^
Ester Villar's book is actually pretty good, a good starter. But it's far from complete and pretty old (not to say dated). There are just much better books and other resources (some on youtube) out there.
And I did not say that women cannot or will not give very valuable input to the matter. It is just that most women, even if they mean well, will only add the the existing confusion.

Anyway, just my 2c

The OP should really be rewritten to include the ridiculous amount of relevant material missing.

.

Probably felt guilty for not taking her daughter on the trip or on the trip, thought to herself how much she'd enjoy a trip with her daughter there.

However she decides to pay for it, prudent or not, is her decision.

I understand being butt hurt OP, I might too, but ultimately if she's willing to take on the debt for this trip you should probably try to put your feelings aside.

Counseling? You just break up.

Most likely explanation is she wants one last special time as just the two of them before you are officially married. And since Paris is her "special place" she thinks it makes sense to do it there. But it seems kind of selfish and like she's not really thinking of her daughter's actual experience. Most eight year olds would have a way better christmas at home with normal traditions, presents, food, etc.

It's just a bad plan all around. And it makes sense you would be hurt on some level. Best thing to do would be a compromise where they go on a mother/daughter trip to a more sensible location from 12/26-1/2. But that will depend entirely on how rational and open to compromise she is.

Terrible read. No surprise

it's not about feeling jealous, it's about feeling left out of your own family on Christmas.

I can't even imagine how badly M would respond with the situation in reverse lol.

I hope we get an update on this one.

Don't take every piece of advice here as absolute truth! Not even from me.

But may be it is not good idea to tie your sense of the family in so tight way to spending a certain day of the year together.

Anyway GL

Yeah, that was the name of the ripoff palace. Around $1700/day. She booked it when I was out of town and texted, "Found a nice room overlooking the park" lmao.

To be fair to the OP, it is not unreasonable to want to spend Christmas with your fiancé and child.

That is hilarious.

How was the room?

I'm guessing it was nice, but not as nice as the private entrance directly into Disney California Adventure that LOL apparently paid ~$1,200/day for.

A+ thread. OP slowly drip feeding pertinent information is elite posting.

Paris at Christmas sounds like a horrible and horribly expensive plan imho.

So we talked yesterday. It was just a normal conversation, not heated or anything. I suggested Disney World or something closer by for just the two of them. She said she had always wanted to do Christmas abroad and wants to do it a mommy daughter trip. She's pretty inflexible about it.

She also is being completely unrealistic about the money. I think she way underestimates how much the trip is going to cost. She thinks she'll have the trip paid off by the end of January. I'm assuming the trip will cost $4,000-$5,000 (probably the top of that). She has a $1,000 in the bank right now. She might be able to pay off half that, best case scenario. I cautioned her about cc debt and how awful it is. It turns out her card is a 24% apr. I think she thinks I'm being overly dire in order to talk her out of the trip.

Also, it turns out that she was simply announcing the trip to me, it seems. She told me that she had already got those dates cleared with her boss b/c she was taking this trip. Her job is such that someone from the office is always on call 24/7. She cleared those dates before she had mentioned the specifics of the trip to me. She had vaguely mentioned a mommy daughter trip over Christmas, but I imagined that to be a weekend trip over the break, not 8 days to Europe including Christmas Day.

I'm just at a loss. I've been up most of the night thinking everything over. I just don't see why she's so hell bent on this. It's financially horrible. And why are you wanting to drag an 8yo around Paris in middle of the winter? I wonder what they're going to do Christmas day. I assume everything will be shut down. Are they going to spend the day in a hotel room? And ffs, we were just there.

I just don't get it, and it's making me rethink the relationship.

I wasn't trying to hide anything. I was just trying to keep it to the essential point as much as possible and keep the OP from being too long.

No. Why do you ask?

OP I'm sure this is causing anxiety, sorry man, ****ty situation ... the thing which jumped out at me was the lack of communication, not necessarily the holidays part. But reading your update, none of it really makes sense (not just the non communication part). ...

You got more information from her, but did you tell her how you're feeling? Is she the sort of person who would know what to do with that information? ... Like, if you explain that you're hurt by all this and you want to understand and for future reference, hey holidays are important to you ... is that a good conversation?

Yes. I let her know how I was feeling and that it hurt my feelings. I told her that I had always thought of us as a family and I can't imagine not spending Christmas together as we had for the previous three Christmases.

Generally she would respond well to this kind of conversation. I'm really not sure how she responded to this one. I think she thinks I'm being unreasonable or selfish. Maybe I am. I really am at a loss about this whole thing. I just can't make sense of any of it. Other that it certainly seems to be massive numbers of red flags. Honestly, if it weren't for the little girl, I think I would lean overwhelmingly to abandoning ship. But she really is like a daughter to me now, and I can't imagine my life without her.

Possibly watch her mom bang another guy?

Yeah, I'm thinking there's someone else and the way she's going about things would be a deal breaker for me.

Sorry you're going through this OP, but if I were you I'd GTFO.

Not sure why everyone is hating on Paris for Christmas, but I’ve never been there. When I was living in Berlin, which is cold & wet in the winter and miserable IMO, all the larger Christmas markets where flooded with tourists who seemed to enjoy being there.

“Christmas markets” is the #2 reason behind Oktoberfest for friends in the US to travel to Germany and I know France has pretty cool ones, too. I’ve been to the big one in Strasbourg countless times and think it’s better than most of the famous German ones and magnitudes above the tourist traps in Berlin.

FWIW, when it comes to that credit debt situation, I’ve been in a similar situation with my not so financially responsible wife and decided the best way was to suck it up and pay off that debt. Otherwise, it’s not only costing your family money but also creates a ton of other problems that might lead to fights and general unhappiness. Tell her after the trip that those 24% interest are bothering you and that you are paying it off now and she can repay you later when she has the money. The latter one obviously won’t happen, but that’s the price of being married I guess. The ship to keep your finances separated left the port when you bought a house together.

Yeah I googled Christmas in Paris and it looked like there is a ton a fun stuff to do with a kid that you couldn't do there any other time of year. I mean, I wouldn't want to do any of it, but if I were 8 it sounds like a lot more fun than sightseeing in Paris in August.

You know what you need to do.