...to be gutted by my birthday surprise!

[TheresAMouse]

I am turning 40 this year and never usually go to much trouble for my birthday. Seeing as it's a milestone one I decided to arrange something nice to mark the occasion. My partner and I have been together for about 2 years. We chose a lovely little cottage with a hot tub for a few nights just for the two of us. I arranged for my parents (who live out of the area) to have my two young kids and I was delighted with the plan. As my parents would be staying with us, I then had the opportunity to celebrate with them also with a meal when we got back.

My partner has now revealed the surprise that he didn't book that cottage and instead he's booked another one so that my parents, my kids, my sister and BIL and my partners kids will be coming away to celebrate my birthday. My immediate feeling was that I felt gutted. I'm not keen on the fuss and I was quite looking forward to being childfree for a few nights - as I rarely get the opportunity. I feel so ungrateful for feeling like this. I know he has gone to a lot of trouble to arrange this and I really do appreciate the sentiment behind it. If we didn't already have a plan in place (or so I thought) - I'm sure I would be delighted. We go away next weekend and I'm just feeling blah about it. I've told my partner I'm really grateful for the surprise etc. I really tried to hide my reaction but I know he knows I'm not ecstatic about it. I feel really awful about the whole thing. Please tell me am I being completely out of order?

It sounds like it’s gone from a relaxing weekend to a stressful one organising people and trying to keep everyone happy.
I’d be making sure he’s made all arrangements re meals and catering - what you are all going to do once there - all the areas that can cause tension, and that you still get a night out just the two of you when you are there.

FFS, it sounds like we've got a few MEN on this last couple of pages.. (Or women who have been brainwashed/manipulated by them, into thinking whatever the MENZ do is all for the good of the wimmen! The iccle wimmen who can't make a decision themselves and need the MENZ to take control...)

Jesus wept.

I'd be bloody fuming. So now you've got the childminding and cooking to do. I'd piss off and rent something for myself and leave them to it.

Awww OP , no YANBU at all

He either cancels this mess and reinstates the romantic great for two or you don't go.
Why should your feelings be the least important ?
Are you not dying to speak to your parents to see how this was put to them ?

I wouldn't go.

@Onemansoapopera

What a manipulative post.

Sometimes it really is the intention behind the act that’s important, even if it doesn’t absolutely meet your (possibly unspoken) desires.

zzzzzzzz12345. What do you mean, unspoken desires? OP chose the cottage, booked her DPs to babysit and let him know she wanted it to be just the two of them. How on earth do you interpret that as unspoken desires’?

Please bear in mind not all women are nice yes sayers and not all men are abusive. OP's dp actually seems to be coming from a good place.

I don't think people have said (at least mostly) that he is being abusive. This seems to be quite a standard "oh all MN think men are abusive" over exaggeration.

People are saying that well intentioned or not, it's part of many men thinking they know best. And not thinking about the actual impact for the woman. Basically, an embedded part of patriarchal thinking that many of us are sick of. Well intentioned, perhaps, but paternalistic.

Kind of reminds me of my ex telling me he didn't understand why I couldn't just "trust in his agenda" after years of being pulled pillar to post by his constant changing of plans. He couldn't quite understand the concept that "the agenda" was not just his to set.

If I decided to go (which I don't know if I would) I would be saying clearly that the childcare/cooking/hosting is on him.

I feel you pain OP. I'm glad he realises he mucked up. He needs to arrange - himself as apparently has no problem arranging things with your parents directly- for them to babysit another weekend and book the cottage you wanted to go to originally. He also needs to make all the domestic arrangements for the mass shared cottage without involving you at all - if he can organise a holiday without you than i'm sure sorting out a Tesco delivery and dishwasher rota is in his skill set.

He took you away. Now he's trying to do something nice to involve more people who love you.

I think you are behaving like a spoilt little girl. You will realise if real life hits

Oh man that's devastating. A for effort on his part but what a disappointment.

If he wanted to surprise her or family wanted to be involved the surprise weekend should have been the family event. I'd be so gutted.

Weekends with a crowd like that usually end up with one or two people taking charge and organising food, outings etc.

And others that sit back and allow it all to happen around them and for them.

To say I would be upset at the switch is an understatement.

My husband is not the most intuitive man but Christ he wouldn't change something like that in a million years.

As I keep reading, I realise I probably would be beside myself with annoyance at something I was looking forward to being snatched from me.

Also the idea of someone thinking they know what I want better than I do, would piss me off no end.

Sorry OP. It's a shit show of a birthday.💐

I would have a deep sinking sicky feeling in my stomach if this happened to me, and feel like I wanted to burst into tears, if something that I had been really looking forward to for a special occasion had been changed for the complete opposite.

I would know that I needed to pull myself together and try to enjoy it because everybody else would get pissy that I wasn't being appreciative of such a 'lovely thoughtful surprise' despite the fact that they were overlooking that it meant that they were getting what they wanted and that meant that on my special birthday, the one occasion I get to choose a couple of days for me, I get all excited about it but then it gets snatched away at the last minute and it's about turn to exactly what you didn't want.

I would ask dp explicitly why, when you had said you wanted a couples weekend, he thought it would be a good idea to do a family weekend. Might be that your parents or sibling wanted to be with you for your special birthday and pressured him. Might be because he couldn't change childcare or whatever - but I would get him to explain as clearly as he can why he thought that you wouldn't have asked him for what you wanted - at 39 years and lots of weeks, you are old enough to know what you want and to say what you want. Did he think you wanted a big family celebration and weekend of nose to the grindstone but didn't want to say? Ask him how, for future reference, you can communicate to him that you are telling him how you absolutely feel, what you really do want, and that it's not to be changed or 'improved' as has happened this time as it has meant that you're upset because your weekend has been ruined and he is upset because you're not happy with his plans THAT AREN'T YOUR PLANS.

To say that the earlier weekend away together was to make up for it is frankly insulting - how can the weekend away together as a surprise be your present when you don't even know that was the case until several weeks later? And it wasn't in the cottage you wanted.

I would be saying that it's nice to have a family gathering but that you'll be looking forward to celebrating your proper 40th birthday at the place that you wanted to celebrate it at some point soon in the future.

I would also have a massive conversation with both my parents and my sibling (separately rather than together so they can gang up on you) and say how hurt you were that they didn't know you better than that, that you were so looking forwards to your birthday weekend and now it's just going to be a family gathering which is nice enough but that you can see that you're going to end up doing all the work as usual and not have the relaxing, child-free weekend that you'd been so looking forwards to (and that your parents at least knew about as they knew that you'd asked them to do the child care and I'm assuming had said how much you were looking forwards to your plans....

Passive aggressive? Maybe. Probably. But not nearly as bad as changing the arrangements so significantly for your special weekend. Because even if you do go away again, it's never going to be quite the same - it's not the same weekend, you'll always know that what you wanted wasn't thought to be important.

Hope you manage to enjoy it somewhere somehow eventually though...

(and I get exactly what you mean - I had my 50th this year, thought I'd arranged lunch with dh, which then dmum and dsis insisted on coming to and as they spent so m uch time faffing about where to go when I'd already said where I wanted to go there wasn't time to go there so dh didn't come - found myself driving along with tears rolling down my cheeks and it still pisses me off now. I know I did a good thing for them and that's good but like you - it's the not being listened to that hurts).

What an unpleasant post @LesLavandes - op has taken great pains to stress that she understands her dp was well intentioned but is perfectly allowed to feel disappointment. She's a human being not a robot.

And how do you know anything of her life to suggest she'll know 'when life hits' ?

You don't. So stop projecting.

@TheresAMouse Ignore childish ranty posts like the one by @LesLavandes...

That sounds miserable OP. I’m sorry your weekend away has been taken over.

OP is a 40 year old single parent so I think her life's probably hit already! What a daft, patronising post

If he's normally a kind, loving partner, then I think you are being massively unreasonable and ungrateful.

He's arranged a couples weekend, PLUS a family one where your family are giving up their time to celebrate with you, presumably because they all love you.

I'm really sorry you are disappointed and of course you feel however you feel, but if you let the other people involved know of your disappointment (and it's so hard to fully hide it), you are going to really hurt them.

Of course, if he's a controlling b@stard generally, that's a different matter.

@Peanutbutterforever

WHAT THE OP'S PARTNER HAS ORGANISED IS NOT WHAT SHE WANTED!!!!!!!!!

How can that be thoughtful and kind?!

All she will end up doing is being chief cook and bottle washer, and childminder! Some fucking 40th birthday celebration!

@Borisdaspide

OP is a 40 year old single parent so I think her life's probably hit already! What a daft, patronising post.

I'm 50, too, don't buy this 'you should be grateful' bollocks and I would still go with cancelling it. Let's reframe this: My boyfriend brought up my 40th birthday and asked what I wanted. I told him I wanted a v-necked cashmere sweater. After looking online, I found one I loved from Uniqlo, he thought it was fab, too. I walked away happy. He's now told me he bought me a lacy teddy from Ann Summers and expects me to like it.' Because that's what he did here, had an adult discussion with his girlfriend about what she'd liked for her birthday, and then thought, nah, I know what she'd like better, and why bother to consider that it might be more work for her to get into, scratchy and uncomfortable because well, I think this looks better.

Nope.

@Peanutbutterforever

Of course, if he's a controlling bastard that's a different matter.

The shitty little stunt he has pulled here tells us he may well BE one!