To think that a 32yo man doesn’t have to spend his bday with his parents?

[Emma090]

My DH and I are living with my parents in the week and his parents at the weekend while we wait to move into our first house (just exchanged).

DH’s birthday is next Wednesday. DH works long hours and won’t be home that early, so my parents offered to take us out for dinner locally. We assumed we’d celebrate with DH’s parents when we see them at the weekend as they live about an hour away.

DH’s parents have just suggested we go out for dinner (local to them) on Wed, but DH has told them (not as tactfully as he perhaps could have done tbh) our plans as above. They got very upset and FIL has just finished lecturing my DH about how much he has hurt his mother etc.

DH is now saying we should cancel on my parents and spend it with his instead. AIBU to think that this all a bit ridiculous?

If the husband was quite happy to do nothing then I wonder how the pub meal came to be booked?

Because the mil is controlling

If the husband was quite happy to do nothing then I wonder how the pub meal came to be booked?

Because the OP's mum said "do you fancy having dinner at 'pub name' next Wednesday?" And OP's husband said, "Yeah, why not?"

Obviously that's a guess but in my world that's a perfectly normal conversation to take place. And I don't believe anything is 'booked'. They've just decided to go to the pub for food.

Am also baffled as to how asking her son-in-law if he wants to go to the pub for dinner on his birthday is controlling? He had a choice to say yes or no. He agreed to go.

There are some seriously weird posters here today.

Yes, the DH said he was happy to do nothing, but he accepted the suggestion from OP's DM for a low key pub meal.

PILs are being unreasonable here. It'll be a 2 hour round trip, so eating no earlier than 9pm, allowing for changing clothes etc, and they don't want OP's parents included. I couldn't eat that late if I had to get up at 6 next morning.

They were invited to join in at the pub and declined.

They haven't been seeing their son on his birthday every year, so their behaviour is odd. In other words they're trying to make it all about them.

I wouldn't have any problem not seeing my DCs on their birthdays, I don't own them. In fact, I missed my teen DS's last birthday as he was away on a school trip. Instead we simply celebrated on the nearest weekend.

My parents go out to eat at least once a week so I don’t think they thought it was a big deal to eat together at a nearby pub when instead we would have been eating together at home, I think they just thought it would be slightly ‘nicer’ since it was his bday. We would be home no later than 9.30. They also suggested Indian takeaway but DH said he’d prefer meal at pub.

I think though, in hindsight, the way DH communicated it to PiL was a bit insensitive (he wasn’t rude just didn’t really explain the reasoning ie we’d prefer to have a proper celebration with them at w/e).

Yeah, my mum is good at giving us a "choice" too.

Except we all know that it isn't really a choice. Don't do it and face weeks of sulking and be prepared to have it thrown back in your face at every opportunity.

Maybe he doesn't feel that he gas a choice, especially as he has to live with them, and agreed to it just to keep the peace? Now his parents are upset and he is caught in the cross fire.

Who knows?

UPDATE Hospital has switched shifts around so he is now going to be at work on his bday till early hours and nearly all w/e. Birthday celebrations will be somewhat delayed now as he has a specialty exam coming up soon. He will still speak to PiL about the way he came across though.

So he doesn't have to make a choice now, good result

To everyone saying they don't see their parents on their birthday, how would you feel about your own child, the one you gave birth to not seeing you on their birthday? It is not only a memorable day for your child but also you

I love my children more than the world, and spend lots of time with them, but I can’t see myself giving a crap about this when they’re adults. It’s really rather weird, selfish and controlling.

LittleChristmas sorry but that's some serious projection going on there. OP and her husband would be at her parents home that night anyway. Her DH made the choice to go out to the pub rather than stay in with a takeaway.

Why are some people determined to make the OP's mum into some kind of controlling monster?

@Emma090 would your mum 'sulk for weeks' or 'throw is back in your faces' had your DH declined both invitations? Considering he was willing to cancel on them after his parents kicked off I think I can guess the answer.

I don’t think my MIL has ever been with us on my DH’s birthday once in 16 years of marriage, apart from his 40th where we had a big party for him. She lives a 3 hour drive away, though, so that’s not all that surprising. She always calls him and sings ‘happy birthday’ to him. One year we were staying with my relatives in the US and we asked her not to call but to wait for DH to call her; we didn’t trust her not to call in the middle of the night, as she had form for getting the time difference wrong.

I don’t think there’s a particular reason we haven’t spent his birthday with her, but it’s usually on a working day, and these days it’s always during the school term as well.

My birthday is during the summer holidays, so we do see my DM sometimes, which is important to her. (Although she likes doing a birthday surprise, which I’d rather she didn’t, as we have our DDs and it would be better if DH and I could talk about what would work best.

Your PIL do seem to have made a mountain out of a molehill IMO (it shouldn’t even be a molehill actually).

MrsFassy

No more of a projection than you presenting the OPs parents offer as entirely benign.

The OP says her husband would rather do nothing. Why was that not the beginning and end of the discussion? Why then the offer of a takeaway or pub meal? Surely what he actually wants to do is what he said - nothing?

To everyone saying they don't see their parents on their birthday, how would you feel about your own child, the one you gave birth to not seeing you on their birthday? It is not only a memorable day for your child but also you.

Yes, it's a memorable day for me, but that doesn't mean that my kids, who are all adults, have to spend their birthday's with me. The same as it was with my parents on my birthdays, once I was an adult.

I would have spent my birthday with my mother (and my two children) every year! Regardless of whether I’m looking back with hindsight as to when she was alive

Oh give the guilt tripping a rest. There's always someone who posts this type of bullshit on these sorts of threads. My dad has been dead for 15 years, and I lost my mum a couple of weeks ago. We were close and loving, but it was rare that we did anything together on my or their birthdays, and I don't have any regrets.

PP's saying OP's parents "organised" or "arranged" his birthday. Bollocks! OP's mum suggested going to the local pub for a meal, which you damn well know, as it's been pointed out countless times, but that doesn't fit your narrative that OP and her parents are controlling and in the wrong, does it?
He would have needed to eat dinner, so going out to the local pub is just as easy as staying in, and a bit of a nicer option.

Driving a 2 hour round trip to see his parents, after a long day at work, and not getting to eat until about 9pm, isn't a very nice way to spend his birthday. And he'll be seeing them 2 days later anyway, for the whole weekend!

@MrsFassy Haha no definitely not, sometimrs I even wished she cared a tiny bit more. As I said above, she just suggested dinner out instead of us eating together the four of us at home, just bc she thought it would be ‘nicer’. It wasn’t intended as some big organised night out, but I think this is how it came across to PiL as they eat out much less often than my parents.

I can only assume that posters suggesting that the PILs have every right to be upset at this terrible rejection of them have never worked a long day. Getting home at 7.30pm after working in a hospital and being expected to drive an hour each way?! If you are filing your nails day to day, not an issue. If you work, utterly ridiculous.

The OP says her husband would rather do nothing. Why was that not the beginning and end of the discussion? Why then the offer of a takeaway or pub meal? Surely what he actually wants to do is what he said - nothing?

Because he thought a pub meal locally, would be nicer than eating at home.

If he was willing to cancel on OP's parents, after he'd said yes, then her parents are very obviously not like your own mother who goes into sulks for weeks, because that would be an even more heinous crime than saying no to start with, to someone like that.

No matter how many ways you try to twist it that OP's mum is controlling, you're still wrong.

And now, it's a moot point anyway.

*LittleChristmas
*
He could have said no. Maybe his MiL wasn't privy to the conversation he had with his wife about doing nothing, and suggested something when she saw him. She wouldn't have had to make a special effort to do so, they live in the same house. It could quite easily have been a passing comment over breakfast.

As for refusing the takeaway to get what he wanted "staying home and doing nothing". An Indian takeaway is hardly a big event and correct me if I'm wrong but would he not have to eat at some point that night anyway? And a takeaway means no one has to cook and they all get a nice chilled out evening.

Maybe I'm wrong and the OP's mother is a controlling monster insistent on forcing her SiL to eat something she chooses for his birthday. But if that were the case would he honestly even consider cancelling on her? Would the fall out from that not be even greater?

Maybe I'm wrong and the OP's mother is a controlling monster insistent on forcing her SiL to eat something she chooses for his birthday. But if that were the case would he honestly even consider cancelling on her? Would the fall out from that not be even greater?

No, I can imagine how convo went with OP's mother. 'We're around if you fancy a pub meal as it's your DHs birthday. No worries if not'. Nice gesture.

Or maybe when he said "do nothing" because he was working until 7.30pm what he meant was, grab a sandwich at work, come home and go to bed?

Not come home, have a take away or come home, get ready and then go out?

I don't know. I just find it odd people sticking up for the OP and her parents when it's the husband's birthday and you would think that if he were going to spend it with parents they would be his rather than the OPs.

No, I can imagine how convo went with OP's mother. 'We're around if you fancy a pub meal as it's your DHs birthday. No worries if not'. Nice gesture.

Or "what are you doing for your birthday?" "oh nothing. I'm exhausted. I would rather celebrate it at the weekend" " oh don't be daft, it's your birthday, you can't do nothing. We'll book a table at the pub we always go to".

Not such a nice gesture.

Yeah ok, if you say so. Regardless of what OP says, you're right and she's wrong, because you're omnipotent and know all.

To everyone saying they don't see their parents on their birthday, how would you feel about your own child, the one you gave birth to not seeing you on their birthday? It is not only a memorable day for your child but also you

I don’t agree. I don’t always see my adult children on their Birthdays. They don’t live locally and I think it’s normal for them to spend the evening with their partners or going out with their friends rather than a meal with boring old mum and dad.

I think it’s a bit controlling and selfish to make the day about the mum rather than about the person with the birthday.

And parents who don’t give birth to their children can love them just as much you know.

Yeah ok, if you say so. Regardless of what OP says, you're right and she's wrong, because you're omnipotent and know all.

Nope. Don't know it all. Just find it odd that the OP says that her husband would prefer to do nothing and yet they were still going out for a meal with her parents.

I find that an odd situation. She knows what he would prefer but they aren't doing that. I'm just pondering how that comes about.

I should've told my late 20's DD when it was her birthday recently and she was off to a cottage in Wales with a load of friends.... that she can't. She must come home and see Mummy.

I think your parents in law are bring a bit OTT.

Your DH is not finishing until late and has to be up at 6am the next day. Yet his parents want him to drive an hour to see them in his birthday rather than a few days later? And then react angrily when he has plans to stay close to home instead. Bonkers!

Your DH should go if that’s what he WANTS to do, but if not he should just explain he would rather be local rather than do lots of travelling. If his parents can’t see that point of view, that’s their problem and i’d leave them to it. I wouldn’t be giving in to temper tantrums, personally.

What MeredithGrey said.

His parents are making it all about them, not him, which is kind of missing the point of a birthday!

If it he were my son, my thinking would be along the lines of "ds and Dil are already shuffling between homes which is stressful, they work long hours ditto, let's ask ds if he wants to celebrate his birthday at the weekend".

It's plain common sense! So YANBU at all op!