Two sons one is 27 the other 24 both single , both come every Christmas for three days and never come at any other time of year, Son1 lives 120 miles away and Son2 lives 50 miles away.
I dread Christmas because Son1 takes over and has always been a bit of a bully and quite nasty at times to all of us,
Thing is I am carer to bedridden daughter who has m.e and another daughter who is autistic /learning disabled and me and husband are exhausted looking after them 24/7.
This year the sons excelled themselves, As usual they took a sofa each and then spent the evening with PS2 games plugged into the only TV in our living room, Myself and husband retired to our bedroom where we have a computer and watched BBC on iplayer there, We had our coffee and biscuits there.
The sons never offer to help with dishes or clearing up and leave cups and glasses everywhere, eat in front of the tv and generally make a mess, They act like they are still teenagers in fact.
So I decided I had to say something to son1 as he is the worst offender. I said that I was going to not do Christmas anymore and that I was going to volunteer for a charity next year, Well, he immediately took offence and moaned about how he had spent £56 on a train ticket to come here and if I dont want to see him just say so. I said to him why not come up to visit in the summer or any other time except Christmas? So he calmed down a bit. I know he has friends he can stay with , but son2 has none and gets lonely,
I am totally exhausted, I am 61 and have a sliding hiatus hernia and was so stressed that after putting out the meal on Christmas Day I took a few bites and then had a hernia attack and had to slip outside to recover, Nobody noticed except husband who came out to comfort me as it is a horrible painful experience, My husband is 68 and not in the best of health either, He had a brain injury in 2010 (encephalitis) and gets tired very easily and memory is affected, So we both care for daughter who has severe m.e. plus another daughter who has learning difficulty/autism.
I feel guilty and bad about saying I have had enough of Christmas to the two sons but I dont know what to do,
Am I being unreasonable to expect them to help ? They seem totally unaware of the stress we are under,
