Am I being a bit petty over a Christmas photo?

[Anonymous]

Not sure if I'm being petty over taking a Christmas photo or not and wanted people's opinions...

I've travelled over with my partner to spend Christmas with her family for a few weeks. I got here and it's a few days till Christmas now. We took a drive, my girlfriend, her sister and brother to a Christmas market took 4 hours to drive.

We haven't really taken any couple pictures together for Christmas or in a short while. We went to a place with a lot of lights, displays, ferris wheel etc. and thought it would be nice to take some pictures.

My girlfriend ended up half way as I said about taking a picture together saying come here quick take a picture of me, my sister and my brother. So I did, after that she just dismissed and ignored about us taking a picture together. When I asked her about it she said its fine, we can just take a picture another time and told me to stop being upset.

I mean new place, once a year Christmas market we won't go back to... she was all up for getting a picture with her siblings but not with me. It's mostly pictures of the market and pictures of her and her siblings... its almost like I'm not even there. I was kind of upset on the 4 hour drive back.

Am I reasonable to be upset? Just wanted a nice couple photo in a place that we won't go to again

[SteveSmith1985]

Well, at first I was inclining towards thinking you were perhaps being 'petty'. That changed, once I got to the part about you feeling like 'it's almost like you're not even there'. This was a bit of a window into just why you're finding this upsetting.

Until I got to that part, I didn't understand what exactly it was that was upsetting you so much. It seemed like a relatively petty matter of "why pictures with her siblings but not me'. And that did seem sorta petty. Or at least an overreaction. But the way it looked to me...(where I thought you were coming from) was not really actually where you're really coming from.

In othre words, I thought I could see why you were upset and thought it was dumb. Until I realized I was wrong about why exactly you were upset. Once I understood (or was given a small glimpse) of where you were ACTUALLY coming from... your reaction became much more understandable and valid.

I suspect the same thing is going on with her. She THINKS she gets why you're upset. But she doesn't actually. If you can help her to understand that, then I think she will be much more understanding of how you're reacting to this situation. 🙂

[Guy13]

Did you guys have sex afterwards? She has known them lot longer than you. I would be troubled not upset as that is an obvious "don't make it public or more public" move.