AITAH for being upset that my girlfriend won’t spend Christmas with my family after I spent it with hers?
My girlfriend (25F) and I (26M) have been together for almost five years. Our relationship has generally been good, although we’ve had a rougher patch lately with a few unrelated arguments.
After Christmas 2024, we decided we were tired of always spending the winter holidays apart. We agreed that starting with Christmas 2025, we would spend them together and alternate between our families.
Her family had already booked a large loft at a ski resort for Christmas 2025, so we spent the holidays with them. This meant I gave up spending Christmas with my own family, who were traveling around Asia and visiting my sister, who was studying there at the time. I was disappointed to miss that trip, but I was okay with it because we'd made this agreement and I expected us to alternate going forward.
A few months ago, my family started discussing plans for Christmas 2026. We have extended family living on another continent, and my girlfriend was included in these conversations. Whenever the destination came up, she basically said, "You guys decide and I'll adapt."
Eventually, my family decided to spend Christmas with our extended family. Some relatives are getting older, and there's a possibility this could be one family member's last Christmas with everyone. The downside is that getting there requires a 13+ hour flight.
When I told my girlfriend we needed to start figuring out dates and booking flights, she suddenly said she wasn't sure she could come. She'll have exams shortly after we return and said she would have to spend most of the trip studying anyway, so she didn't see the point in traveling that far just to study.
I tried suggesting that she could study more before we left, or that we could plan the trip so she'd have dedicated study time while still being able to participate in family activities. She was completely against it and didn't really suggest any compromise or alternative.
A few days later, I brought it up again and told her I felt betrayed. From my perspective, we'd made an agreement, I'd already followed through on my side by giving up Christmas with my family last year, and now that it was my family's turn, she was backing out.
Eventually, we agreed that we'd put the alternating arrangement on hold and restart it at Christmas 2027, when she'll be finished with her studies. It wasn't the outcome I wanted, but I accepted it because I understood that exams were important.
Then yesterday, she mentioned that her family had started planning their Christmas trip and casually said she'd like them to go to Norway.
That really bothered me.
Norway would admittedly be a much shorter and easier flight than the trip my family is planning. But I don't understand why her exams apparently make traveling with my family unreasonable, while she's open to traveling somewhere with her own family during the same holiday period.
There's also another part of this that bothers me. When we originally agreed to alternate holidays, I told my family pretty quickly. They accepted that I wouldn't always spend Christmas with them. My girlfriend, however, still hasn't told her family about our agreement. Her parents have always been fairly controlling of her and her siblings, and she's worried about how they'll react.
Because of that, I'm starting to wonder whether the exams are really the whole reason she doesn't want to come, or whether it's easier for her to disappoint me than to tell her parents she won't be spending Christmas with them.
At the same time, I understand that a 13+ hour flight before exams is very different from a short trip to Norway, and I don't want to act like she's obligated to sacrifice her studies just because I spent last Christmas with her family.
So, AITAH for expecting her to come with my family because we agreed to alternate Christmases? And AITAH for being angry that, after saying she couldn't travel with us because of her exams, she's now talking about traveling to Norway with her family instead?