'AITA for not writing holiday cards to my husband's family out of principle?' UPDATED

"AITA for not writing holiday cards to my husband's family out of principle?"

The day after Thanksgiving, my husband and I went over to his parents' house. When I was chatting with his mother, she politely asked why we hadn't sent cards to them wishing a happy Thanksgiving. I told her I wasn't aware of such a tradition, as my family wasn't the sort to send cards of any kind (we don't even do birthday cards).

She said to keep it it in mind for Christmas. I called over my husband, and told him that his mother wanted him to send cards for the holidays. Though I didn't think much of it then, my husband and his mother exchanged a look.

Below is a very poor approximation of the conversation we had when we got home. I believe all these points were brought up, though probably in a different order and with more fleshed out supporting arguments on both sides.

Husband: (jokingly) Make sure to set a reminder for a few days before Christmas so that you don't forget to write cards this time!

Me: It's your family. Shouldn't you write the cards?

Husband: I think it would be better if you do it. I'm not very good at this sort of thing, and I think it would make my mother happier to see it come from you.

Me: I am also not good at this sort of thing, and I obviously have far less experience with it (holiday cards) than you do. And you don't care enough to do it. Why do you expect me to care more about your family than you do?

Husband: I just think it would be easier for you than for me, and the outcome would be better. (getting annoyed) Is is that hard for you to do?

Me: I disagree that it would be easier for me. And I refuse to fall into the hole of bullshit administrative tasks that get relegated to women. I saw that in my own parents' marriage --

Husband: (very annoyed) Oh my God, not everything is about that! You're just arguing for the sake of arguing! You haven't even said that you hate the task itself! I've seen the cards you write your coworkers!

Me: Ok, I don't want to argue either. My coworkers, I write the cards. Your family, you write the cards.

To be fair, I do argue for the sake of arguing sometimes. Though I do not like the process of writing cards, I am good at it and I like seeing my coworkers' and friends' positive reactions. But out of principle, I do not want to become responsible for keeping track of my husband's social obligations.

I have seen it in my parents' and in my friends' marriages, and it leads to huge resentment in the women. For my husband's own sake, better he suffer putting in a little effort than me blowing up over this bullsh!t.

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

IChooseYouSnorlax said:

NTA. HIS family expects cards? Great, he can send them.

charonthemoon said:

NTA, his lame attempts to foist it on you like "it would be easier for you than me" and "you're better at it than I am" is such stereotypical lazy-man-dumping-emotional-labor-on-wife behavior that I'm wondering if this is a shitpost.

And if you do them this year I bet he'll add "but you always do them" to the list too. And also he sucks for dismissing your concerns about falling into that trap. Tell him if you're better at it then he is, then he should do them because he needs the practice.

franknelsonyes said:

NTA. My theory: this. "my husband and his mother exchanged a look" happened because sending out the cards is assumed to be women's work in his family. Why else would your MIL talk to you about it alone?

But he can't come right out and say that you have to write the cards because it's your role as the wife, or because it would be emasculating to him, or whatever, because it's no longer socially acceptable to say those kinds of things. So he had to invent all kinds of ridiculous excuses to cover up for the real reason.

leaving01857200 said:

NTA. It’s very strange that everyone expects you to write the cards. My family has never had this tradition either.

endymion2300 said:

you should totally send out cards to his family and not sign his name on em. just yours. NTA

And coastalshelves said:

NTA. This is absolutely based in sexism, and it's gross. There's no real, non-bullshit reason why he shouldn't be able to write these cards himself. It's his family. Presumably he knows how to write. I would blow my lid if my SO expected me to take over his social responsibilities because I'm 'just better at it'. He has a calendar too, he can set it for himself.

She later shared this update:

tl;dr: I will write basic holiday messages ("Happy Thanksgiving! Love, X and Y"), and my husband will do the grunt work of buying and sending the cards. He absolutely has my back when it comes to dealing with his mother, and I think it's reasonable for me to do these small, silly things to keep her happy.

Thank you all for the responses.

I want to clarify some things that people either misread or I did not put in the initial post:

1.) I stated that I do not like writing cards, just seeing people happy when I succeed. Those cards that I give to my coworkers are not holiday bullshit, but only for rather rare occasions of people I care about leaving the company, being promoted, etc. I've written 3 total. Writing thoughtful cards is excruciating, and I assumed his mother expected thoughtful cards like that every year for the holidays.

2.) Neither his parents nor mine are originally from the US. Mine immigrated before I was born, his when he was already a teenager. Both of us have limited experience with American family traditions.

3.) It may not be the case for the cards specifically, but my MIL is pretty sexist. There are some parts of her that I like a lot, especially the extent to which she tries to bond with me and the other DILs, e.g. by teaching us how to cook traditional recipes. She is a very generous, loving woman.

However, she does have strict expectations for the role of wife/daughter, believing that it is my duty to serve her and my husband. It has been a point of contention between her and my husband when I do horrible things like gasp have him help with cleaning up. I thought she didn't mind all that much with me specifically, as she seemed much harsher with her other DILs.

What actually happened: Some time after his mother made the comment to me about Christmas cards, she dragged my husband away from the party and tore his head off for "letting [me] get so bad." My husband spared me the details, but they had a long, nasty screaming match about me until his father interrupted. So he was in a really bad mood about this.

Meanwhile, I had started thinking about that look they'd shared and previous small things where he tried to get me to lie back and go along with his mother's ridiculous demands. (For example, that same dinner his brother had brought some vodka, mostly for my benefit because he knew how much I liked it. He even proclaimed that he got it mostly for me.

But his mother declared that it was not for the women to drink, and my husband begged me to roll over, so I did. [Turns out one of the guests was pregnant, and this was my MIL's weird way of not making her feel excluded]) So I was also mad by the end of the night.

So when my husband brought up the cards, both of us very quickly went pig-brained. But we love each other very much, and stayed up quite late apologizing to each other and discussing his mother.

It turns out that my husband has been pretty aggressive about keeping her from getting on my case the way she does with the other DILs, but he didn't want to go completely nuclear, so wanted me to still do the small things. I guess he has told me about this before, though not explicitly enough, so I didn't realise that this was his grand strategy.

It is the case that she has never stepped on any big boundaries of mine, thanks to my husband's interference. I am totally okay with doing other small things to maintain a decent relationship with my MIL. Writing the cards is definitely a small thing, so I will write in my beautiful cursive in the card and on the envelope, and my husband will handle the logistics.