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Hello all. My immediate family and my fiance's immediate family live in the same area, about ten miles away from each other, while the fiance and I live together on the other side of the country. We told our parents that we would split the holidays and spend Thanksgiving with his parents and Christmas with my parents. I sort of had my fingers crossed that someone would be reasonable and invite the other set of parents (and sibling - FI and I each have one adult sister) over. I mean, it seems a bit ridiculous to have to divide our time when everyone lives so close.

Hooray, his mother emailed me to say that my parents and sister are invited for Thanksgiving! The problem is that my parents want to refuse the invitation. My mom has anxiety and is a big introvert, and both of my parents strongly prefer staying at home watching TV alone versus socializing in any form, let alone with people they don't know well.

I respect my parents' preferences, but I emailed my mother asking if she'd reconsider on my behalf. I feel like a refusal would seem like a slap in the face to my future in-laws, and that I would spend the entire holiday apologizing and making excuses for their absence. Not only that, but it seems inevitable that my future in-laws would feel like my parents were expressing a statement that they don't like them. (They met once before, last summer when they went out to dinner together, and for the record my mother and father both had a blast.)

Am I being unreasonable, or am I justified in worrying that this could create bad blood? I really want to develop a positive relationship between our families. It would drive me insane if we spend every cross-country visit for the next few decades having to split our time between households with a grudge. Thanks guys.

@bvig - My mom did bring that up, exactly. "If we do this, do we have to invite them for Christmas, and does that set a precedent forever?" I'm thinking "Would that be the worst thing in the world?" But I can see that that would seem overwhelming to her, when for decades all we have done on holidays has been to lie around in our pajamas watching TV in separate rooms of the house. Also she did say "Thanksgiving has always been a family holiday to us, and this would change that." I said, "They are my family now." Of course she replied, "Yes, they are yours, but not ours." I just don't know.

You know, two years ago my mom's entire extended side of the family randomly had a big get-together out of state for Thanksgiving, and my mom absolutely loved it. I know her interoversion and social anxiety are very real, but I can't help but feel like it would be nice if it weren't selectively applied when it's going to embarrass me. Maybe I should just let it go.

Oh yes, I should clarify that I'm going to be spending a few extra days in town after FI flies back home so that I can see my parents. So, Thanksgiving Day isn't an issue of getting to see them or not. I'm simply concerned about offending the FILs. I guess a better way of phrasing this question would be, if you were my FILs, would it offend you to have the invitation refused? Thanks.

I wouldn't be offended, but then I'm sure other people could be (it always amazes me what offends some people). Are your FILs aware of your mother's anxiety problems? If not, this might be the time to let them know. Not every little detail of course, but something simple like "my mother suffers from social anxiety, sometimes she's fine but sometimes she just can't handle big gatherings". If you get this out of the way now, hopefully your FILs will understand and they won't stop the invitations. I think it's also worth saying to your mother that it's ok if she doesn't want to come this time, but you'd like it if occasionally she made the effort bc it was important to you. (Could your dad help with this too?) It sounds like it's the pressure of future invitations and gatherings that is making her nervous, rather than this one in particular, so perhaps giving her an "out" for other years might help.