Feeling deflated about how to split up holiday time this year with S/O and not sure what to do

Keep in mind that what is a priority for you and what you want doesn't always and will not always translate to what is important for him and what he wants ... and that's ok. There is nothing wrong with that.

You wanted to spend Christmas together with his and your family. That arrangement wouldn't work well so he offered an alternative solution ... to each do Christmas separately. He doesn't have to offer another solution since he already offered one, but you can. That's a part of the healthy negotiation process.

And please don't feel like you have to hold the fact that lately you've been spending a lot of time with his family so now he should be obligated to spend the Christmas holiday with yours. Those visits were separate agreements you both made. You agreed to go on those visits with him and I doubt that part of that agreement was that he would be required to spend Christmas with your family (otherwise I feel like you would have said so).

How his family celebrates Christmas has nothing to do how you celebrate with yours. Every family does it differently so whether or not they do gift giving or not isn't the point. It's that it's his family and he wants to spend it with his and you want to spend it with yours. I feel like it's a fair compromise for now.

You might want to consider and talk about how holidays will be handled in the future so this doesn't happen again later. Another good compromise that a lot of couples make is to alternate large holidays each year. So for example on odd years they celebrate Thanksgiving with one person's family and Christmas with the other persons family etc. Then on even years they flip. And that's just one of many ways to handle holidays.

Another thing to consider is that you may be feeling a lot of regret and guilt over not having spent more time with your dad and that could be a huge factor behind the reason that you want to spend it with your step mom so much. Right now you feel like YOUR wants and the NEEDS of your step mother outweighs the wants of your partner and the wants of HIS family. It's ok to want something and it's ok to feel disappointed however consider that it's ok to disagree and still support each other.

/r/relationships Thread