Carolyn Hax: Fiancé won’t discuss deviating from Mom’s holiday plans

Q: Although my fiancé is an only child, he is part of a large, extended family. This family has traditions for everything — Easter, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Fourth of July, Super Bowl — down to which plates can be used, how the table can be set, the food allowed, etc.

As an only child, he feels immense pressure to please his mom and do all the things. I’ve initiated conversations about how we’ll spend holidays once we’re married or have kids — establishing some of our own traditions. My fiancé just looks like a deer in headlights, horrified at the prospect of upsetting the applecart.

I genuinely like his family, but I like my parents and siblings, too. I want us to find a way to celebrate with both sides — not all at once, obviously. But, oh, I should add that his mother doesn’t believe in unmarried couples spending holidays with his side, so we’ve had no holiday tryouts yet.

Fiancé says we’ll figure it out once the time comes, but we are getting married in September, and, uh, Thanksgiving comes pretty quick after that.

Am I right to be concerned, or am I blowing this up?

— Weighted Down

A: Advice columns already sit on the fine line between constructive criticism and meddling for blood sport, so I’m mindful that I can’t feel your feelings for you.

But I can’t be the only one reading this whose boundaries are stretched to squealing.

Maybe this will pass for hands-off phrasing: Is it possible you aren’t plotting anywhere near seriously enough to blow up the USS Sweet Mother Control Freak Applecart?

Meaning, you say to your fiancé, “If we’re postponing tough conversations about the Super Bowl, then we’re so not ready for marriage.”

Meaning: *Save yourself.* While you can.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s lovely that an only child is careful not to strand his mother when he marries.

I hope you fold both your families into your new one, even “all at once”! Why not.

But he hasn’t faced the IDEA of his difficult emotional work ahead, much less started on it. There’s the work to dismantle his terror of upsetting his mother; of shifting his loyalties from parents to partner — without feeling guilt-stricken, or resentful of you for “making” him; of updating his relationship with Mama.

His modeling warm, rational, unflinching limits NOW (i.e., before you were even engaged) is their best chance to stay close.

None of which he’s even acknowledged needs doing. By September.

That is what I’m flapping my verbal arms about.

Since when is what his mom “doesn’t believe in” binding on you two? “Mom,” he says gently. “If my *future spouse* doesn’t belong at our family *St. Paddy’s Day,* then I don’t, either.” Sample script for putting a hard stop to territorial emotional cluckery.

Forget that holidays come “pretty quick,” it’s that they keep coming. Like challenges do.

Your issue is only about holidays now. But it’s one crisis away from becoming about his priorities, his loyalties, his soul — because the foundation of the problem is his inability to form his own beliefs and stand up for them against the emotional pressure of others.

We all need to be able to do this. But he is showing you he can’t when the pressure comes from his mother.

And you’ve shown you can’t when the pressure comes from him.

Both of you want life partners who’ve learned better stress responses than parking your applecart in oncoming traffic.

Insist on it, with a brave, loving refusal to marry “[blank stare]” for an answer.

• Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.

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