Negotiating with in-laws isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time.

I mean, some people genuinely love their in-laws, but in those cases, maybe negotiating isn’t a common thing!

This husband resents the fact that he and his wife always have to host her family.

My wife (38F) and I (39M) have been married for 12 years and have 3 kids (11, 8, & 6).

We live reasonably close to family on both our sides. Our house isn’t huge by any means, but it’s big enough for our family.

However, no one else on my wife’s side of the family lives in a house.

Her siblings all either rent homes with roommates or live in apartments.

Her parents downsized into a smaller townhome about 5 years ago.

As a result, any time her family wants to get together for a holiday or special occasion, we are the ones who end up hosting.

It’s not even a discussion with her family anymore, everyone just assumes that we are going to be the ones who host.

On top of that, they are not even good guests.

We at least rotate major holidays between my family and hers, but my siblings and parents can also host gatherings so hosting duties are spread out amongst all of us.

But every Thanksgiving, Xmas, 4th of July, Easter, etc that we spend with her family, we host.

And her family are not the best guests.

They will bring food if we ask, but any time there is cleanup or other help, they are nowhere to be found.

I have expressed my dislike of this “arrangement” to my wife numerous times.

She has insisted that I not say anything to her family about it and to let her handle it.

However, nothing has ever changed.

So, he has told her they won’t be hosting any more gatherings.

We hosted Xmas for her family this year and it sucked.

People showed up late, “forgot” the food they were supposed to bring, no one helped with cleaning, people let their kids make messes etc.

Same old story as every other time.

After that I told my wife I was done. I told her I don’t want to host her family until someone else on her family steps up and hosts something or we book some other venue and all chip in to pay for it.

She promised to talk to her family about it and figure something out for next holiday.

They agreed, but then she came home from a brunch stating her family wanted them to host Easter so they could “prove” they could change.

For Easter this year we were supposed to just have it be our family, no extended family.

But a couple weeks ago my wife met up with her mom and sister for lunch.

When she got home she informed me that she talked to them about how hard hosting Xmas was.

She said her mom and sister agreed that they would do better and offered to prove it to us on Easter and my wife agreed.

We got into a huge fight over it.

He said nope and he would be spending the holiday with his family instead – and the kids want to go with him.

I told my wife that she is on her own for this one. I told her I would be spending the entirety of Easter weekend with my family and I’ll take any kids with me that want to come.

But I am not going to be helping with any of the hosting duties whatsoever.

She thinks I am overreacting and that I need to give her family this final chance because her mom and sister seemed really sincere during their talk.

I told her I don’t care what they say, I’m not going to be involved at all because I won’t be able to hold my tongue this time and I don’t want it to come to that.

She is not happy with me at all but I don’t really care.

To top it off, all 3 of our kids want to come spend the weekend with me instead of staying home.

Does Reddit think he made the right move? They’re going to let us know!

The top comment says it doesn’t seem like they really resolved anything.

This person agrees no lessons will be learned.

They say this is not the way to prove they’ve changed.

As always, communication is key.

It’s probably up to her to make the grand gesture here.

I don’t think he’s wrong.

But I do think they need to get on the same page before they ruined their relationship.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.