Am I Being Unreasonable? Friend Upset I Won't Go Away for Her Birthday

On the financial side that I think we know when a friend has a milestone event; a 50th or a hen or something, they don’t tend to just spring it on us with only a weeks notice and no chance to save. when people don’t make an effort at all, and they’ve had plenty of advance notice then it just says to me ‘I don’t care enough about you to have saved a little bit and do something important for you.

If you’re on the breadline I’d be happy with a very cheap card and I’d understand that you’re not choosing to not bother for me, you absolutely can’t afford it. I would hate to think I had put my friend in an uncomfortable situation by asking them to do something totally out of a realistic budget and wouldn’t propose doing anything costly.

The bananas lady who won’t ever divert a tiny amount of money from her ‘fun funds’ for her kids is just odd. Good luck teaching them money management! It’s right your kids should be your priority, absolutely, but you’re a person with a wider life and not absolutely everything has to be about your kids all the time.

I agree shit fit doesn’t fit with the reaction of friend, described by OP, but the friends response wasn’t neutral, it was negative and lacked any empathy

I don't know why the money issue is being discussed. Nowhere in the op does she say it's a factor

I'm personally not a fan of telling other people how they should budget their money. If I was broke then being given extra time to save wouldn't help.

Presumably this wasn’t a last minute arrangement so if someone agrees to go, they can budget in advance accordingly.

It doesn’t say in the OP that she can’t afford it.

I went for a night away last month. It was £70 for a nice double room above a pub in a seaside town. Not loads of alcohol, a pizza meal, a croissant for breakfast by the sea. Less than £200. But again, if the op had said I can't afford it, you'd have a valid point but on this particular instance it hasn't been mentioned as a factor.

How is a weekend away not going to be hundreds of pounds? Are they going camping? Seems unlikely.

But we don't know that. The OP hasn't said. It may be the case and maybe be relevant in another scenario but that's just speculation.

Even with the best intentions, weekends away aren’t cheap, and I can totally see why those funds could be better allocated. Realistically, it’s going to be hundreds of pounds, and that could potentially be a couple of months disposable income.

Yes.

My mum had friends outside the family, my dad only has one or two & they don’t live especially near him, so it’s mainly phone chats. None of us live that close though we visit him as often as we can. He doesn’t want to get involved with local social groups because he’s shy & he doesn’t want to move.

Mum would have coped far better by herself.

At 17 months old your child is more than capable of surviving a night without Mum. I have a job which involves nights away so my kids got used to it from 10 months old and survived quite happily. I think it’s good for kids to have that little bit of ‘independence’ from Mum from an early age, it helps with school transitions etc. But you say it’s also partly because you are exhausted, is it going to be a ‘wild’ one? In which case I understand why you don’t want to go. However if it’s a relaxing time with girlie friends you might actually benefit from the rest?

I think people also massively underestimate how easy it is to pick up a social life from nothing. It's really hard these days even for people that are quite socially adept.

Exactly that about carrying the weight of lonely parents in later life.
I think a lot of people don't consider this.

Quite! Utterly delusional, the poster is responding in a weirdly repetitive way about a scenario that hasn’t been described in the OP. More and more on MN I see posters using hyperbole and personal insults to attempt to win points on the internet. Sad.

Nobody has thrown a "shit fit", nobody is acting like an "entitled lunatic ". What the fuck is wrong with you/your reading skills? Why do you keep on repeating this over and over again?

So you never arrange to meet with another adult you isn’t related to you? Even for lunch, a walk of a coffee?

I don’t know any adult who doesn’t socialise outside of their family circle, I’ve never met one.

Your comment about not needing a friend since the age of 7 is a very unusual way of thinking.

Yes, some parents make bad choices, you can give tons of energy to your kids and still have friends.

There were stages of my life when I was more than happy for my parents to run around after me (teens/early 20s), then my dad died and my mum is now very lonely. And I carry the weight of that.

I mean… if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

So yep, OP it''s obviously totally normal and fine to say no thanks to a weekend away for a birthday.

Your friend should have been happy with dinner or lunch, like a normal person.

I don't have time to keep swatting all the over entitled crackpots on this thread - so just imagine I kept repeating this every time you tried and failed to score a point when repetitively responding to me😂

People can and do go away for weekends for their birthdays - including me - but only over entitled lunatics think saying No to that is any kind of problem.

Probably best to distance yourself from her, her over entitled lunacy likely won't improve over time.

Okay I see that you’ve descended into full blown delusion at this point. You obviously have some mental challenges. No one has t thrown a fit or seems ‘raging mad’ here except you.

Nah 🤣

How old are your kids? Congratulations on showing us all how to be the best parents by the way

Stop saying "nah"..it makes you look a bit dim 🙄

Nah. You're obviously projecting and now that you have been called out as an over entitled lunatic are raging mad 😅😂😆

Weekends a way,even without alcohol costs quite a bit these days- considering the costs of meals out, travel, hotel etc. UK stay for a week is about 2000 these days, even a few days will cost a few hundred with everything added up. My husband and I are on the same page, we both have people we talk to when we run into them/message but we are not extending ourselves to the point where we stay away from the family or use any of the fun funds for purely for ourselves, our older children have thanked us for being the way we are as they see from their friends the different types of parents and the choices some parents make.

Nah. Normal people don’t refer to themselves as normal this much I’m afraid, and are capable of starting a sentence without saying ‘nah’ repeatedly 🤣

Nah. It's just abnormal to be an over entitled lunatic who throws a shit fit when someone says no thanks, and doesn't just accept dinner or lunch instead. Like a normal person.