Left to eat dinner on my own

[llamalana]

DH’s birthday Wednesday. Not a BIG birthday. He took the day off. Currently WFH and 3 children on school holidays currently (not in the UK) so he thought it would be a good chance to do some of the activities I usually get to do with them in school hols as I am a SAHM.

In the morning I got up with the children leaving him to sleep in as long as I could. Helped make a special breakfast whilst the kids laid the table and put all the presents and cards out. Children are 11, 8 and 5 years old so presents purchased and organised mostly by me. After breakfast, leisurely opening of presents and quality time with children. DH took a phone call from his Dad who is in the UK. We are doing some home renovating at the moment so once they were all organised to go and do an activity that had been organised, I got on with painting and let him have the quality time he was after. In the afternoon big board game with the two eldest and DH. I took youngest out for a bike ride to give them some peace to get on. Got back, jumped straight into cake baking.

Then after that eldest daughter suggested we eat in town at a big new mall that has opened that has lots of different food outlets serving delicious restaurant quality food: Greek, Italian, Hawaiian, Sushi, Chinese, Vietnamese etc. I saved us a table as they are sometimes hard to come by for a family and the others organised their food and came back and then I went and ordered mine. I waited for a long time and in the interim a new mall attendant came and advised mall would be starting to close in 15 min. I went to check on my food. Told by shop keeper there that it was almost ready and not to worry as the attendant was new and we wouldn’t be chased away.

Got back to our table and my family had finished eating and packed up. (My food was not suitable for a takeaway type thing). Then DH stood up and said did I mind if they all went off and got icecreams from another part of the mall? I was shocked. I had only just sat down and not started eating and it seems was to be eating on my own despite it being a celebratory birthday dinner. So with bad grace I said, off you go then – I was pretty shocked. Ate my food by myself feeling very lonely and slightly embarrassed. Then once I finished, they all arrived back with icecreams and had not got anything for me. So I sat for about 5 minutes watching them all talking about how nice their icecreams were, swapping cones to taste test eachothers and talking about the fancy cones etc. In the end I was so fed up, I asked for the keys and went to wait in the car.

My DH has said I made it all about me and poisoned the night and his birthday. He has gone on to say the cake was an afterthought and a joke. (My two eldest decorated the cake so agreed it was a bit sloppy but cute.)

AIBU to expect that if you go out for a celebratory meal together, you eat together including waiting for the last person to finish eating before you ditch? And AIBU to have hoped that DH might have thought of me and got me an icecream?

I cannot understand why you didn’t say ‘just wait for me to eat and we’ll all get ice cream’ or ‘dd, run and get me an ice cream’. Stropping off to the car was childish. I do get it, but you made it so much worse.

Loving all the comments that he's a twat and needs to give a major apology and that he behaved terribly.

Again, very much reflects the way lots of people see the world.....they see little things as major offences and sleights. People take offence very easily and silently fume and huff or complain to others and spend all the time feeling someone has behaved badly and they are owed an awful lot of apologies.

Fortunately most people are more easy-going and actually communicate. Most people don't decide a possible minor thoughtlessness makes someone a twat or selfish.....they are able to put these thighs into perspective. And they don't hold a grudge and remember the little tthing that happened for more than a minute or two but move on from it fast. And they don't keep watch all the time for other little 'offences' and store them up in their mind with an sense that they have been victimised and treated badly. And when something worth complaining about happens, they say it out loud and address it so that it can be dealt with and then move on from it.

So why do people behave like the former group? I think it's a mindset that some people develop. Some people grow up in households with a parent who constantly gripes about others but doesn't address the issues with the 'offenders'. So they grow up feeling like the world is the enemy and that they should look out for people doing wrOMG things, and they learn that 'normal' doesn't info,VE addressing issues but just moaning. They hear from parents that everyone is entitled to be treated with kid gloves all the time and that people should know exactly what you want without you ever saying it....so they don't learn to vocalise their desires and communicate. Essentially they never see good communication a nd so don't learn to deliver it themselves. I think there is a big element of this, plus also the fact that some adults just develop a martyr mentality of never saying what they want, always acts feeling they do what others want, but not being willing to say what they want or don't like.

I think a lot of people spend a lot of the time feeling annoyed. They are annoyed with their family or their neighbours or those in charge. They seem people doing things they don't like all a round them and it eats away at them and sucks the pleasure out of life. It makes them see the world as a bad place and people as bad. Exhausting and sad because most of the so-called bad incidents are really not issues at all.

@Bluesheep8

The problems here are purely down to logistics:

1. Choosing to eat in that type of place means the likelihood a group will eat their food at the same time is precisely zero.

1. Baking and icing a cake on the afternoon of a birthday is not going to be enjoyable and runs the risk of not turning out well.

1. Why would anyone buy an ice cream for someone who is just starting to eat a meal? They would have to sit there holding it whilst it melts all over the table aswell as trying to eat their own.

I really don't mean to sound in any way rude or sarcastic but all these things were already stacked against your plans for a special afternoon long before manners came into it.
I hope your next family birthday is nicer op, as it sounds as though you put an awful lot of effort into them

This !! All very chaotic .Husband rude about his cake but maybe his reaction was a result of your mood . Difficult to know.

What would have happened if you hadn't done a breakfast/left them alone whilst you painted/took the youngest for a bike ride?

Were those things expected/asked for or just what you decided to do?

I probably would have done the cake before the painting, but it does seem odd to me that you kept yourself apart for quite a bit of the day, then when out as a family got pissed off for something that nobody could do anything about-the food court situation.

Was handing around the bits they ordered. And making sure the eldest didn't steal all of the roast pork crackling from the middle one etc.

I mean, OP, this just shows how giving and truly selfless you are... Thank god you have listed these arduous tasks so we know just how much you care about others.

@WombatChocolate

You are spot on.

The best strongest relationship I know of, is a couple who properly and constantly communicate. They say things to each other that leave the rest of us thinking 'i can't believe she just said that', and yet there's no resentment, no sulking, no silent treatment, no second guessing, no treading on egg shells etc. Two seconds after one of them call the other out, they're laughing and cuddling again.

'Even the update of how you were managing to stop the eldest to not take the other ones crackling. That’s really milking it. Like it’s a big task.'

Agree

Also your narrative of how they described the ice cream and tried each other's and commented on the cones.

So what? I'd be glad they were enjoying them.

Also it was a casual ad hoc quick supper, the very nature of a good court in a shopping centre is grab and eat and go. Why on earth would they have got an ice cream for you. It would have melted.

Sitting in the car was very martyrish

I understand that the situation was trying for you but sulking alone in the car I think has no place in a relationship so I am not surprised that your DH called you out on this. There are more constructive ways to deal with things and it might be helpful to look at this behaviour in yourself.

YABU for completely over-reacting.

Instead of being a martyr, why not telling asking them "where is MY ice-cream" when they came back. Sulking in the car is not great, sorry.

Fair enough to be mildly annoyed, but you were not really expecting them to wait for their food to get cold and wait for you, were you?

Being mad because the others are enjoying a celebration take-away is a bit mean.

I cannot believe there is a whole thread on this non-event!

I would be livid about the ice cream! Also,what a dick to say that about a cake children had made!

I think your feelings are valid.

You sound easily shocked.

Wouldn't the ice cream have melted by the time you finished your dinner?

'I would be livid about the ice cream'

This kind of reaction just supports my point about people feeling furious about extremely minor issues which really are non-events. But this thread shows lots of people do react like this and seem to feel this seemingly intense sense of righteous indignation. They must have this feeling multiple times in a day because in the course of human interaction, little things are constantly happening. Most people don't even notice them or forget within seconds, but other people walk around quietly seething inside about all the affronts they face for their partner, family and strangers.

I love this thread - it's just the best illustration of different reactions to the people around you and to life itself.

I don’t think you are overreacting.
It sounds like you gave him a lovely day! They could have waited.

We were taught not to leave the table until everyone has finished.

Sorry you do sound a bit of a martyr OP. If that was me I might have said “Oh bloody charming” when DH asked if I minded if they went off to get ice-cream, but would have understood on this occasion as the mall was closing in 15 minutes, so they couldn’t hang around and wait. Would then have said “off you fuck then but don’t forget my ice-cream, I’ll have a strawberry and cream with chocolate sauce.” 🤷🏻‍♀️

People who sulk irritate me more than almost anyone else.

Op's husband asked if she minded about the ice cream & she said she didn't.

Perhaps her husband should not have asked & just have known that of course they should wait for her to finish?

Or Op could have fetched her own ice cream when she finished her meal?

I can't believe how much you're obsessing about how they spoke about the ice cream. If they had eaten their ice cream in silence and complained it wasn't very nice, would that have been better?
You were pretending you were having a birthday meal in a restaurant but you weren't. If you wanted to eat with everyone else you should have asked your DH to get you something with his order. Yy you hadn't seen the menu but it's not that complicated to opt for whatever you usually get.
I'd be embarrassed if I had sat in the car moping because I didn't pick food that was prepared quicker; I didn't ask someone to get me a meal when they opted for their's and I didn't tell them I wanted an ice cream.

You are a grown woman but when things didn't go your way you grabbed the car keys and went off in a huff to stage a sulking protest in the car.
So Dad and the kids had to slink back to the car and then expect to have to tiptoe around your hurt feelings for the rest of the evening.
What this feels like to a child is 'Mummy's in a bad mood and she's not talking very much and she has 'The Face' on, so we all better just tiptoe around the place. It's our fault, we are bad people for making her feel like this'.

They could smell the burning martyr before they got back into the car and yes you ruined the evening with your sulk.
You have a tendency to want to control everyone else, then get resentful when others do not show the same desire to control you.
That's why you got a 'shock' when others showed they were 'separate' from you and went off to get icecream.
You sat there and allowed that to happen, but then blamed them for doing it. Look up codependency - there's a book, Melody Beattie Codependent no more - how to stop controlling others and care for yourself. A lot of us women fall into this pattern of responding stemming from our own upbringing and especially when we become SAHM.

I think everything is fine but not getting you an ice cream was a bit tight. Maybe he thought that you’d still be eating when they rejoined you so by the time they got it back and had eaten it it had melted.

Still think he probably should have rang or texted with flavours to see if you wanted one. I think you’re over reacting though.

Have you never been to a food court before? The drawback in such a place in ALWAYS that the food, and the diners, will all arrive back at different times and you’ll struggle to eat a nice meal together. Do you want a cold dinner or a dinner all together? You can’t have both.

Sorry, but you were kind of asking for disappointment.

@Audreyseyebrows

We were taught not to leave the table until everyone has finished.

So was I, but in this instance the OP wasn’t even at the table while the others were eating. They had finished by the time she was ready to sit down.

Well all this could have been avoided if OP had booked a table at her DHs favourite restaurant, which is something I'd always do for DH and DS and agree in advance.

I'd feel quite hurt if it was my birthday we hadn't agreed a dining establishment in advance, particularly in this scenario where doing the right thing and manners is clearly seen as Very Important by the OP.