Aibu to not go to fil party

[crje]

Father in law is having big birthday , his two sons are organising a family meal ( 6 adults,in an expensive restaurant . The 2 sons will pay the bill.

Mil has now invited extended family ( 13 adults,in laws siblings & partners) . My husband won't say anything and says bill will still be spilt two ways. At probably £100 per head bill will be much more than we anticipated for now 19 People.

I'm so cross , money is tight .
My husband won't discuss it .

Do I have to go and watch my husbands family eat & drink my family holiday budget .

Your son had an 18th on Tesco vouchers and groupon, your kids will have no holiday this year and you feel sorry for this father who is going to spend £1000 on his dad's fucking birthday

I am so glad I am not like this! I couldnt live with myself.

^^ agree this will fester op. money worries are as crippling and as destructive as an illness. that's when you are both facing things as a team.

this is akin to you being broke and your dh getting a credit card and going in a spending spree without regard to you.

this could actually break your relationship op.

you have to respect and value your partner. he's not doing that to you is he? xx

What a shame how this has turned out. An expensive way to spend an unhappy time.
Neithert you or DH will enjoy the evening, knowing what upset it has caused.
The extra guests will be feeling uncomfortable all night not knowing who is picking up the bill.
Your best option (unfortunately) is to tackle this now.

the party is next week. it has been booked, the guests have been invited and the sons have agreed to pay for it.

it is drastic action to say at this point 'we can't afford it .'

can I remind you creje that this is just a party? it is not life saving treatment or urgent fund raiser to get treatment or extradition from foreign jail.

Its just a party that has got slightly out of hand and needs reigning in.

Its not a wedding I assume people are not flying in from Australia for this....

On the one side, fil can still have a wonderful birthday and party with some minor tweaked details, however if hte party goes ahead as is, its going to cause more ROT at the heart of ops marriage, resentment, who knows what will happen in the next few months, some emergency where they are desperate for that extra cash, and its in all their fils friends tummies...sorry the pocket of the restaurant, then there is the issues of future relations with op and her pils...

I hate these threads where the op seems to ask for help and support and yet just sounds resigned to a horrid fate and sounds hopeless and bogged down in a stupid situation.

sometimes op a good argument and rift is a very good thing, you both sound enslaved to your pils and now this time its going to cost you dear in more ways than one.

v frustrating

There are two subjects I never discuss with my DH, his mother and George Best

are you me?

I have lived through this one myself. DH has family members who are absolutely loaded. We went out for a birthday dinner once and they were ordering £300 bottles of wine, one ordered steak and lobster "surf and turf" and when it arrived declared it was too late to eat, so pushed it aside.

DH and I were setting up a business and saving to be married and were skint to our bones, so we had pasta, no main or desert and one drink each.

When it came to it it was announced " shall we split the bill? Yes?"

A few hundred pounds each for some ravioli and an appletizer . It cleared out our savings account and I was incandescently furious. It seems that this is par for the course as that branch of the family, whilst seriously lovely, don't know what they are worth and assume everyone is in the same position.

If I had known what we were to pay I would have filled my face with steak and chocolate.

DH embraced the macho face saving bullshit and refused to discuss it, so now we do not go to restaurants with that bit of his family. It is simply miles above our pay grade and I won't do it. Sad, but there it is.

Harsh Minnie.

Family dynamics are a minefield. It's fine to suggest OP opens the can and throws worms everywhere but only she knows if that is actually possible for her at this time.

Maybe she just wanted to here she is not being unreasonable from some random strangers as it will make her feel a bit better, while not actually choosing to pull the ripcord yet herself?

Hear. Not here.

this happened to me almost exactly ,although it was my MIL and there was no BIL to share the cost .It started off that we were taking her and FIL and another couple ,by the end of it ,we had a private room in a very posh restaurant, and a sit down meal for 20 plus choices of menu , she wouldn't agree to people choosing an advance .Our relationship was OK up to that point , but I realise reading this that this was the point at which my relationship with my MIL fell apart ,I have never felt the same since , quite frankly I can take her or leave her .

My dh should have stood up to her more , and he did over some things, but I think he wanted it to be a nice day for her and the constantly saying she couldn't have this or that was hard for him .I think it had a lasting effect on him too in that he has never offered anything similar since .

Littlegreyauditor - I've just got the rage reading your post! I cant believe you paid and didn't say anything. Though it is a situation where you have a quick argument with yourself in your head thinking 'can we afford this? Am I going to look like a tight miserable cow if I object to this' etc. It's a difficult situation to speak up in...

It completely blindsided me to be honest. It was the end of a meal and one of them was coming round collecting money and she just said "that's X hundred pounds for (DH and Little). Everyone was putting on coats and bustling about.

I don't think I hid my horror particularly well as PIL were mortified and tried to give us money. DH was furious too.

I am still reeling (7 years on) at the one who ordered steak and lobster at 7:45 and when it arrived said "I don't eat after 8pm" and pushed a seriously expensive dish, which looked fantastic, away to get cold.

I don't drink either, so I seriously resent paying for someone to drink wine at £50 a glass.

you know what sometimes I feel my dh is a bit tight but Jesus Christ I wouldn't swap his sensible finances for some of your partners.

in affording things my dh puts the kids first, me second, the cats next and himself last.

of course that's after the mortgage and bills.

this would break us op. I actually would refuse to go as I would probably cause a huge row.

Littlegrey ffs that's dreadful. seriously I would have told them to fuck off. good manners are overrated sometimes.

I would do now but this was literally the first time I had met various aunts, uncles, cousins etc and I didn't want to behave badly.

DH knows exactly what I thought though, and agrees with me. We avoid all similar occasions now as he knows I would be vocal (I have been in the past with his pain in the arse friend who sat with a calculator saying "little should pay more as she had dessert". The whole restaurant heard me inform him that I had eaten dessert to compensate for the quantity of rum he had poured down his throat and I would only pay for my eating problem, not his drinking one.)

I am a mouthy get normally, but it is difficult when it is you OHs family and you are not sure where you stand.

So I totally understand why OP doesn't want to start a huge feud over this. It will make her life much more uncomfortable so may not be worth it long term.

I will say though that the sort of piss taker who will put you in that position OP is relying on your good manners to help them get their own way.

Little but you did get it sorted and it doesn't happen now. good on you. the op isn't in a new relationship. they have a grown up son.

I'm from a country where you pay for your own food. I never understand these threads. It's as alien to me as going shopping with some friends and expecting them to pay for your new jeans.

I would have no qualms telling MIL that you won't be paying OP. Ridiculous.

An arguement will be had , dh will be feel small and ill feel no better. Think I'll have my say and move on .
My marriage will be fine , as I've said he is great but his weak spot is his family .
It will be like outtolunchagain says , once bitten. Mil is older than fil and we did a meal for 6 for her.
Won't happen again .

I've little time for mil as she is very superficial , but she is my dh mother and when she passes on I don't want to be of no use to my grieving dh . Off topic I know but my sisters mil caused more trouble dead than alive . Rang her last night for a chat and she said to let it go .

Two people are travelling from USA !!!

Thanks for all comments ,
I'm usually the boss around here

I'm fucking appalled by this.

Your mil inviting people willy nilly, and from what you have said, fully expects them not to pay for themselves. Very offensive as it implies the original offer of £600 split was not generous enough.

Your OH unilaterally deciding to spend shitloads of family money on other people's stomachs. Do you even have this money? Selfish and pathetic if he is doing it to keep up appearances with BIL.

Your poor son having a budget 18th (nothing wrong with budget) and having to watch his dad piss money up the wall on guests.

And you not saying anything!!?

I get that in laws can be hard but this needs to be nipped in the bud. It will breed so much resentment. You have had some fab suggestions.

Either deal with mil yourself, put your foot down with OH, or if he is insistent on spending the money, make it his money not family money he is spending.

The ebay idea is fantastic and should make him think twice about the value he is putting on these other people's meals.

I am so pissed off at this thread. And reading some of the other posters stories doesn't help, I fucking hate unfairness.

And breathe...

Have the argument!!!

A) DH pays the massive amount from his own funds
B) The extra guests cover their own costs
C) You make a new plan which will feed and water everyone for the original £600.

Personally I would go for C) as it takes focus away from the money.

I also completely agree that you should ring the restaurant and cap the drinks kitty and organise a set menu. Assuming you can't talk sense into DH.

I'm sat here, literally, with a mouth hanging open like this at this thread.
Are you INSANE?!
How the hell do you go from picking up the bill to the tune of approx £100 to approx £1000 and just sit there, shrug your shoulders and say 'meh' and go along with it even though you say you can't afford it?!
I literally wouldn't be able to conjure up the money so I'd tell them nope, sorry not happening, can't afford it. Any right minded person would do the same!
Absolutely pathetic to get yourself into debt and seriously financial trouble just to save face and look loaded when you aren't! (Assuming you aren't otherwise you wouldn't have started this thread.)

i don't see why you can't make a stand without the shit hitting the fan.

why does it have to come to blows?

can't you say, 'we're so happy to contribute £300 to fil's birthday. we've been looking forward to it for a long time. unfortunately we can't afford to pay more than that.'

it's so clearly unreasonable to expect you to.

op I hope your dh appreciates you.

but you must be able then to afford it. we simply couldn't pay our mortgage if we shelled out this money so at least you can afford to.