Husband annoyed that my family haven't arranged to celebrate DCs birthday

[HailHale]

Will try to keep it short. My husband and I share a child and he also has an older child with his ex. Our child is 3 and SS is 8.

The children's birthdays are about 2 weeks apart.

For my toddlers birthday my family came round and we all had a food together, my grandma made a cake, family members all brought a dish kind of thing. It wasn't extravagant but it was a nice day/evening.

I need to preface this with saying I have never arranged or planned anything for my SS for his birthday before as its always been between DH and his mum and this is the first year I've done something like this for our toddler as other years they were just too young to really care.

This year unfortunately his mum is away looking after a very unwell family member and so SS is with us over his birthday (which is tomorrow).

DH randomly asked me this morning whether I'd planned anything for it and when I said no why? He said i should have asked my family to do the same for SS. He works all week and apparently doesn't have the time to be planning parties (I'm part time). I will add here that DH has no family here, they are all abroad and not close.

Aibu to not have arranged anything with my family for SS and to not rush around doing it now? Happy to go for a meal just us but not asking my family to mess around now at the last minute because he's not done anything for his own son.

It's not about scoring points. It's just not something that non-parent think they need to remember. You must be married to pretty shit people if you think they might need to be reminded about their own children's birthdays.

You've never said "remember to get milk". Amazing how determined some people are to hold onto a point.

Of course I have. What I'm saying is so bloody simple and obvious it's mind boggling to me that people such as you and @tidalway are still determined not to get it.

Yes I've reminded him before, if it popped into my head. Sometimes it wouldn't pop into my head, especially if it's something he always does normally. It wouldn't then be my fault he forgot.

Unlike tidalway seems to think, that does not mean I'm sitting there thinking "don't remind him, don't remind him, don't remind him" to prove a point. It means what I bloody well said it means - that in the circumstance where I didn't remind him, it's because I didn't have any reason to think I needed to and therefore I didn't think about it. Not that it did occur to me and I chose not to remind him. How can you be so wilfully determined to misread posts that you just repeatedly say "how sad, choosing not to remind their dad to point score". No - not reminding dad because it didn't occur to me because I didn't think I needed to. How many bloody times do people need to say that?

Do you people genuinely always think it is premeditated and malicious if people forget something, or as in this circumstance, don't happen to think to do something they've never needed to do before?

I can't believe how many people think that men are so hopeless that we women need to do their thinking for them. They are more than capable of doing things themselves and why would it occur to me to remind them about something that they have never failed to do in the past?

@HailHale - how did the birthday go?

Yes yes, we got the bitterness thing. It was played out three posts back so maybe try expanding your repertoire. Acrid would work, or even brininess if you wanted a ‘bitter, but in a pirate kinda way’ vibe.

It not occurring to someone to remind their partner of something isn’t point scoring. It’s not like purposefully choosing not the mention it out of spite. OP has never been involved in organizing birthday parties for her stepson, and it didn’t occur to her that she was responsible for not only reminding her husband to remember his own kid’s birthday, but organizing something for it because he had failed to do so. Why would it?

@tidalway well of course it's been mentioned, a couple of days beforehand when it became clear the husband expected a party to be organised but had no intention of doing it. They had already got the boys presents, its clearly been considered.

The point is that given it's the boys birthday, the husband is well aware it's his birthday and OP (and by logical extension, her family) is not normally included in his birthday party plans there's no reason that a birthday party involving OP and her family would be something she'd think she needs to either (a) remind the man about or (b) would become her task to sort.

😂😂 ok tidalway. It's not remotely the case that I had to spell it out in extreme detail and clarity because no matter how many times people explain it to you, you keep responding with the same ridiculous statement that shows a complete lack of ability to understand what they actually said.

If we’re cracking out Shakespeare: “Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.”

A quote for every occasion!

LOL at the dad needing a reminder. Is the bar really that low?
Especially on a year when he knows his child will definitely be with him because the mum is away caring for someone.

He shouldn’t need telling. This year more than ever. It should have been at the top of his mind. OP rightfully thought he would be dealing with it.

Let’s face it. Even if OP did remind him, he’d still be asking what OP is doing about it.

My older DC live with me full time. Not once in the time I’ve been with my DH has he had to remind me it’s my children's birthday. They’re my kids. Not DH’s.

and the husband in this scenario has clearly not forgotten his child’s birthday (no credit to him as it’s his child). He expects OP to arrange a party of her family for his son.

OP has always been told to butt out of her DSS’s birthdays and she is not his mum.

DSS does not have a relationship with OP’s extended family.

OP’s family turned up with a pot luck dinner for OP’s toddler, doesn’t sound like a massive ostentatious party. At their own behest.

OP wasn’t aware or told how long her DSS would be with her and her useless husband.
OP has arranged for birthday presents for her DSS & was expecting to be told by her husband what was expected of her to celebrate her DSS’s birthday. Which seems to be the way both biological parents of the child have treated OP.

and yet people on here have translated that a poor child’s birthday being forgotten.

if his birthday is forgotten it’s because the poor kid has utterly utterly shit biological parents.

Not once in the time I’ve been with my DH has he had to remind me it’s my children's birthday.
This is being deliberately obtuse now, surely. The DH didn't forget when the child's birthday was, but nobody bothered enough to talk about the child and what was planned. You don't arrive at your child's birthday without you and your DH having discussed it, do you? Just book rival parties? No, you say early on "Did you book anything for DS yet? / What's the plan for DS birthday?" Etc.

He's not her child. She's never been involved with his birthday before. His birthday plans have never been her business. His mother doesn't want OP involved. I don't see why it's so hard to understand there was no reason for the OP to think she was needed to be involved this time. Let alone ask her family to be part of it. If her DH wanted her involvement then he should have asked.

What? The child's own parents don't consider her his mother. The child doesn't consider her his mother. You don't just force a child and his actual parents to consider you a third parent. That is a group decision and the group decided she is not his mother.

Why would she ask that when it's never been something she has been involved in? It's never been something she has had to think about before. You're convinced she has purposely not asked because she doesn't care or to make a point when it's actually just because it didn't occur to her. The child's own mother didn't ask either. I find that more suprising.

At the least you'd think she'd want to know if there was any plans that would impact her - ie are there going to be other kids in the house, am I going out for dinner etc?

OP made herself available to celebrate bis birthday, including going out for dinner. She did the right thing, being led by DH as it’s his son but ensuring she was available.

She did treat him like her own though, going by her husband’s standards.

Why not just say it’s OP’s responsibility because she’s a woman? It would be more honest.

All of this.

It didn't occur to her to wonder what an 8 year old under her roof would do for his birthday. That's less effort than I make with DS friends and the neighbour kids! You chat to the child and the parent, significant date coming up, you say "so what's happening on Saturday for the big day?". I can't remember the last time we even had a week without one of us peering at the calendar saying "what's happening on Saturday/ Sunday" even when it's nobody's birthday! But apparently people exist who'll refuse to even remind each other to get milk, because helping each other in a family is bad. It isn't surprising why these are the ones with divorces, they never actually become a unit.