Waiting for someone to propose to you only passes the "Really, it's tradition!" sniff test when both of you think it's the man's job to propose and both of you think that's awesome.

Plan your own vacations when you want to, and plan a suitable combined vacation with this other family when you want to. If they freak out at your planning your own vacations as you see fit, then let them. Bowing to unreasonable demands because someone will make you pay emotionally if you don't is not a healthy option.

Your job is to be you, which includes being the chief beneficiary of all things you do right, the chief victim of all you do wrong, and the one person on Earth who has to live with every choice you make. As gatekeeper to your life, you’re it.

You can't make people like you under the best of circumstances, and you certainly can't make them like you while you're actively badgering them on what you perceive to be their failures of conscience.

The most reliable ways to make oneself miserable are attempting to change people and not attempting to change circumstances.

You don't want someone who can't tell the difference between having a different opinion and dismissing your opinion.

If the guests want to wrest the check away from the host, because the host is also the guest of honor, then the guest who volunteers has to cover the whole thing. A guest can't volunteer -all- of the guests to pay for the host/honoree.