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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not come to "family day" anymore

250 replies

CoatOfCharms · 03/10/2021 16:28

My Bulgarian DH has a family reunion with his extended family every year. & every year I go and have a miserable time because the language barrier makes me feel so excluded.

Of course it's understandable that they all want to spend the day catching up in their native language rather than switching to broken English for my benefit. That's fine.

But I wish DH would make more of an effort to help me to feel included. I am learning Bulgarian but languages were always hard for me and we have 2 small children that limit my time and energy.

I've said that next year he should just bring the kids and I'll spend the weekend catching up with my friends/sleep back home, but he thinks I'm being unreasonable. I think he just doesn't want to travel with the kids by himself.

AIBU?

OP posts:
SleepingStandingUp · 03/10/2021 21:48

@lottiegarbanzo

I don't understand why she is expected to make so much effort to attend and participate, yet no-one else is expected to make any effort to welcome and include her.
Learning some of your husbands language is v different to learning your cousins wife's or your nephews wife's language etc.
BurntO · 03/10/2021 21:49

Once a year? OP get on with it. There is more to communication than language and if you want to feel included, LEARN. Having kids is not a reason to not learn anything over the years

citizenp · 03/10/2021 21:53

Interesting post and quite interesting the fact people think YABU. My husband also doesnt speak my native language and to be honest I find it so much easier myself when he doesnt attend events with friends or family where we will speak my language. I can just chat without him being bored. He is always welcomed but I have also been in situations where I made little effort to include him as being wrapped up in the excitement to speak my language. He told me a few times he felt nobody was talking to him and now I am much more conscious not to put him in those situations as it is unfair (and he is not even trying to learn my language so he doesnt even have that excuse). Dont be hard on yourself OP, if people havent been in those situations they cannot ever fully understand how it is being surrounded by people and having nobody to talk to.

TintinIsBack · 03/10/2021 21:54

@RickJames

"How are you going to cope with your own dc speaking Bulgarian fluently and you can’t?"

But it's brilliant when your DC speak different languages fluently - you have a little translator at your beck and call! No coping required Grin

Once the DC are talking Bulgarian with your DH all the time you will get it much faster. Because it will be the same sentences and questions over and over again. How was school? Eat your dinner! What would you like to do this weekend? It was boring/ but I don't like peas/ I want to go ice skating... ad infinitum.

Great for learning sentence structure which you can then apply to other topics.

Oh yes there is a lot of coping required.
  • when they talk to each other and plan something stupid but you can’t understand
  • when they agree with daddy to A or B and you can’t understand so either you don’t know what’s the agreement or they will tell you the agreement is X and Y instead
  • when they just have a conversation between dcs and DH and you are standing like a lemon not knowing what’s going on etc etc etc..

And you can’t expect your dcs to spend their life translating either. I mean anyone would find it a bore to do so all the time. On an everyday basis? Nope sorry but I wouldn’t ask them to do so no more than I would ask them to compensate for my personal physical difficulties.

Also I think it’s being naive to rely in the fact ‘it’s will be much faster once the dcs can speak with their dad’. The reality is that you still need to put the work in. No way around it. Again speaking from experience from being in that exact situation and a DH that found it ‘really hard’, didn’t have time etc….

TintinIsBack · 03/10/2021 21:56

@citizenp, I agree.

I find it a chore when dh is coming with us and I need to translate all the time. So now he doesn’t come. Easier for me and really i wouldn’t want to start coming.
HOWEVER, there is a cost to him not learning and I think it’s essential to be aware of that cost - him being isolated from his own dcs in his own house.
Because truth to be told, I’m not going to spend my time translating when we are at home either….

PeonyTime · 03/10/2021 22:05

I duck out of a trip every second or third time. So I attend more than i miss, but dont attend them all.

DH has, on occasion, flown long haul with one child for a 10 day holiday. He hasn't taken both abroad on his (I have, we lived in a third country for a bit).

I'm also more likely to go if our generation are there. If it's just the seniors, I struggle more.

citizenp · 03/10/2021 22:08

@tintinisback completely agree, my dh already does get sometimes excluded when I speak with DSs in my language. I actually not too secretly love the fact we have our secret way of communicating, although unfortunately my DH understand way more than he speaks lol. He made a bit of an effort when we started dating to learn, but that was short lived. I found this a battle not worth to fight, I put my energy in ensuring my DSs learn my language and feel a connection to my country and culture.

RickJames · 03/10/2021 22:11

Wow @TintinIsBack

I didn't realise I wasn't allowed to post my own lived experience in a multilingual home/ family. Thanks for that bossy telling-off!

TintinIsBack · 03/10/2021 22:11

Yep me too @citizenp. I had to make a choice between ensuring my dcs would be bilingual and would be able to communicate with their grand parents vs supporting DH, only speaking English around him etc…

I chose my dcs. And I’m very happy I did so now that they are older teens tbh.

But I would have never accepted to be sidelined the way DH is tbh.

TintinIsBack · 03/10/2021 22:12

Sorry @RickJames but tbh your post didn’t make me think you were in that position. For the reason I listed.

If you feel happy to not understand what your dcs are saying around you, then fair enough.
I wouldn’t.

MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously · 03/10/2021 22:18

I wouldn't go. If he CBA to look after you and include you, why should you be arsed with building relationships with his family?

JellyBabiesSaveLives · 03/10/2021 22:47

How much time and effort has your dh put into helping you learn his language? He maybe can’t explain the grammar, but does he help you practice? Role play conversations with you? Say something in Bulgarian and then translate for you? It seems like having him use the language with you in everyday life would be a better way to learn than doing 3-hour study sessions.

Does he spend a lot of time with your family? Make an effort with them?

Are there times when he takes both kids and lets you do something you want?

saraclara · 03/10/2021 22:58

I think it's perfectly reasonable to say to DH that you're prepared you go again, but that you're hurt that none of his family are prepared to engage you or pay you and the kids any attention. Presumably some of them speak some English.

I think it's important to go, but at the same time I think it's important for him to recognise how isolated you feel, and to put more effort into making sure that his family recognise and engage with you.

PurplePansy05 · 04/10/2021 06:05

@TintinIsBack I agree wholeheartedly with all of your post. You can quite clearly see you have experienced a similar situation and so have I. It is also pretty obvious some posters responding to OP haven't, and if so, I really don't think their input is helpful to OP. There are also some who are the very definition of lazy and finding any excuse under the sun for not being multilingual, which is a very British thing, unheard of in most of the world, including in countries without fancy language schools HmmGrin It's a very small view of the world, sadly prevalent here. And some posters come across very rude without realising perhaps. Expecting your lofe partner to be your constant translator, accusing of not including you if he doesn't do it in a large group of native speakers after a period of time, refusing to see his family or expecting some sort of a reward for it?! Seriously. It's so rude and disrespectful to say these things and think this way. I am at the receiving end of this and it really is a bad attitude and very upsetting to the other partner. If you marry into a multicultural marriage, you take the family, language and culture with it and make the most of it, not try to stick to your own little convenient world.

Brefugee · 04/10/2021 07:36

if your children are going to have a meaningful relationship with their relatives on their dad's side, he needs to speak to them in Bulgarian, read to them in Bulgarian, watch Bulgarian cartoons or whatever he fancies with them. They need to hear it and now is the time to do it (OPOL in linguistic terms - one parent, one language)

This will help you when you're around as you'll be hearing it too, which can only be a benefit. But you really need to get your children speaking Bulgarian at the same time they speak English or they will be at a disadvantage.

For the sake of one day? Suck it up. My experience of Bulgarians (or speakers of other complicated languages) is that they are delighted if someone makes even the most rudimentary attempt to communicate with them in that language.

You don't need to get bogged down in grammar. Are you doing something like Duolingo? That is a brilliant way to get started because it is repetitive and you don't really notice that you're picking things up. Learning language in chunks is way better than lists of vocab and grammar primers. (chunks = sentences, phrases and sentence fragments).

HarrisonStickle · 04/10/2021 11:11

Presumably some of them speak some English.

🙄

RickJames · 04/10/2021 11:32

Again with the assumptions @TintinIsBack

We speak 3 languages in our house. Everyone speaks all 3 to varying degrees of competence. If someone doesn't understand something they ask. We quite like each other and are happy to help. I am not riven with paranoia or embarrassment everytime I don't quite catch something. Over time everyone improves the language they aren't as good at. It doesn't need to be a big deal, even our dog can understand instructions in 3 languages. The OP will get there in time, I'm sure.

I'm also a language teacher, funnily enough. Maybe that's why I quite like it.

Kite22 · 04/10/2021 13:03

Sounds like DH wants you there to manage the children whilst he has a fab time!

I don't read it like that at all. It is a family gathering, and both OP, and the two dc are part of that family.
As it is an annual gathering and only for a day, I'm going with the assumption that is is not held in Bulgaria (as you'd go for a lot more than a day), so I think it is a reasonable presumption that most people there will speak more than Bulgarian - even if it is hard work for them, I find it pretty unlikely that no-one will speak to her all day.

Original poster
CoatOfCharms · 04/10/2021 13:29

@Kite22

Sounds like DH wants you there to manage the children whilst he has a fab time!

I don't read it like that at all. It is a family gathering, and both OP, and the two dc are part of that family.
As it is an annual gathering and only for a day, I'm going with the assumption that is is not held in Bulgaria (as you'd go for a lot more than a day), so I think it is a reasonable presumption that most people there will speak more than Bulgarian - even if it is hard work for them, I find it pretty unlikely that no-one will speak to her all day.

No it is in Bulgaria. What an odd presumption - if his family lived in England then of course they'd know more English and this wouldn't be an issue.
OP posts:
crosstalk · 04/10/2021 13:43

@TheOpenRoad

I don't understand you saying that your UK family and friends never treat your DH as your DH family treat you. Do they all speak Bulgarian? or does he just speak more English?

luckylavender · 04/10/2021 13:56

@AdriannaP - some old British exceptionalism rearing its ugly head here I see. Why assume people speak English?

Wazzzzzzzup · 04/10/2021 14:00

[quote luckylavender]@AdriannaP - some old British exceptionalism rearing its ugly head here I see. Why assume people speak English? [/quote]
Yeah, there are other dominant languages. Close to half of us in my country learned German (choice between german and English was common that time) My friend can say fuck you in English and that's about that😂 until she gets drunk😂

DifferentHair · 04/10/2021 14:09

You fly to Bulgaria for one day? This reunion must be quite a big deal if people fly in just for that.

YABU. Marriage and family sometimes means slapping on a smile and taking the occasional one for the team.

One awkward event once a year isn't a lot. The children will likely be running around and you'll have limited time to talk to adults anyway.

I would brush up on a few basic phrases to be polite 'how lovely to see you! / this wine is delicious/ what beautiful weather' hopefully they & your DH will appreciate that you made an effort.

Wazzzzzzzup · 04/10/2021 14:12

I don't understand how people can't imagine that maybe, just maybe, people fly in for longer, but the event with everyone there is just 1 day.
That's what I just automatically assumed. Might be wrong

Inextremis · 04/10/2021 14:14

Take your phone. Use Google translate to communicate - type in what you want to say (in English), then follow the pronunciation guide and say it in Bulgarian. Pass phone to person you're trying to communicate with, get them to do the same in reverse. It will probably lead to much hilarity, but at least you'll be seen to be making an effort, and possibly even having fun!

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