Q: Every year my wife and I take our children over to her father’s house on Boxing Day to open presents and contribute our part to the family potluck supper. It should be a great day, but it isn’t.
Her dad always gets drunk and somewhere along the way he starts to get belligerent.
I normally respect my wife’s father. He has worked hard to build his farm, sometimes through lean years, and when he is sober I can learn a lot from him. But I hate being around him when he is drunk, and now that we have children I find him even more
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offensive. I do not want to go there this Boxing Day, but my wife says that we have to go, that we can put up with his drinking for one day out of the year. What do you think?
A: I think that you and your wife are caught up in family politics and that is unfortunate. I suspect that neither of you would knowingly take your children to any kind of an event where the main players were drunk and belligerent, but because it is Christmas, and because it is her family, you have been willing to do so in the past, and she wants to continue doing so now. I wonder sometimes why it is that we put up with things at Christmas that we would not tolerate any other time of the year?
You have a number of options. The first, and probably the most difficult, is that you can talk to your wife’s father and let him know your concern. You have every right to let him know that you do not appreciate his behaviour when your children are there, and that you do not intend to go over to his house on Boxing Day if he is planning to drink.
Your second option is to plan to attend the celebration, but leave early, before her dad gets too drunk or too belligerent. You have probably been there enough to know the signals when he is starting to get intoxicated.
Your third option is more of what you cannot do. Neither you nor your wife must ever think that you can step in and settle her father down once he is intoxicated.
Talking to your father-in-law when he is drunk will simply make a bad situation worse. But neither should you talk about him behind his back to other members of the family. He will likely hear the rumours and that will worsen the problem.
Here is your reality: your wife’s father is not going to change his behaviour on Boxing Day as long as you quietly go along with it and head over to his house every year. But if you don’t go or if you leave early, and others do the same, he may start to get the message that his drinking is a problem.
Your job is not to change your wife’s father. Your job is to protect your children’s Christmases so that they can remember them as happy and joyous.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan who has taught social work at two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.com.
