Woman doesn't want to include niece at Christmas; husband calls her 'selfish.'

The holidays can be a tough time for a lot of reasons. For those without family, it can be a heavy reminder of what they don't have. For those celebrating with family, it can bring up all manner of unresolved issues. Add in some extended family or in-laws, and it gets extra spicy.

In a recent AITA post, a woman asked if she's wrong for not wanting her teen niece to spend Christmas with her.

She wrote:

AITA for not wanting my husband's niece to stay with us?

My husband has a niece (16F) called Jenny. Everyone in the family adores Jenny. I've never met her dad but apparently, he is an abusive a**hole. Jenny basically lives with her aunts and uncles. The family all dote on her. She can do no wrong.

My husband is worse than all of them. We have a two-year-old son but my husband seems to love his niece more than our son.

It's really frustrating because his family doesn't care about our son;s accomplishments as much as Jenny like 'oh your son learned how to walk? Well Jenny could walk when she was one week old.'

Now the problem, Jenny is supposed to be with us for Christmas. I don't want her here. I want to have Christmas with my son and husband. I want my son to get all our attention.

Jenny's other aunts and uncles are all willing to have her on Christmas so I asked my husband to just let her be with them. He got mad at me and said it's our turn and he wants to have his niece with us.

I told him I want to have a Christmas for our family only and he called me an a**hole and said Jenny is family too. AITA?

People quickly wrote up their thoughts.

CrystalQueen3000 wrote:

YTA. Your son is 2 and won’t even remember this Christmas, stop punishing Jenny because her family love her. It’s weird and smacks of jealousy.

X-Couch-Potato wrote:

Jealousy is an ugly color. Jealousy of a sixteen-year-old, well that's a weather-beaten, mud-stomped ugly color. YTA.

Medical-Cat-821 wrote:

It's one Christmas of many to come, she is a teenager and you're an adult, she obviously has a hard time with her parents and her aunts and uncles are trying to make her feel loved by them.

Take a long hard look in the mirror and figure out who's the AH in this situation. It's you. YTA.

happybanana134 wrote:

YTA. I read your post and comments; it's frankly disturbing that you're trying to diminish a child's trauma in an attempt to justify why you're acting like this. Jenny does not sound spoiled.

Just own it, you're jealous. It's cool, we all feel this way sometimes. It's normal and it's only a bad thing if you channel it in a negative way.

The fact is your husband and his family are trying to overcompensate with Jenny because she's had an abusive and unsettled childhood. Did it ever occur to you that Jenny might be jealous of your son because he has two loving parents and a stable environment? A car cannot make up for abuse.

Primary-Criticism929 wrote:

YTA. You're jealous of a 16-year-old who apparently doesn't have a mother around and an abusive father. You need therapy.

Certain-Beyond673 wrote:

YTA. You're punishing Jenny for how THE FAMILY chooses to treat her. Jenny isn't bragging about her accomplishments, they are. If you have an issue, it's with them.

She has a broken home, and an apparently (I do not like that use of apparently in your post) abusive father, and you want to make it super clear she isn't welcome in your home?

Because your son and his two parents doting on him are more important than some time with his niece. When she literally DOESN'T HAVE PARENTS basically. If the adults spoil Jenny, then your problems are with them.

Cryptographer_Alone wrote:

ESH. OP clearly has issues with the fact that Jenny has become the center of the family's affection because she's effectively an orphan that they all share the care of. In losing her bio mom and dad, she got parents in all of her aunts and uncles.

But Jenny is not at fault here, leaving OP jealous and lashing out at a teenager who doesn't even seem to be brat about being the apple of the family eye. Not a good look.

OP should direct her ire more rightly at the adults who can't seem to be able to create space in their affections for their nephew, or to at least let his mother feel like he is a loved and valued member of the family.

I'm sure they mean well, but someday the nephew is going to be old enough to notice there's a communal golden child, and it's not him. Ow! There also seems to be a massive miscommunication between OP and her husband.

Husband likely sees Jenny as more of his child than his niece. He's just got a lot of co-parents to work with. OP does not see Jenny as her stepdaughter. That's leading to some mismatched expectations that in turn leads to hurt feelings.

And if what OP says is accurate, the husband is also not giving equal treatment to his son. Now, at 2 the son likely doesn't notice, but someday he will. It would be best to address this now. OP, I think it's time for couple's counseling.

Everyone's a little bit wrong, but everyone is also a little bit right, and I'm not sure if the nuances of the situation are going to be navigated without help.

Hopefully, OP is able to talk with her husband so they can come to a better understanding of each other.