His Mom Gets Nostalgic And Wants To Have Dinners With Just Him And His Siblings Like When They Were Children, But He’s Refusing To Go Because His Wife Is Excluded, And It Makes Her Very Upset
Ever since this man and his siblings grew up and started families of their own, his mom has gone through periods of nostalgia.
And more recently, she’s wanted to essentially recreate their childhood family dinners by having meals with “just them.”
Now, this clearly means that his wife and kids, as well as his siblings’ spouses and children, are excluded.
“And I know my mom doesn’t mean for this to be interpreted negatively, but the whole idea of this dinner puts me off,” he admitted.
After all, he is currently in his mid-thirties, married, and has children. So, while he obviously loves his family, it just feels strange to get together with his parents and “play pretend” for a few hours, as if he and his siblings don’t have entire families of their own.
“Of course, that’s not the obvious connotation,” he noted, “But the very point and design of it is to be exclusive to ‘our family,’ or my childhood family.”
So, his mother gets all focused on the fact that the dinner is “just them,” like when they were kids, and gets emotional.
And he gets super uncomfortable, cringing at the thought of pretending to also relish in the “nostalgia.”
He also just doesn’t understand why the dinners can only include “just them” in order for his mom and dad to enjoy them.
FornStudio – stock.adobe.com- illustrative purposes only, not the actual people
More importantly, his wife gets extremely hurt when she is excluded from these family meals, too.
They have already been together for 17 years and married for 11 years. Yet, his wife and his dad do not have the best relationship.
So, getting left out of these family dinners makes her feel like it’s just one more example of how his parents do not accept her.
His in-laws, on the other hand, have completely integrated him and made him feel like a part of his wife’s family.
That’s why, aside from the awkwardness of it all, he really just doesn’t like that the “just us” dinners hurt his wife.
Still, his sister believes that the dinners are important to their mom and should happen just to make her happy.
So, his sister actually cornered him at their mom’s recent birthday celebration and put him on the spot about attending the “just us” dinners.
Now, they didn’t get much time to chat over his qualms with the dinner while at the birthday get-together.
Instead, they texted about it the following day, and his sister basically just accused him of making a big deal out of nothing.
“But it’s apparently important enough that I can imagine getting the cold shoulder for not acquiescing and just doing this for my mom,” he vented.
That’s why, on the one hand, part of him wants to attend the “just us” dinner in order to make his mom happy.
But, on the other hand, he doesn’t want to encourage more “nostalgia” or “pressure,” which is apparently very typical in his family.
So now, he’s not sure whether refusing to attend the dinner is justified or if he really is just overreacting.
Do you agree that it’s strange that his mom wants to essentially recreate family dinners from his childhood? Or is it sweet? Regardless, is it unfair that his wife is excluded? How can he handle this situation without upsetting his mom or his wife?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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