AIBU to feel upset about this.

Spicysirracha
I agree with you. I have a straight talking friend. Her advice/ input has been valuable. Being open to honest input is part of the reason to post on MN.
And yes, I don't give a flying fig about my birthday. It's just another day

Spicysirracha
I agree with you. I have a straight talking friend. Her advice/ input has been valuable. Being open to honest input is part of the reason to post on MN.
And yes, I don't give a flying fig about my birthday. It's just another day

Depends what he is like overall.
supportive, loving, present dad, rock in a crisis etc etc I’d be supremely unbothered )that’s basically my OH- brilliant bloke overall but shit at birthdays or surprises)

if it’s an indication of a wider CBA attitude, then yes, I’d find it an issue

As @maria2bela1 hasnt been back to update on her husband failing to deliver… looks like he did good in the end.

Just say 'I would love a cake, you can buy one from Tesco' , ''Please book a table at Wetherspoons ', 'I would love a book token'. Insert your own preferences, I am very low maintenance!

Yep. Use your words! He's not going to plan things as you'd like, so when he asks you what you want, tell him!

So you say yes to a cake and tell him type resturant you would like and what present line you would like.
Hopefully he will be more on the ball next yr

He's not a mind reader, if he's never planned a birthday for op before how would he know?

I don't think anyone is being unreasonable here. It's just that birthdays matter a lot to op and not at all to her husband. People who don't care about birthdays (I know, because I'm one of them) aren't attuned to the expectations of people who do, so it's fair enough to ask.

No, apparently last time he did nothing at all. This time he’s asking about a cake and dinner. The OP is cross he hasn’t started planning earlier.

Nice, really helpful response to the OP. Bet you feel really good about yourself for being so supportive. I’d love to be your friend, you sound fabulous.

It sounds like he is planning your birthday. Give it chance. You should try and appreciate effort he makes in his own way rather than want a carbon copy of what you do for his birthday. A lot of people hate surprises and would like to have a say in what cake they have and where they eat.

Agreed. We went to one of the family friendly restaurants we often choose last week to celebrate the end of SATS. My son chose where he wanted to go and we didn't even book. Plenty of tables.

Of course it's going to be very different if @maria2bela1 hasn't specified a small restaurant that isn't really child friendly and is expecting her husband to have booked the table and sorted childcare.
Which is again why she needs to be more specific about what she wants e.g. a couples only meal and a night off being with the kids or a family meal, even inviting others.

If as you say he's never planned for a birthday he probably feels that 2 days is going to be perfectly adequate.

Two days is perfectly adequate, unless you're planning an actual party with invited guests. If the plan is to have a birthday cake and presents at home with the kids and go out for a nice meal somewhere, it doesn't need planning months in advance.

He is a grown man. She says she’d like a nice birthday. He isn’t planning anything. He’s asking her to tell him what to do.

Why should she have to be specific? Presumably he’s not an idiot. Presumably he knows his wife somewhat. “Would you like a cake?” Wtf do you think, mate?

Bring her breakfast in bed. Get the kids to help decorate a store bought cake and present it to her with a home made card. Sing happy birthday. Book a table at a restaurant. It’s not hard.

The lengths people go to to paint some posters as unreasonable when they are clearly not shouldn’t surprise me anymore, but it does!

So you are in the same positiin as last year.
You have had a year to work on your expectations, just plan your own day.

No, he hasn't repeated the same behaviour.

Previously, the OP was a martyr and told him she didn't want anything, and apparently expected him to realise that when she said 'I don't want anything' what she meant was 'I definitely do want something'.

Now, she has told him that she does want to do something, so he is making arrangements to do something that she wants/likes.

You enjoy planning for the birthdays of others. He doesn’t. He’s not you. The more you pile the pressure on the more miserable it’ll all be. As a pp said just go with the flow. We can’t control other adults however much we try

2 days is plenty to organise something. He's checking in with you to make sure these are the things you want and not get it wrong. It's good he remembered and checking with you and planning.

He's literally asking you what you would like! You can't blame him for wanting to make sure you do/have the things you like.

Before, you kept telling you didn't want anything and then got upset when he believed you. Now, you've told him you were actually just pretending all those times when you brushed it off, and that you actually do want to do something, so I can see why he would be asking you what you wanted rather than trying to guess. He doesn't want to risk planning something that you won't like, given that previously you haven't actually communicated with him about it.

Honestly, I'm not one of those Mumsnetters who thinks birthdays are only for children, but I do think you're being a bit precious now. Not everything needs to be planned like a military operation. It's fine to simply do something nice without it being arranged six months in advance under a cloak of secrecy. I realise you say you do that for other people but... that's your choice. There's a good chance your husband would be equally happy on his birthday if you just asked him where he fancied going out for dinner.

Everyone is different, having got it wrong before it may be that he wants to check in that he is on the right track. Personally I would hate to have someone plan my birthday with no input from me, its my day so I prefer to choose where I eat and what I do so I like to make suggestions but let the other person execute. That way I cant be disappointed if they pick something that im not mad keen on. On the other hand I would also hate to plan someone else's birthday with no input from them, im not great at picking up on hints (ND) so it would feel like i was being set up to fail.

Whats the issue here though? Is it you want him.to plan and choose with no input or is it that you just want there to be a plan but you are happy to steer it to make sure it aligns with how you want to celebrate. You may need to clarify which it is, but if it's the forner then theres a chance it wont be exactly what you had in mind.

Maybe she doesn't want a cake? Maybe she doesn't want to go for dinner? It's my birthday soon DH said would you like to go out for dinner I said no but I would like to get away for a few days, he said fine any preferences? I said I've really been wanting to go to x for a while. I know we're going because he told me to book a couple of days leave, but he's arranged the details, I think that's fine