Woman wants to skip holidays because her family 'gaslights' and 'uses' her.
When this woman is annoyed with her family, she asks Reddit:
'AITA because I don’t want to go home for the holidays because I feel I’m being used?'
Normally every year I fly back home (~2000 miles) for a couple weeks to spend time with my parents and siblings.
It’s a pretty expensive trip because the ticket cost me usually around $800-$1000, I’m buying gifts for all of my family members, which is about 15 people, and I have to pay for my own stuff while I’m there, things, such as groceries, travel, going out to eat, etc.
Overall since I moved away, I’ve spent roughly $3000 each time I go back. Sure I could just skip out on getting everybody gifts and hoping me being there to celebrate and spend quality time is enough but unfortunately my presence is not enough for them.
They want gifts too. Not only that I stay with my parents and my two siblings that still live at home. So for the duration of my stay there, I’m typically sleeping on the floor, or a sleeping bag.
It’s far from comfortable with a bad back. Plus a good majority of my family hates me because I call out their bs. I got tired of being cordial and being around them. So I’d rather not waste my time or money on them.
So this year I’ve decided to save myself, the headache, back pain, expenses, and my sanity.
Unfortunately there’s also one lingering issue, my spouse, and I inherited their parents belongings, such as a house, a vehicle, and half of their total finances. I have not told my immediate family what the inheritance amount is, but it’s truly not that much.
It’s around $100,000 which is going to be taxed anyways. So we’ll end up with about $70,000 which will pay off debt and go toward fixing up the house.
There was some hiccups and unfortunately it’s not considered true inheritance, and it counts as income which is (not) lovely.
My spouse used to talk about their parents being really good at saving money and having a pretty good nest egg saved up for them and their sibling to split upon their death.
My mother and siblings hearing this assume that we are going to be extremely rich now because the estate closes this month. I just feel like they are gaslighting me into thinking they love me. When they don't.
So for the last two months they have been sending me Christmas gifts they have in mind that I could get them, things, such as phones, computers, TVs, jewelry, and even a $50,000 car.
I know they are doing this because they know about the estate and I honestly just feel used. I can’t tell them the truth about the estate because they have their minds made up that I’m extremely wealthy either way.
So AITA for not going because I feel like they only want me there for expensive gifts?
Let's find out.
comfortablestick520 writes:
Jesus. You are NTA and I would cut all contact with them. Your presence should be enough.
And did I read correctly that you have to pay for groceries when you are staying with your parents? Usually if someone flies across the country they don’t have buy groceries too.
OP ayla-jaidan responds in the comments with:
Unfortunately, you read that correctly, I’m not the favorite child. When my siblings sit there and mooch off my parents, even though they’re old enough to move out on their own, I’m stuck paying for all of my own stuff while I’m there. I’m treated like an inconvenience when I’m there. I think I’ve just realized over the past two years that I’m wasting my time going, which is why I decided not to this year.
blunderbust writes this:
You NTA but you need to wake up.
Wait, how are 'they' being cheated? Did you tell them that when all this beneficence arrived--your wife's, by the way, isn't it, rther than yours?--that you'd be what, parceling it out with jeweler's glasses, to make sure that each got 'their' share?
Why on earth would they even remotely know about it, or think that they had any share in it? Unless you inlaws really screwed the pooch, it's HERS ANYWAY.
No? You didn't swear in blood to give them a share, right?
Then what's the issue? They're not 'entitled' to anything and they're not being cheated. You owe them nothing.
If I were spending $3/annum and sleeping on the FLOOR, in a sleeping bag, with a bad back (!) after flying thousands of miles (that's my trip too, btw) AND buying my own groceries, I'd have called it quits with this trip a long time ago (and did).
STOP being manipulated by master manipulators. Tell them that life doesn't go as planned; you don't have any goodies for them, you're not coming for Xmas and all that.
Do NOT, repeat, NOT tell them what you did, or didn't, 'inherit,' (Especially as it wasn't, b/c your in-laws weren't as clever by half as they thought, now, were they?) And tell them thanks for the (anticipatory and predatory) gifts, you'll use them in good health.
if you can't bring yourself to be that abrupt, send them wee gifties--little easy things that you can buy online and send--and that's IT. (And honestly, even if the inheritance had gone as planned, would you really have given them stuff? Yes? Why?????)
This 'relationship' needs a major overhaul and you need to start in your own head. Don't go. Don't buy. Don't gift. Stay at home with your (no-doubt long-suffering wife) and enjoy what life gives you.