Would you find this strange, birthday related

[DumpedByText]

I have a twin brother, we celebrated a milestone birthday and my SIL arranged a gathering for my brother at their house.

I was invited and given a time to arrive. When I arrived everyone was already there and they'd eaten a Dominoes delivery, so had clearly been there sometime. I was told to help myself to the leftovers.

She'd had a cake made with his name on it etc, everyone sang happy birthday to him and I stood there feeling awkward and embarrassed bearing in mind were twins!

As kids we always celebrated together joint cake, joint party etc. I know the party was for him, but the singing happy birthday thing was so awkward.

Is this strange or am I being a princess! 😂

Just bizzare of course you should be included

I'm surprised by the responses as usually on mumsnet there's a huge thing about twins being treated separately!!

That's said I think it's is really weird!!!

A bit weird that you weren't included in the food if that was planned. Depends though on the time I suppose. Maybe she assumed you would have wanted to have your own birthday lunch so only planned dominos for them and friends. Clumsy timing though.

She's only married to one twin so I can see why she might have only wanted or felt necessary to plan one birthday but it doesn't show much goodwill on her ot his part not to include you in the singing at least. I wouldn't give this one much more thought if she's normally nice but I can understand why you felt hurt on the day. 💐

Maybe..... Your brother expressed an interest in having his own unshared celebration so SiL arranged it for him without including you.

I'm a twin.

If this happened to me, I'd definitely be hurt.

But, that said, I also find it hard that birthdays are always shared. There's nothing inherently wrong with the SIL having a birthday bash and cake just for her husband. However, I still think you should have been invited and it made clear it was just for him.

When we have a big birthday we each plan a separate event and the other comes but it's not their bash and have differing guest lists with some overlap.

I'm single so no one to organise anything for me

Please forget this idea, that somehow we all have to wait patiently for other people to organise birthday celebrations for us. Make a resolution that in future, you'll organise something for yourself, or for yourself and your twin . Make that phone call - ring him and say what are WE doing for OUR birthday, instead of drifting along with his wife's plans for him and expecting nothing for yourself ! And happy birthday by the way !

Op I think it's rude and weird.
Wouldn't have been hard to include you.

Admittedly I have two family members who share a birthday, grandparent & grandchild and I find it really awkward. Tried managing it in different ways, having a gathering for grandparent on actual birthday and child at the weekend. But sometimes we do end up with 2 cakes or sometimes grandparent gets a fancy cupcake 🧁 with a candle.

But she was invited so that clearly isn't the case.

But she was clearly invited as just another guest, rather than ‘the other person for whom the party was arranged’. That seems to have been the misunderstanding here.

The SIL (and presumably the OP’s twin, as it wasn’t a surprise party) thought the OP would be fine with just being an ordinary guest as they’d already had a joint party. She was expecting to be included as birthday celebrant, have happy birthday sung to her and have her name on the cake.

This doesn’t make sense as she was clearly invited but when she got there was basically fed leftovers. I would be upset about this if I was invited to an occasion

I also think she should have been acknowledged in the birthday celebrations - it was a milestone birthday. I think the SIL was thoughtless and inconsiderate.

My (extended) family have several people with birthdays a day or two apart and everyone gets acknowledged regardless of who’s birthday it is.