My mom [F43] doesnt want my husbands parents at our traditional Christmas eve dinner at my [F26] house. I am pregnant and worried that this will escalate as time goes on...

Hey everyone, There's quite a web of issues here, so I'm very sorry about how long this is.

Background on my mom and I: My mom and I have been estranged for a couple years because of some terrible things she said to me and my husband, that resulted in my calling the cops and getting a cease and desist against her contacting us with abusive commentary. (That's a whole other story I wont go into right now unless needed).

I found out I was pregnant 5 months ago and when I told her, she emailed to apologize fairly sincerely. I'm not entirely over the nasty disgusting things she said to me. She said some unforgivable things. she feels because she apologized (on her terms) that she's entitled to my forgiveness. I still feel on edge because every time she contacts me, it's some sort of criticism about how I treat her, I apparently ignore her (because i didn't answer an email the same day), how I hate her or whatever. Basically her jumping to the worst and pulling a psychoanalysis of my lack of immediate response which of course, pushes me further away and makes me less inclined to contact her.

Now to the actual story: I recently got married. At the wedding my mom met my husbands family and hit it off great. This was a huge relief to me because she has always been jealous of my relationship with them. I am very close with my in laws, especially considering the terrible relationship I've had with my mom.

A few years ago, my husband and I took over his grandparents' tradition to host his family at a dinner on xmas eve both as a thank you for all the dinners his fam hosts host throughout the year, and to take the pressure off his aging grandparents. It's the one time a year they get to see our place, our cats, and soon enough, our baby!

To try to rectify or at least acknowledge that my mom is trying, I invited her to our christmas eve dinner with my husbands family. My mom has not attempted to make plans for christmas with us, so I thought I'd reach out first. I thought the distraction of the whole family there would allow us to interact without the intensity of all the drama we've had going on and to just enjoy family. I also hoped my marriage would bring our families together, but the way my mom sees it, we are 2 families and she wants to keep it that way. My mom specifically said, I dont care to see them over the holidays, "those people" arent my family, and was super offended that we asked her over.

The thing is, we aren't rich, and we live in a close knit apartment so we cant be having a ton of loud family gatherings, nor do I want to go to the pressure of hosting twice especially once the baby is here. I'm not willing to do 2 entirely separate dinners at our house to accommodate my moms anxieties of being around people she doesnt know well. I worry that when the baby comes, it will be a yearly battle over us wanting to host everyone.

Honestly? I'd rather spend all the holidays with my in laws (who live in town-,my mom lives about 4 hrs away), so her getting her back up about us even inviting her is turning me off spending any time with her at all. She isn't willing to offer us to visit her, but she also isn't willing to be invited on our terms. She didn't offer an alternative, it was simply "me or them". She specifically told me that from now on, we will have to rotate holidays with each family. That's just not going to happen for us with a baby. It's much easier for everyone to come to us so we dont have to travel.

I'm at my wits end. I do not like being made to choose between families. If I'm made to choose, I'll be choosing my in laws because they have actually been there for us, always. They've never missed a birthday, a holiday, or any special event. My mom on the other hand is notorious for just not showing up for events without notice. She never came to my graduation, rarely cared about my bday, and even on a mothers day, I lut a lot of thought into planning a whole thing and instead, she went camping without telling me, despite our premade plans. When I showed up she just...wasnt there. Found out the next day she left. I dont put a lot of weight on the idea of my mom showing up for things.

Additionally, To me, the whole point of marriage is the merging of family. I want to tell her she's lucky to have even been invited for xmas at all let alone my planning her own personal xmas, but I know that will be another whole blow out. I guess I'm not really sure where to go from here. Will we ever be able to see eye to eye? Any advice on how to deal with this? I just cant see that I am in the wrong for including her in our family plans.

TLDR; I finally for the first time invited my estranged mother to our family xmas at my house, which included my husbands family, but she is offended I invited both sets of parents. How can I help her see eye to eye with me? With the baby on the way, we just arent going to be willing to travel to have 2 entirely separate christmas celebrations, nor are we willing to cut my husbands family out of 50% of holidays when they are so good to us. I guess the real question is, how can I help my mom see she should be grateful we invited her at all??

Submitted November 30, 2018 at 06:51AM by jaideatwork https://ift.tt/2SjGkqs