations are wrong, don't no one dare try to correct them cus that's not the most important thing here - 12 hours driving for 3 hours of forced christmas stuff is not a reasonable request of your family.

Here's some other things to put in perspective: But by your families reaction, christmas is important to them. If they have requested that you leave your boyfriend on his own for christmas, that is shocking. I generally don't agree with things like celebrating birthdays and christmas, they just seem stupid and pointless to me, but for a group of people who are already spending christmas together to suggest someone else should spend it alone, even I can see that is shocking.

You've acknowledged the problem early on by spending a week at home to try to make up for it, it's not like you've completely purposefully abandoned them. Like they're trying to get you to abandon your boyfriend? You're an adult couple, that live together and have been together for that long, that's a successful relationship.

To the person that said 'relationships come and go but family stays'. Well, exactly, family stays. If this is a successful relationship surely it makes more sense to keep a good thing going. What exactly are you trying to say by that, is she supposed to say- 'sorry boyfriend, but my family have summoned me, therefore I must go, just as you will be gone eventually'. Wow way to be optimistic.

I don't even know if any real point has been made there, I;m so bad at writing stuff like advice. But all I can think is if that were my situation and my family. I'd just present them with that reasoning of the timescale, remind them that texting, phone calls, Skype/facetime exist, it's not like you purposely want to avoid them, there are other ways of being together/staying in live contact. But after their reaction and saying that you're ruining Christmas for all of them, I'd straight up tell them that I'm disappointed in them for that level of selfishness and ignorance, but you know actually saying that I don't imagine would improve things at all. But deffo the timescale, and that they're being unreasonable about it

Okay here is the story.. I've been with my boyfriend for a year and a half, we are both 23. We recently moved 6 hours away from our families because I was going back to university (I had taken several years off due to ill heal and personal problems) and he has taken a job and moved with me. This Christmas, unfortunately, he is working until 10 pm Christmas eve and is back in again at 7 am boxing day. He has moved away from the home he has known all his life and from all his friends and family to be with me so of course there is no way I can go and see my family and leave him on his own on Christmas day. To compensate for this, or at least try, I have gone down to see my mum for a week just before Christmas so I can at least spend some of the festive period with her (organised and paid for by my boyfriend). My other siblings however, won't be going to my mum's, where my family are celebrating christmas, until late Christmas eve and so I won't be seeing them. My siblings (25 year old brother, 21 year old brother and 18 year old sister) are furious with me, they all agree I am choosing my boyfriend over my family and that I am ruining Christmas for all of them. My younger brother has called my boyfriend selfish for not driving me down to my family on Christmas eve after work and driving back for work 7 am boxing day (he's also working 14 hour shifts the week if Christmas and the drive to my mother's is 6 hours, so that would make this even more impossible). They are all in agreement that if he cared about me at all then he would drive down or phone in sick or something. I am constantly being reminded that this may be my elderly grandmothers last Christmas, which is very probable, which is very upsetting. I don't know how to approach this. Firstly, am I right in seeing them as the unreasonable ones or is it me? And how can I stop my brother and sister from hating me for this?



As I side note, my mother herself, although very upset I won't be with the rest of them on Christmas day, is very understanding.

wait, your bf aint workin xmas day right? so why cant you both go and spend time with your family on xmas day?

TBH, I think you're doing the best you can for both worlds and that you and your partner seem to have each other's backs. It's nice. Carry on with what you're doing, it's the right thing to do.

to be honest you haven't been together THAT long in the general scheme of things and it's not your fault he has a job which is demanding so much over christmas... personally I wouldn't feel obligated to stay given how little time he can actually give you - that may sound selfish but last christmas I thought I would be in a similar position with work and told my boyfriend that he shouldn't feel obligated to stay with me for that reason - I'm not going to be able to give him a very nice christmas

to be honest, I would do the drive and put up with it, he obviously can't call in sick as he would be risking his job and no one would believe him

however it is up to you and your family should respect that

I had a similar problem and it was giving me such a headache!

My boyfriend's family and my family live 3-4 hours drive apart. His mum wanted him back for Xmas, my lot wanted me back for Xmas, but neither my boyfriend and I wanted to be separated! We live together independent of our families in another city by the way.

I initially said I was going to spend Xmas with my boyfriend's family because my family have never been big on Xmas anyway and we don't do anything special really other than eat more than usual. But when I said that my dad got increasingly passive aggressive and made it out that Xmas was now a big thing! Then I told my cousin and she said the whole "boyfriends come and go but families are forever" guilt tripping thing. But then I fell for it and felt bad!

I talked to my boyfriend about it and he kindly decided he'll come down with me to spend Xmas with my family and then we'll go to his on Boxing Day. His parents seem ok with it as their other daughter is working anyway.

My lot were not as unreasonable as yours but I can sympathise with you. I appreciate that it's hard to please everyone. I think it is unfair that your siblings make you feel guilty. It'll just sour Xmas for you anyway if you did go down.

I would suggest you first talk to your boyfriend about it and see what he thinks should happen. Does he particularly mind you not being there for Xmas? If he does then you have to choose between him and your family which I appreciate is horrible!

If you'd rather spend Xmas with the BoyF because he will be alone then try make your siblings understand like you said here. That he's left his own family to be with you and since he's alone it'll only be fair. Maybe arrange to spend quality time with them before or after Xmas? Have a big Xmas dinner with them before or after? What about New Years?

It just infuriates me I don't know why people make such a big deal of Xmas anyway! Why is seeing each other any other time less significant than seeing each other at Xmas? It's just another excuse to overeat and break the bank spending money on materialistic crap nobody wants.


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No we haven't been together that long in the grand scheme of things but I truly believe we will be. This isn't a teenage fling, it's an adult relationship and we've got a home and life together in a new city. I'm not a student who goes home during the holidays because my home is with my boyfriend. Do you know what I mean? Am I making any sense with that?

No we haven't been together that long in the grand scheme of things but I truly believe we will be. This isn't a teenage fling, it's an adult relationship and we've got a home and life together in a new city. I'm not a student who goes home during the holidays because my home is with my boyfriend. Do you know what I mean? Am I making any sense with that?

Okay here is the story.. I've been with my boyfriend for a year and a half, we are both 23. We recently moved 6 hours away from our families because I was going back to university (I had taken several years off due to ill heal and personal problems) and he has taken a job and moved with me. This Christmas, unfortunately, he is working until 10 pm Christmas eve and is back in again at 7 am boxing day. He has moved away from the home he has known all his life and from all his friends and family to be with me so of course there is no way I can go and see my family and leave him on his own on Christmas day. To compensate for this, or at least try, I have gone down to see my mum for a week just before Christmas so I can at least spend some of the festive period with her (organised and paid for by my boyfriend). My other siblings however, won't be going to my mum's, where my family are celebrating christmas, until late Christmas eve and so I won't be seeing them. My siblings (25 year old brother, 21 year old brother and 18 year old sister) are furious with me, they all agree I am choosing my boyfriend over my family and that I am ruining Christmas for all of them. My younger brother has called my boyfriend selfish for not driving me down to my family on Christmas eve after work and driving back for work 7 am boxing day (he's also working 14 hour shifts the week if Christmas and the drive to my mother's is 6 hours, so that would make this even more impossible). They are all in agreement that if he cared about me at all then he would drive down or phone in sick or something. I am constantly being reminded that this may be my elderly grandmothers last Christmas, which is very probable, which is very upsetting. I don't know how to approach this. Firstly, am I right in seeing them as the unreasonable ones or is it me? And how can I stop my brother and sister from hating me for this?



As I side note, my mother herself, although very upset I won't be with the rest of them on Christmas day, is very understanding.