My dh and I are not seeing eye to eye on this, and I'm wondering what others might do in the situation?

Dh's daughter and her husband are separating after the holidays. He wanted to move out earlier, but she wanted him to stay through the holidays so that their 16 year old son would have a "good Christmas". Their son knows his father will be leaving them.

I thought dh's daughter and son would come to our house on Christmas Eve, but that her husband would stay home. Come to find out, she's having/making him come too.

I don't want to *pretend* that everything's normal, and we're all just enjoying Christmas together. We all know he's leaving. I have no idea why dh's daughter would even go through this charade, but I don't want to participate.

This is causing tension between my dh and me because I don't want to keep up a front, and he thinks we should.

What would you do?

I would allow him to come, but I would set his [censored] down and have a serious talk with him. The worst thing you all can do is pretend like he is not destroying his family. That does not help ANYONE, especially the 16 yr old to pretend like this is all right. It is NOT all right.

The solution to a bad marriage is to work to turn it around, not to abandon your family. Why is he abandoning his family?

An affair?

Thank you for replying, MelodyLane.

We don't believe it's an affair, but of course we don't know. He just "isn't happy", that's what he said, and nothing his wife does pleases him at this point. He turned 40, so there could be a bit of midlife crisis there, but it's hard to know.

He's the type who never talks about what's bothering him, and he holds grudges. His stated reason for wanting out of the marriage is that his wife's brother lived with them for ten years, and he "can't" forgive his wife for not getting rid of her brother a lot earlier.

This may or may not be the true reason. At one point, several months ago, a woman friend from the past had been contacting him on Facebook. Whether or not there's anything going on with this woman, or another, we don't know.

He was on the verge of leaving once several months ago, and his wife talked him into staying, and they were trying to work things out, and we thought it had blown over, but it hadn't.

Now his wife says "she's done". She gave it her best to save the marriage, but according to him, it wasn't enough.

His wife is really stressed out, trying to maintain this facade of "normal". She's even going so far as to travel to her in-laws for a Christmas gathering. Everyone, including her son, knows that her husband will be leaving, so this isn't fooling anybody, and it's not helping anybody.

The tension this has caused in our own home is not good.

one half, I would wager that there is an affair in the works, which is why "nothing worked." Nothing will work if there is an affair that has been unearthed. Your DIL should come here if she wants to save this marriage. And it can be saved. The way to save it is to unearth the affair, kill it and then fix the marriage problem. Many people here have saved their marriages using these tactics.

If she wants to turn this around, we can help her. We can walk her through a strategic plan to save her marriage. No guarantees, but there is certainly hope with these methods.

On MB, I would venture to say that MLC is an "invention" - a construct made up to excuse irresponsible and wayward behavior.

When I hit the time frame for a MLC, I was dreadfully irresponsible, selfish and inconsiderate. I drank too much and cared about others too little. It was then that I began to straighten out my act.

"Good" people don't go wayward because they're having a "crisis of faith" in being good. And that's what a lot of people seem to categorize a MLC. Sorry, I don't buy it.

MelodyLane has an uncanny "radar" for these sorts of things. I'd pay attention to her if I were you...

Thanks, Fred! And I agree about the "MLC." It is really a meaningless term that is strangely only applied to those around 35-45 even though we see the same behaviors from 20 year olds and 60 year olds. It makes difference what we call it, the remedy is the same.

I do agree that midlife crisis is a catchall term used to excuse behavior.

I'm not sure if my dh's daughter would come here or not, but I'll mention it to him. I know the advice here has helped me with a couple of sticky situations before.

Thanks for the suggestion!

I'm trying to figure out now whether or not to try to get them all over here for Christmas Eve now that it was cancelled, or just let it be, even though that would be very disappointing for my dh, as it's the only chance to get together with his family at Christmas.

My .02: If this man has already decided to walk out on his family, he has no business showing up on Christmas (or any other time) simply to enjoy the benefits of having a family while fully intending to abandon them once the fun part is over.

It sends a terrible message to kids - it tells them that family does not have to be a full-time committment and part-time should be good enough - and it reduces the remaining family to pets who are used for the WS's amusement whenever he/she might feel like seeing them.

He should be outta there now, since that's what he wants, and the rest of you celebrate the holiday without him.

And I agree that there is a 99.999 percent chance that he's got somebody else and that's why he's leaving. Nobody leaves their family unless they've got somebody else lined up and/or they are a hardcore addict for some substance or behaviour.