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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

to boycott my parents' 30th anniversary?

199 replies

VisitTheInfidel · 14/03/2015 17:39

My sister is organising a big party for them and wants to get a professional photo of the 3 of us and the 5 grandchildren as a present. I want no part of it. I've told her I have other plans for the party date and don't want to do the photo because I don't wish to discuss the real reason. She's getting quite arsey about me ruining my parents' special day.

I did the whole special day thing for them 5 years ago for their silver anniversary. Presents, big family get together in nice restaurant, special cake, the whole 9 yards.

Then 2 years ago my dad rang me to tell me that it was all a lie. They had actually got married 2 years after I was born so their real silver anniversary was in a few weeks. They wanted me to know the truth because they wanted a fuss made for their real anniversary.

I was so hurt and angry with both of them. They felt I was over-reacting as it no longer matters if your parents are married like it did back then. I felt like they were missing the point entirely. I didn't care whether they were married when I was born. I cared about a life-time of being lied to and deceived and the fact that their motivation for telling me was entirely their own self interests. I didn't speak to them for the next 6 months and last year's anniversary went by unmarked. I still have so much resentment bottled up and our relationship has never recovered.

So AIBU for wanting no part in this charade?

OP posts:
ClashCityRocker · 14/03/2015 21:20

Ah, further information has come to light since I posted earlier. Sorry if I was short op, the situation seems far more complex than it did originally.

But, I still think you are overreacting re the lie, and need to let it go, for your own mental health if nothing else.

And I also think that you should tell your sister, bring it out in the open, as it were. I wonder if it's not so much them lying, but you now unwittingly being a party to that lie that is causing you so much anguish over it?

Your dad sounds like a twunt, though.

AliceLidlLovesWindlePoons · 14/03/2015 21:21

OP you are not being unreasonable.

Even without all the things you have since posted on this thread (and I'm not calling them drip feeds because it's impossible to convey a whole thirty year life / relationship in a couple of sentences) you were not being unreasonable even in your first post.

They lied to you for your whole life, and let you throw a big party for them knowing it was a sham.

Even if that party was a surprise to them, the wider family colluded in their lie knowing how this sort of thing affects you.

But it was this bit, about them telling you the truth because they wanted a second big fancy party on their real anniversary, that I think proves you are not being unreasonable.

They were happy to continue the lie all those years, and through the party you held for them, only to come clean a couple of years later because it suited them to do so.

I would tell your sister the truth.

You feel bad because you were lied to, and embarrassed because you held a big party and everybody else there knew it was a sham.

Your sister is about to do the same thing, and in a couple of years could be left feeling the same way as you do when they tell her they want her to do it all again for their real anniversary.

And you might be left feeling you colluded in some way as you could have told her now, and feel worse than you already do.

You don't deserve all this, your parents should have come clean to everybody when they chose to tell you the truth.

IsabellaofFrance · 14/03/2015 21:27

My DS1 has AS and is also very, very interested in numbers and dates. He would never speak to me again if I had done something like this. He did our family tree and traced it back, and the changing of spelling of his dads families common surname caused him massive anxiety.

YANBU OP, I would be upset too, and to only have revealed it because they wanted a second party is madness. Sounds like you Dad has a horrid streak and wanted to hurt you.

shouldbeasize10 · 14/03/2015 21:28

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

HootyMcTooty · 14/03/2015 21:31

jemima if you're going to come onto a thread and be that rude, at least have the courtesy of reading the full thread. Ffs.

shouldbeasize10 · 14/03/2015 21:31

Sorry MNHQ.

mommy2ash · 14/03/2015 21:31

they were different times and your parents had their reasons. they have had a happy life together so I think you really need to get over it the didn't murder people

Arsenic · 14/03/2015 21:32

WHAT MNHQ? I repeated Jemima's phrase in quotation marks and merely commented 'nice' and for that I get deleted?

MNHQ
TheOnlyOliviaMumsnet · 14/03/2015 21:34

Ahem

Talkingmouse · 14/03/2015 21:34

You should clearly tell your sister. Email/fb fine if not close. It sounds like you'll feel better with everyone involved knowing the true facts. Your sister may or not see it is as big an issue as you though, so be prepared for that possibility. Yanbu.

shouldbeasize10 · 14/03/2015 21:34

Jemima if you read the OPs contributions to this thread I think you'll be suitably appalled and embarrassed at your rudeness.

Arsenic · 14/03/2015 21:34

It was five words, none of them profane, four of them Jemima's that I was very mildly criticizing.

IsabellaofFrance · 14/03/2015 21:36

I think it gets deleted because of what you quoted, not because of your comments.

Glad MNHQ deleted it.

ClashCityRocker · 14/03/2015 21:36

I thinks its because the post you quoted got deleted arse. I think they do it as standard if they delete the original.

MNHQ
TheOnlyOliviaMumsnet · 14/03/2015 21:37

@IsabellaofFrance

I think it gets deleted because of what you quoted, not because of your comments.

Yep indeed

Peace and love please

Arsenic · 14/03/2015 21:38

Really? I've never seen that before. It makes it look as though I was joining in with the nasty attacks.

Arsenic · 14/03/2015 21:39

Ah right. X post. That makes it dangerous to quote, doesn't it?

Gwenci · 14/03/2015 21:41

Don't worry Arsenic, I can definitely confirm you were just calling out an unreasonable poster. Glad she was deleted.

ClashCityRocker · 14/03/2015 21:44

Yeah, I wonder if the deletion message on those posts could be changed to make it clearer that it was deleted for quoting a now-deleted post.

I must admit, if I see a deleted post i assume they've said something nasty.

Arsenic · 14/03/2015 21:45

Thanks Gwen

OP hope you arrive at a plan without too much stress Flowers

MNHQ
TheOnlyOliviaMumsnet · 14/03/2015 21:54

@ClashCityRocker

Yeah, I wonder if the deletion message on those posts could be changed to make it clearer that it was deleted for quoting a now-deleted post.

I must admit, if I see a deleted post i assume they've said something nasty.

I am sure it used to.
Will look into this
Thanks for raising

Yes I can confirm that JemimaPuddleduck's post was deleted for a personal attack and Arsenic's post was deleted for repeating Jemima's post.

diddl · 14/03/2015 21:58

Op how have you tried to tell your sister?

Clearly it isn't something that can be hinted at!

Just tell her it isn't their 30th wedding anniversary!

As for whether you want to be involved after the way that you have been treated, well that's for you to decide, but you should tell your sister that it is due to ypur relationship with them & not her.

My great great grandfather's 2nd wife was 21yrs younger than him & they had their first child (of 4)when she was 17.

they married in the early 1900s.

After having the 4 children.

They couldn't marry before that as he was still married to his first wife!

PtolemysNeedle · 14/03/2015 22:10

It is so completely randomly Mumsnet for a thread to go crazy over something like this.

OP, YANBU! Amazed that so many of the first responses were YABU, I don't believe that anyone would be able to just brush of the fact that their parents had allowed them to celebrate a false anniversary a couple of years previously.

No one is going to take the news that they're expected to celebrate their parents silver wedding anniversary twice without having something to say about it. And that's without the information that came after the OP.

ShanVanVocht · 14/03/2015 22:18

To be fair it was an epic dripfeeding, on the evidence of purely the OP, yabu was the correct answer, imo. Then a HUGE amount of other information changed the picture dramatically, but the first responders aren't psychic.

Love51 · 14/03/2015 22:23

I'm not sure I would tell the sister if I were in Op's situation. I think I would mention to parents that DS is planning something and ask them to set her straight. The whole situation feels uneasy and I wouldn't want to take the fallout for other people's deceit.