Holidays & division of family time...

Hi guys,

I have a question regarding the holidays and division of family time. My gf and I moved to another city to pursue school/business interests and are returning to the city for the Christmas holidays for the first time. I've been staying at her parents place as opposed to my parents place because their place is much larger and can accommodate us better.

Over the last couple of weeks I've spent seemingly countless hours with her family, including spending at least an entire day helping to prep their Christmas dinner (I am a good cook) with her mother. Now we've been in town 2 weeks now and I've spent nearly all those at her parents place, yet she's only been over to my families twice.

It all came to a head this Saturday. On Friday I set up a dinner with my parents for that Saturday, and she agreed to go. The following Saturday afternoon I spent with her dad as we went to the local dealerships to look at cars (i'm looking). I get back to their place at about 4pm and am going to get ready to go over to my parents when she tells me, "I'm going to dinner with my best friend X". So I was like, " * * * ". But I couldn't say anything because she told me this right in front of her family.

I blew up after the fact as now my family feels severely dissed, I'm extremely pissed off about this, etc. But the worst part is she's been completely unapologetic. "We can do things on our own we're not joined at the hip". My point was that has nothing to do with it, you agreed to come along and you re-negged. Now I'm stuck in the middle with my family being upset and dealing with a spouse of 4 years acting completely me first.

Am I wrong to be pissed about this?

No - you are not at all wrong. She was rude in the extreme.

This would be an absolute dealbreaker for me and I would have dumped her on the spot whether her family was there or not.

Be careful because this could a sign of how the holidays are going to be if you get married to her...

I went through a similar situation during the first 4 years of my marriage. My folks were living away from our home town and stayed with my grandmother during the holidays. With my aunt staying there, we were had to stay with my in-laws which meant I typically only got to see my family during the holiday meal. During that time, my wife was watching the clock for when we had to leave to go back to her parent's house....

In retrospect, I should have been more forceful that we need to split our time more equally between the two families. My family was always supportive but my in-laws were not.

The situation finally resolved itself when we moved back to the area and had our own place and didn't have to stay with either set of parents. If we ever move away again, I have decided we will stay at a hotel during the holidays to avoid this situation from ever happening again....

Stand your ground and don't back down on this...

One family should not have to take a backseat to another one just because you get married. This has been a persistent problem through my marriage with both my family and the families that my BIL and SIL are married to because my in-laws only care about their holiday schedule and nobody else's.....