WIBTAH if I (40F) told our teenage kids that all presents are from me only and not their father (43M)?

A Reddit user (40F) is grappling with whether to reveal to her teenage and adult children that she has been solely responsible for all the effort and planning behind Christmas every year. Despite being married for 18 years, her husband (43M) has consistently left all the mental and physical load of the holiday on her shoulders, even ignoring her recent explicit requests for help.

While she doesn’t want to seem petty, she’s overwhelmed and resents his lack of support. Would it be wrong to let her kids know the truth as a way to spark a wake-up call for her husband?

‘ WIBTAH if I (40F) told our teenage kids that all presents are from me only and not their father (43M)?’

I’m so tempted to tell our kids as a wake up call for my husband. We (I, 40F, and him, 43M) have been married for 18 years and every single Christmas and its overwhelming mental load falls on me. I make the lists, I brainstorm ideas, I buy all gifts (our family, extended family), I do all the wrapping—I spend MONTHS thinking about and working on making Christmas special for our family, including my husband.

When I ask him for ideas, his standard response is “I don’t know.” So it’s all on me, every year again. Would I be the AH if I told our 3 kids (one adult, two teenagers) that I’m the one who did it all?.

Bit of backstory: My husband makes 4x the amount of money than I do, so especially early on in the marriage, he often paid for the presents so I was fine with him not really chipping in on the workload of buying and wrapping gifts. I did ask him for more help over the last few years and told him that it’s too much stress for one person, he helped wrap (some) presents once, but usually he just plays games at night or goes to sleep early while I’m wrapping gifts.

This year, I transferred more money than I actually spent on all presents from my savings to his account, and I still did everything myself. It’s a lot. I spent every free minute after my stressful job on Christmas stuff, by myself, and when I sent him a list of exactly what support I needed from him, he ignored it and didn’t talk to me all day yesterday (he spent his day in the basement playing games) while I spent my Sunday working on wrapping and planning.

I don’t want to be petty, but at this point I’m stressed, o**rwhelmed, depressed, and mentally exhausted. And yes, I currently resent him for ignoring my needs when I spelled it all out for him and he could have helped out. Should I just keep it all inside or let our kids know that I was the only one making Christmas possible?

 

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

Llilibethe −  Your kids already know.

Worth-Season3645 −  YWBTA….You both have set a pattern for this behavior by allowing it to continue for so many years. Do not involve your children into what is going on between you and your husband. Sit down with your husband after the holidays and discuss how you can both work together in the future and tell him there is no option but working together. You will not do this alone anymore.

florida_lmt −  You are creating this issue for yourself. Stop making Christmas so difficult. Buy a few small presents and stop making up work for yourself and getting mad at other people who choose not to make themselves miserable.

OwnInspector4041 −  Christmas can be stressful and this sounds like it’s wearing on you… but you guys have been doing it this way for 18 years?! That’s essentially an unspoken contract. Why would he expect any different this year?

1. Don’t use your kids as a weap*n.
2. Talk about it like mature partners. Your expectations may be way higher than his. He might be happy giving out gift cards and catering Christmas meals… if you want more personal than that, you’ll have to find a compromise.
3. When you husband used to make 4 x more than you did he tell the kids that the house they live in is 80% his and only the garage and one bathroom was paid for by you? Hopefully not.

YWBTA if you do this to your kids and husband. After this Christmas sit down and talk through it for the future and everyone is one the same page.

DELILAHBELLE2605 −  YWBTA. Here’s the thing…. Christmas is as hard as we make it. All of these expectations are from ourselves and others. Half the crap I do at Christmas would not be missed by my husband if I stopped. My kids are 17 and 19 now. It just gets easier. The lots of work years were when the kids were small.

If you’re this stressed out about it you need to reevaluate how you do things. One thing that totally made life easier was when my husband’s brothers and their wives and us just agreed to stop with the adult gifts and only do kids.

lets_talk_aboutsplet −  YWBTA. It’s not your kids fault that your husband doesn’t help you out with this stuff as much as he should. It’s going to make them feel uncomfortable at best.

pamelaonthego −  I don’t know why you are doing so much. Do you really need to buy gifts for extended family? We only buy for the children. You put all this pressure on yourself and then become resentful. Don’t drag your children into your marital conflicts. If it’s too much, cut back. If the issues of participation with your husband extend to every day home management, go to therapy or divorce. YWBTA.

Maleficent-Spinach37 −  Do not put your children in the middle of your marriage drama, nothing good will come of that. If anything, they probably already know, kids are intuitive. I think the bigger issue is that your husband ignored your request for help. Does he always act that way, or is it just with the holidays? If it’s just the holidays, maybe he doesn’t find the holidays as positive as you.

I understand wanting to make it magical for your kids, but is it possible you’re taking on too much in general? You said you spent months stressing over the holiday, that sounds extreme. Your kids are older, they’ll understand if you ease up on the holiday stuff a little.

ZenGarments −  YTA. You seem obsessive to be honest if you spend “MONTHS thinking about and working on making Christmas special” when it just fills you with resentment. It sounds like you’re willing to s**k the joy out of Christmas for others if you don’t get what you want out of it. There’s no reason to spend MONTHS obsessing about Christmas. That is your choice and it probably puts all kinds of weird pressure on the kids too.

I’m going to take a wild guess that this is not the only way that you express your passive aggression. You want to hurt your husband by hurting the kids (and likely ruin their feelings about Christmas for the rest of their lives).

Amazing-Suggestion77 −  Your children already know that mom buys the gift & wraps them while dad pays for them. They’re not deaf & blind, they figured it out years ago. You’re making Christmas harder than it needs to be, and I wonder if you do it so not only for control but also so you can play they martyr. I can’t think of anyone that buys presents for their entire extended family, they don’t have the time or the money.

Rather, it’s common to either just buy gifts for children up to a certain age, or draw a name amongst the family members and set an dollar amount limit for the gift with the family member providing a list of items they can use or like. If you check with your extended family, they’d probably prefer to spend the time on their immediate family or themselves. Also, when you get to a certain age, you don’t need more stuff and gifts end up squirreled away in a closet or donated.