Do the logistics of Christmas strain your relationship to almost breaking point each year? Read the advice of our resident sage Maddy Phillipps – and see the foot of the story for where to email your own problems for Maddy.
DEAR MADDY: Every year Christmas just about ends my marriage. I always tell myself this time will be different – but we always end up fighting from early December until well into the New Year. In a nutshell: I have two children from a previous marriage, and my husband has no children. My kids need to see their dad at some point in the day and he lives 90 minutes out of the city. But my husband’s very traditional family spends Christmas at his parents' house – and it's always a lunch that kicks off at 11am. This creates chaos because I can never get my kids back from their dad in time, so we’re always late (they can’t go to their dad after lunch because that’s when we visit my sister).
Also, my family is very low-key about gifts but my husband, my kids and I all receive expensive presents from my husband’s three siblings and their families, which means I in turn have eight step-cousins (that we barely see the rest of the year) and seven adults to buy and wrap presents for. This costs almost $1000 every year – and yet most of them (especially the kids) always seem mildly disappointed by their gifts. Also, my son is dairy intolerant and not only is this ignored (dessert is a giant custardy creamy trifle, or nothing) but commented on, as if his allergy is either a figment of my imagination or a reflection of his own general inferiority.
My husband says this is all in my head – which is what upsets me most of all. Maddy, it’s December again – how do we avoid going down this rabbit hole? Regards, Sina
MADDY WRITES: Sina, my sympathies. This is a festering nightmare of festive logistics. Your personal Golden Idol – that is, a manageable and relatively stress-less Christmas Day – lies within an extensive underground warren system replete with boobytraps. Wicker baskets full of professionally gift-wrapped Ecoya candles and Microplane graters demand reciprocity in exchange for safe passage between the tunnel walls. Underfoot, hidden pit traps overflow with lethally viscous dairy-based custards. Sina, you are right to be afraid. But this Christmas, there is no room for fear. I hope khaki's your colour, because you are Indiana Jones, I am your sidekick, and together we will conquer this seasonal labyrinth with fearsome aplomb.
So, in a situation apparently riddled with different problems, which one should we tackle first? Well, I know it probably feels like the practical stuff is driving the relationship problem with your husband, and if you can come up with a logistical solution to please all comers, everything else will fall into place. But actually, I think it’s the relationship dynamics that are driving the practical problems, not the other way around.
Let me explain. You see lots of problems with Christmas. Those problems make you stressed. Your husband sees no problems. He tells you that your stress is “all in your head.” Of course, this feels upsetting and invalidating for you, and adds gluey, throat-clogging meta-worries about your own unreasonableness to your pre-existing Stress Trifle. But let’s consider why your husband thinks the stress is all in your head. I can think of at least four reasons:
(1) He didn’t marry and then divorce the guy whose far-flung semi-rural abode makes you all late for lunch, so doesn’t feel responsible for any tardiness.
(2) He either doesn’t care if his family get sh*tty about you all being late to lunch, or doesn’t notice, because his upbringing with said family has left him cheerfully immune to the cortisol-spiking effects of palpable intra-familial tension.
(3) Because of (1) and (2), he’s not felt any need to encourage his family to revisit the sacred ancient text which prescribes that lunch must commence at 11am exactly.
(4) You do the present-buying, so he is blissfully unencumbered by the responsibility of buying FIFTEEN PEOPLE thoughtful, expensive, and personalised gifts, then being driven near to madness at 11pm on Christmas Eve as you attempt to neatly encase a spherical glass terrarium in wrapping paper.
So… maybe your husband thinks the stress is all in your head because it is! You’ve fully assumed the practical and emotional burdens of managing a genuinely complex Christmas Day with military precision, to maximise satisfaction for numerous stakeholders. He…continues to aspirate and eats trifle?
Let's discuss the division of labour
That’s not to say that your husband is necessarily to blame for the situation. I wonder if it evolved organically – presumably when you met your husband you were solely responsible for managing your kids’ Christmases, so it probably felt natural for your responsibilities to expand to include scheduling and additional gifts. Unsurprisingly he didn’t think to revisit this thoroughly favourable (to him) arrangement, so it’s carried on, but this state of affairs is clearly unsustainable, and nothing will improve unless the division of holiday labour is redressed.
A come-to-Jesus talk (how fittingly Christmassy!) with your husband is needed urgently. Start by explaining that you understand he doesn’t think Christmas is an issue, but it is for you, and you need his help to think through solutions to a few things. Then take him through your family’s various peri-Christmas commitments and tasks step by step, so he fully understands all the different obligations and considerations you’re grappling with. Finally, explain that you can’t manage all this alone and you really need him to work with you to problem-solve these issues, which includes deciding which holiday responsibilities he’s going to pick up from now on.
If the conversation goes badly to the point that he won’t even consider your perspective, that suggests there’s a problem in the relationship that runs deeper than just the holidays, and couples therapy is the next step. But if it goes well, and you start collaborating to problem-solve, you’re back on the same team – and once you’re working together, the battle is basically won. Logistical challenges which once loomed like a Yuletide Temple of Doom will reveal themselves as eminently solvable when confronted by your joint spousal powers of deduction. Still, for completeness, my own quick and dirty suggestions for the practical side of things as follows.
Let go of the impossible
First, f*** the 11am start. It matters not. Properly speaking, 11am is brunchtime not lunchtime anyway. The kids can go to their dad’s house for a Christmas eve dinner, and a Christmas day breakfast. Your husband can clearly articulate to his parents that you and the kids aren’t free until, say, 12.30. And if they want to start the event at 11am, you simply won’t be there.
Next, ditch the Christmas gift system altogether. A Secret Santa with a sensible price limit – say, $30 – is the only way. You can suggest this change to the family with confidence and I’d bet the $970 you’ll save on pointless gifts that most of them will welcome the change. Seriously, buying Le Creuset for second cousins is a joy for no-one; the only people who truly enjoy multi-gifting are the nation’s nanas, for whom Christmas represents a sacred opportunity to foist expired hand creams onto unsuspecting relatives.
And finally, the trifle is a trifling matter. Bring a dairy-free dessert for your son (making this another good task for your husband), place it on the table without comment, then serenely watch on as the others bury their snouts in the trough of amorphous eggy gloop with wanton abandon (God I love trifle). The ensuing post-prandial bloat should sap their energy for any snarky comments, but if they do muster the wherewithal, simply smile and say that honestly, you find you struggle to find the energy to care about what others are eating.
Sina, I wish you all the best. There's a lot of moving parts to your Christmas, so aiming for a day so jolly you wonder if someone spiked the Appletiser with molly may be unrealistic. However! If you and your husband evenly split the responsibilities and actively work together to structure the day so it meets your immediate family’s needs, your stress levels will ebb significantly, and the annual brink-of-divorce fighting fiesta should be a thing of the past.
Maddy Phillipps is a barrister, freelance writer and clinical psychology student. EMAIL your life problems to dearmaddy@tvnz.co.nz.
SHARE ME