It’s hard to feel festive when the holidays keep turning into disappointment.

So, what would you do if your partner’s mother kept canceling Christmas plans year after year, leaving you scrambling to salvage the holiday? Would you give her another chance to make it right? Or would you make other plans this year, even if it meant upsetting her?

In the following story, one woman finds herself in this situation and is unsure what to do. Here’s the story.

WIBTA for visiting my mom for christmas instead of MIL, after MIL cancelled on us 2 years in a row, even tho she has bad health issues?

My boyfriend (36m) and I (38f) have two kids (4m, 1f). We’ve been together for 8 years.

Our families don’t really live close to us.

My mom lives a 10-12 hour drive from us, his dad (FIL) lives an 8-9 hour drive from us (4-6 hours from my mom), and his mom (MIL) lives a 4-6 hour drive from us. His stepdad lives about an hour from us, but we don’t see him super often, as he has a lot of health issues and is busy with doctors.

She was upset when her MIL cancelled the last time.

In the four years since our son was born, we did Christmas at home, then at my mom’s house, and then, for two years in a row, we organized our entire grandparent visiting schedule around planning to see his mom for Christmas.

Each year, she cancelled at the last minute.

I LOVE Christmas and was very upset, and yes, I was an idiot to agree to it again after the first year.

We ended up having a super low-key lunch with his stepdad both years, which was fine, but still. (Also, please note that the second cancelled year was when we had a 2-month-old baby whom she hadn’t yet met.)

This year, she wants to do things differently.

Both of those years, we visited later in January, I think, and both years it was underwhelming.

She is a part-time carer for her dad (I think he’s the reason for the second cancelled year? Nobody else could take care of him, I guess?), and often when we visit, she’s gone most of the day.

We had plans to do a proper belated celebration with a nice dinner and presents, but it never happened.

This year, I am insisting we visit my mom for Christmas and his mom for Thanksgiving (which is two days after our son’s birthday, so it could be a special combo celebration).

Now, her boyfriend is guilt-tripping her.

My boyfriend told her, and she requested we switch, so she could have us and SIL all together (SIL does Thanksgiving at FIL’s house every year).

I do not want to do it, and when I told him, he got very disappointed, saying his mom will be really upset and that he’s worried about her health, and what if it’s the last chance to have Christmas with her?

She DOES have a lot of health issues (Crohn’s, autoimmune stuff, thyroid removed, not sure what else), and he says she downplays it, but when he googles things she has told him, all the results are alarming, and I guess leading him to feel this intense worry.

AITA?

Yikes! It’s easy to see both sides of this, but at this point, it would be a shame if she cancelled at the last minute again.

Let’s check out what the readers over at Reddit think she should do about this.

This reader thinks it’s time she has Christmas with her mother.

Yet another person who thinks it’s her mother’s turn for Christmas.

For this reader, it’s comparable to the boy who cried wolf.

Here’s a good thought.

This is the logical thing to do.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.