My Mom is in her 90s, in assisted living in my home town. I live a thousand miles away now. I haven't been "home" for Christmas since DH and I have been married--8 years. There were moves, new grandchildren, illness, etc. and I just didn't make it back for Christmas. Most of those Christmases were with DH's family. One or two just by ourselves. This year, I told DH I'd really like to spend a quiet Christmas with my Mom and the old folks. He agreed. We both knew that would not go over well with SD who tries to recreate her supposedly perfect childhood Christmases every year, and every year is disappointed.

Well. According to SD and SS he is now a horrible person, letting me control him like that. I was really pretty shocked and it really upset me, as I've had a mostly good relationship with his skids after a rocky start. I don't know for sure what happened. My feeling is that since the money faucet has been slowed (it is not off, but slowed), and he has stopped jumping when they tell him to, AND he and I make decisions together, his kids have been putting more pressure on him to be "fair" to them. They are supposedly "losing him" to me. It's ridiculous. I want him to have a loving relationship with his kids. DH and I have been working HARD at being good partners first though, and things are good between us now. (I almost left him over skids issues early in our marriage.)

Earlier this fall, we had planned a visit to skidtown, but I was disinvited. (I went anyway to see my own DD who lives nearby--didn't even call skids. The whole thing with DH and skids was so stupid, but not my problem.) DH had another trip booked without me, but cancelled when SS needed help paying for a major car repair (he has some health issues and is unable to work right now, so DH has been helping, and I agree with that). But we couldn't pay for the car repair AND the trip. Limits on cash is a brand new thing. SD threw a fit because SS got money, she didn't, and she didn't get to see her dad either. Life as a grownup just sucks sometimes. Stomping around about it doesn't really help.

DH is sad. He's embarrassed. And he's going to try to make everyone happy, I just know it. I will see what he comes up with, and if it fits in the time and money budget, and he keeps his promise to me, I'll support whatever he wants to do. He has made it clear to me that this is not my problem to solve. I appreciate that. But I'm pretty sure I know what will happen.

Knowing DH, he'll be sad about this for a while and when he finally gets around to checking airfares for two destinations (my hometown and Skidtown), we won't be able to afford it. And then it will be my fault of course.