Husband Spending Thanksgiving with His Parents - Not Me & Our Daughter

My husband’s family lives far away in Canada. They are lovely, but they aren’t my family. Whenever he wanted to visit, he went - with my blessing. When the kids were little, we only went when the weather was good, as we were driving through the mountains. When they got older and we moved further away, we rarely went as a family. I clicked my heels and paid for his airline ticket. (Sometimes he’d take one child or the other, but they were often busy with school activities.)
If he wanted to go at thanksgiving, I packed his bag, sent him off, and did my thing. If he went at Christmas, it was the day after.
Now that the children are grown and gone, we go as a couple and make a trip out of it. We make the rounds and visit everyone. We sightsee and go to our favorite restaurants. That said, we only go in the summer because it’s cold and snowy and nasty in the winter...
Don’t make a to-do. Pack him up and send him off. If they ask where you and the kids are he can tell them that they had school stuff, it was too expensive, or that he just wanted to visit.
Good luck!

Well, while he won't be with you and your folks - he will be with his - and it'll certainly be a stress free non conflict holiday for you.
I know you are disappointed but if you really think about it - this might be the happiest Thanksgiving you get for a long time.
If you let yourself enjoy yourself - you might be able to see a glimmer of possible happiness without him.

And at least for my Mom (she divorced our dad when we were young) - the breaking point for her was when she realized she was a LOT happier when he was traveling for work and constantly fighting and being unhappy when he was home.
She celebrates her divorce anniversary every year - it was her emancipation!

I understand that Thanksgiving is important to you and how disappointed you must feel at the idea of not spending Thanksgiving with your husband and with your family, but try to see how it must be for him. You get to see your family all the time, and he doesn't. Maybe it's not perfect, but it's still his family.

Once you get married, you have to let go of many the traditions you grew up in favor of making new traditions with your husband and child. They are your focus now. Your parents and his parents aren't really immediate family anymore. Right now it probably feels to you like he doesn't care about you and your daughter as much as he does his parents, but try to understand that from his perspective. By holding on to your Thanksgiving traditions, aren't you telling him that your parents and siblings are more important than him? He asked you to go to LA with him, and you said no. You were putting your old family ahead of your current family.

I don't mean to say that your parents and siblings don't matter. But you kind of made them more important than him, and he's reacting to that.

His family might have issues, but they are still his family just as much as your parents are siblings are your family. It's a package deal.

Talking to a relationship coach or a marriage counselor is probably a very good idea. Remember to give it time (since you've been to 3 different ones, it makes me wonder if you gave them time). Have you been married long? Your daughter is very young, and those first couple of years of parenting are really, really hard on a marriage. Keep working towards a better relationship and better communication. And try to remember that his family may have faults, but they are still his family and just as important to him as yours is to you.

I think you should thank him for going away for Thanksgiving so that you have a 4-5 day stretch of time to live your life without him and decide if you are happier with him or without him. Don't spend the holiday focusing on his absence. Just live your life, and then at the end of the week, decide if his absence was a positive or negative for you.

Wow. I'm sorry you're going through this, but this is crazy town. All of it. I have never heard of spouses spending Thanksgiving apart except under extenuating circumstances, like a dying parent a plane ride away whose last wish is to spend Thanksgiving with family and the visiting child can only afford one plane ticket.

He is clearly choosing is wacky mother over you and your child. That's not healthy. If he's not willing to see that and work on it, then it's not going to change.

I'm not a huge advocate for divorce as I've been through it and it's hard, but I really don't see any hope for your marriage being a healthy one if you're this far into it and he refuses to recognize the toxicity of his relationship with his mother or really change. If I were you, I'd be working on a long-term plan to end this. Again, I don't say that lightly but you sound like you're married to a nightmare of a man who isn't going to change.

I guess at this point all you can do is enjoy Thanksgiving with your family and focus on your daughter and your own family. If I were you, I would NOT be going to LA for Christmas unless you want to enjoy some fresh scenery and warm weather. I would NOT subject myself to being around people who are openly disrespectful of me and are actively working to damage your marriage.

"I feel like he's trying to hurt me by choosing to spend Thanksgiving
with his parents/sister instead of with me and our daughter, as a family."

But it's not with you and your daughter, as a family. It's with your parents and siblings and "a big deal of it with lots of effort." Possibly that's just not the Thanksgiving celebration he wants and feels comfortable with. Yes, he should respect that "Thanksgiving means a lot to [you]" but it honestly sounds like you're pretty committed to celebrating it your way and aren't really open to new traditions that involve just your immediate family. I would suggest you find some of those and ways to celebrate holidays that are about you, your husband, and your daughter, and not about the way you and your family of origin (or he and his family of origin) have always done things.

I agree with mynewnickname.
Also, you need to decide if you want your child to grow up in a situation where dad is verbally abusive to mom.

If ever a marriage called for compromise, it is this one. Perhaps you can agree to alternate Thanksgivings? That is what many couples do. It is not unreasonable to go back to his family 3 or 4 times a year, if your budget allows for that. Are his parents ever able to travel to your home? Some years could they join you and your parents for Thanksgiving? Unless you start giving a little, I see a divorce in your future. That would be so sad for your baby. She deserves to have role models who teach her to compromise and work out their problems. Also, if you have been through 4 professionals to help you, it is time to start following their advice rather than quitting when one or both of you don’t like what you hear!

My husband and I went to see a counsellor early on in our marriage (when we'd just had our first baby) over something similar. Except he didn't care for his family, we just lived closest to them so we were involved with them a lot.

In our case, we were doing things with them - their traditions, and felt we had to because we hadn't yet developed our own.

It took a long while, but what we ended up doing was developing our own. We carved out time for us and making new ones. His family has never responded well to this. It was hard for my husband because they crapped all over him. His natural reaction was to cave - not because he wanted to, but because it was 'easiest' to avoid their conflict. That's where the counsellor came in. Boundaries.

I get you are close to your family and love their traditions. Same. My husband's family is very dysfunctional and his parents seem to not get along. His mother bitches nonstop and his father is rude and puts her down. Quite frankly, we want to leave the minute we get there.

That's what I would suggest. From now on, do something for you guys and your baby - and then do something the next day with your family. Or some variation of that. It takes the focus of choosing either side. The thing is - it shouldn't be about choosing sides at this point. Even though his side is dysfunctional - you do have to respect it is still his family. It took me a while to get that. I thought 'if you don't even want to go, why is it even a consideration?' - didn't matter. It's weird, but there it is. You still have to respect, it's still his family.

The other thing is - my husband visits his family without us sometime. That is perfectly ok. He is fine with that. He gets that it gets tense and he knows that we will go the important times. That's our arrangement - we all agreed to that. If it's important to him - the kids and I go, no questions asked. But if it's just a visit - then, he goes. I get your husband's family is away - but maybe it's ok he goes without you. Come to some agreement. A coach or counsellor to help guide this process may be helpful.

Good luck. If it helps - a lot of couples go through this.

Here's my thought. It sounds like you have a deep entrenched holiday tradition around Thanksgiving. Okay. But. How many traditions have you and your hubby built? Just you and him and your children? I would be none. He's being drawn to his parents because he's having a hard time not feeling connected to you and doesn't want to spend all those holidays with your family.

Try to compromise a little more. I would limit my time with his family by planning mother son/daughter things where you and the mother in law weren't in the same room.

They show affection and love by fighting and arguing. Figure out a way to pull out of those situations when they come up.

Like asking, what would you do differently? Sometimes other people do have a brain and have options that make sense plus we can often see a bigger picture than you see since you're in it every day. It won't hurt to hear what she has to say.

Current day Americans Like to boast who open we are to diversity and modern family makeup. well, maybe you will gave a marriage that celebrates holidays separately. I would not mind a relationship like that.