Yeah, Tomi as I re-read this whole thread, it's reminding me a lot of my situation with my parents. I'm doing to them what David is doing to you. I told them that I wasn't flying out for either holiday this year, but that we could pick a different weekend and I'd come out then (I don't want to fly on holidays anymore). I'm sure they're feeling the same way you do. Part of the reason I dread the conversations now is because I feel PRESSURED. Like it's never enough with them. I have to worry about their feelings so much that I either live with tons of guilt or else flush my own feelings down the drain. They don't like my husband so they are snippy and rude to him, yet they still expect -- not want -- EXPECT us to bow to them for each holiday because of the tradition of spending it one's elders. I've spent hundreds at our T's trying to reconcile what we should do. If we go, we're miserable because we get a guilt trip for not going more often, and don't enjoy ourselves because a) we were pressured into going, and b) my parents' feelings toward my husband are thinly disguised. After all of the pressure, by the time we actually get there, there is resentment on all sides.

Could that be what's going on with David? You said that you're tenacious -- maybe that translates into 'pressuring' for him.

Would you be more likely to go cheerfully to a relatives' house (forget for a moment that he's your son) if you were pressured, or just invited?