Sometimes, celebrating the holidays can get awkward.
In a post on Reddit’s popular AITA forum, a 36-year-old woman said she had found herself in the middle of some unexpected Christmas drama between her husband, his ex-wife and the pair’s daughter.
The woman wrote that her husband Jake, 47, shares a daughter with his ex-wife Susan, and that the had had separated by the time their daughter was 1.
“They don’t have a ‘friendly’ relationship,” the woman wrote, but she added that “they’re cordial” for the sake of their daughter Jenna.
“Despite this, they both agreed that they never wanted their daughter to have to choose between them for the big holidays and so they’ve been spending every Thanksgiving and Christmas together for the last 19 years, with me joining the last 4,” the woman added.
The woman said that during the holidays, there hasn’t been any big issues but that it’s still “very awkward and feels like something everyone is just trying to get through.”
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Now that Jenna is in college, the woman said she assumed the tradition might end, but instead her husband has insisted on keeping things “normal.”
“I’m pretty close with Jenna and last year, after we left Susan’s on Christmas Day, Jenna texted me joking about how dull the evening was and then said she didn’t know why they were still keeping this up,” the Redditor wrote. “And I was like PLEASE tell your dad because he’s going to insist on it for your sake until you do.”
Since Jenna spent Thanksgiving with friends this year, the woman wrote that the topic only came up recently.
“We were texting last month while she was starting to make plans to come home for Christmas and brought up how she wasn’t looking forward to ‘another Christmas’ and I encouraged her again to tell her dad,” the woman wrote.
The result of that conversation? Everybody agreed that Jenna would spend Christmas Eve with one parent and Christmas with the other.
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The problem came when the woman said that Jenna “mentioned” that her stepmother was the one who “encouraged” her to have that conversation. “Now Susan has decided that I ‘manipulated’ Jenna to get what I want…and is blowing up Jake’s phone,” the woman wrote.
“This is the most they’ve spoken in years and Jake is not quite, but almost agreeing with her.. which makes me feel like I’m going crazy,” the woman added, sharing that she needs “some outside opinions.”
Users in the comments widely agreed that the woman did nothing wrong.
“Jenna made it clear that she wasn’t enjoying this and she herself came up with the solution. You just supported her,” one comment read. “It sounds like this went on too long for anyone to be comfortable and like you’ve all missed out on festive holidays as a result.”
Some noted that both the parents and the holiday tradition sounded “tiring,” while others suggested that while Jenna likely didn’t mean to hurt the Redditor, but she might have been looking for a way to feel like she wasn’t letting her parents down.
“Maybe it was easiest for Jenna to put it this way,” read the comment. “Kids of divorce often feel pulled in the middle between their parents and maybe she saw this as an out.”
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