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"I hate my boyfriend's parents and I want to spend Christmas alone."

 

Christmas is a time when families can come together and celebrate togetherness, good food and a shared passion for a nap at five.

Unless, of course, the family you spend the holiday season with are awful.

One frustrated woman has shared how desperate she is to spend Christmas alone rather than endure another year with her boyfriend’s parents.

The 28-year-old told users on anonymous forum Reddit she couldn’t afford to travel home so a family Christmas would only be possible with her partner of two years’ parents.

“They live just a few hours away from us, so the trip was inexpensive and short,” she wrote.

“The thing is, I can’t stand his parents. I’m Asian, and he is white, and his parents are clearly uncomfortable with my different background.”

From Jatz Crackers to Chocolates. Listen to what teachers get from their students. Post continues after audio.

 

The woman went on to share what happened at his family’s Christmas last year.

“While last year the comments were subtle, about how I must eat ‘weird’ foods. Asking my boyfriend what weird or disgusting things I must force him to eat,” she said.

“Asking if I eat things like potatoes or if I’m okay with onions – treating me like a literal foreigner even though I was born and raised in America.”

Food has continued to be a kind of cultural war zone between the two families.

“They are meat and potatoes kind of folks, which is fine, but when I requested a salad last year for Christmas I was met with confrontation,” she explained.

“His mother then made a warm spinach salad — which was basically covered in bacon grease to appease my boyfriend’s father, and then they insisted that I eat all of it because I was the one that asked for it.”

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The woman asked readers for their advice on how to approach the subject with her boyfriend, who up until this point, had agreed his parents were behaving poorly but had done little about it.

“I haven’t talked to him about wanting to spend Christmas alone or perhaps meeting with other friends and spending it with their families. I am afraid of how to word it, as I don’t want to offend him, but I need him to understand that I just really can’t be around them in close quarters for another four days,” she explained.

Readers encouraged the woman to explain to her boyfriend how the behaviour was simply unacceptable.

“I think your boyfriend needs to put on his big boy pants and stand up for you. This kind of, lets call it, ‘casual racism’ is really annoying. Have you talked to your boyfriend about your feelings? Frankly if he has any love for you at all, he will stand up for you,” one user wrote.

“I would sit your boyfriend down and explain to him that you can’t go to his parents house until they realize you are a [normal person] and treat you like you are a ‘normal’ person. Ask him if he’d want to spend time with your parents if he visited and had been asked the same questions his parents asked you,” wrote another.

What would you have done? Risked rocking the boat with the family by asking your boyfriend to confront his parents or tried to win them over another way?

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