To be upset that my family ate dinner without me on my birthday?

[Icantsleep3am]

How would you feel if it was your birthday, you worked the whole day, then cleaned the house, did the school run, all the while looking forward to the evening to celebrate, and when you popped out to buy a birthday cake, your husband cooked and ate dinner with the children without waiting for you?

We always celebrate family birthdays with dinner and cake. I never do anything big for myself because my birthday is in the same month as my two children, so never have enough energy left after two birthdays.

But I am so upset come home to find out they already ate. They did not even call me to ask when I was coming! I was out shopping locally and was out for about 1,5-2 hours! I guess it is not the end of the world, but I want to know if AIBU?

2 hours for cheese and cake with no contact from you when you knew he was making dinner?

I think yabu.

Hind sight is a wonderful thing but it doesnt sound as if it was worth the effort and time you spent to get youreself your own birtherday cake after work on the day of your birthday, but hey ho. Sounds as if they wanted to watch the football 😂Happy birthday anyway OP😀

So not really much time to order or bake cakes.

And yet time to dick about going from shop to shop for 2 hours?
It would have talked a fraction of the time to order the cake.
Im not saying you should have ordered your own cake but I do feel like you have tried to make this more of a drama.

I can see why you’re upset but I think you need to accept that part of this is down to you. You could have text or called DH and let him know what was happening with the cake and how long you would be etc. Bad communication all around.

You do come across as being a martyr though.

The house would have waited until tomorrow. I refuse to believe it really was that bad that 24 extra hours would have made a difference.

Just clear the air. I would be delighted to come home to everyone fed, maybe he thought he was doing you a favour because that’s what he would like.
It sounds like he didn’t realise how important it was to you, so you will have to tell him so it doesn’t happen again.

happy birthday

OP should just have gone straight home for the pasta

Communication issues really. Did neither of you call each other while you were out?
dh would never ever do this on my birthday, if the dc were small and needed to eat he would have fed them first at least, but always have waited for me.
yours aren’t especially small and could have waited with a snack to keep them going, sounds like he wanted to watch the football and have the kids fed first so he could chill out.
think you should Have ordered a family birthday takeaway when you got home from cake shopping.

I’m also on the fence here, as written it looks like they were out of order, then you say you spent 2 hours trying to buy a birthday cake and it was just pasta you ageeed your husband would make and you’ve a seven year old

i think he did the right thing.

Given your very busy 2 weeks… and I say this with kindness… couldn’t you have done without the cake??!! Or just got some donuts or a dessert from the supermarket that everyone could eat with a candle on?
You sound wrung out and perhaps a tad emotional. I hope you have a nice relaxing weekend to make up for it x

Do you normally wait until 5pm to buy things to make dinner? It all sounds mad to me.

I'd have not cleaned the house (cleaning can always be done tomorrow) and bought the cake earlier in the day.

It was not reasonable to disappear for 2 hours at 6pm / 7pm and expect everyone to patiently wait for you.

Why were you buying your own birthday cake?

The way you've written your post also screams martyrdom to me. So I think it's likely that you were schlepping around for a cake as a sort of weird passive aggressive point. I mean, if you need a specialist cake surely you order one or work it out in advance?

@BosaNova I was out about 5.40-7.30. 7.30 is ok time to have dinner (for us), as children are not that small. We go to bed late on Fridays.
I would have waited for DH if he was out shopping.

Maybe one of those men who think that cooking dinner and feeding kids is somehow 'helping' you, and possibly feels that it constitutes part of your birthday present.

7.30 may not be that late to you to start eating but the whole bloody point is they didn't know you would be back at 7.30!

You weren't back at 6.00,6.30 or 7,00 and you didn't communicate where you were or what you were doing. How was he supposed to know you'd be back at 7.30?

But you wouldn’t be having dinner at 7:30 because your husband had no idea where you were or when you would be back, so he would have to start cooking when you got back.

My first reaction was why are you buying your own cake but I see your DH is recovering from surgery so fair enough. You didn’t have to clean the house on your birthday, that could have waited and then you would have had the cake a lot earlier. Surely while you were out for 2 hrs shopping it may have occurred to you that this was not going to be the evening you had planned as you were going to be late getting home. Do you not communicate with your DH? I would have texted to find out how things were at home, if DC was getting hungry, what time would dinner be etc. And mostly I’d be cross with myself for wasting my birthday faffing around over cake. If it’s your birthday you can just get what you want - ice cream, a nice box of chocolates, whatever. Spending time with your family is more important than having the perfect cake.

@londonrach
Did
You not text him to say you were taking longer?

If I went out to get a cake at just after 5 and didn't get home til gone 7 there would have been some communication between me and dh about what's happening food wise etc.

Why did it take so long to get cake?x

and when you popped out to buy a birthday cake

You didn't 'pop' out though did you, you were gone nearly two hours with no communication. No wonder they ate without you.

I think you have all had a fraught few weeks and as a PP said, there's been a communication breakdown.
If my DH said he was making pasta. I'd have assumed I had 20 minutes to pick up a cake or I'd be missing dinner. But if I had to run round to get a special cake, I'd have called DH once the first shop didn't have it and said 'please wait to eat, grab a snack, I'll be another 1.5 hours'.
It's done now OP. Try to salvage something from it either by having a nice glass of wine and a piece of cake or arranging a nice lunch for tomorrow.

I would honestly look on it as a gift.

I would take it that he was trying to help.

Pour a glass of whatever.

Relax.

Have some cake with them.

Happy birthday.

fwiw I like to have a clean house on my birthday ... and everyone else's birthdays too. So I'd have cleaned the house too.

While it sucks that tradition was broken, I think YABU here sorry

@TomTraubertsBlues it was not passive aggressive. I really had no time to order cake in advance. The house was a tip, so the clean was overdue. Today was the only day I had time to clean as the only day I work from home, so could fit in cleaning in between breaks.

This week I had to sit a prof exam (which took 6 months to prepare for, so no pressure), look after DH due to his surgery (getting him from hospital, getting enough supplies etc), work full time, and celebrate 2 birthdays of DC (who have birthdays five days apart), and arrange childcare.