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.

His parent was there. There was zero need for anyone else to "step up". He shouldn't need any other adults to take on parenting for him. He has parents. One was right there, living in that house, doing nothing, while the other didn't bother to ask about her child's birthday either. But it's the OP's fault somehow.

@MRex

this! A voice of reason!

I don't need to ask my DP what his plans are for his children. He tells me.

"I'm going to take Jenny ice-skating on her birthday."
"That will be fun!"

I don't need to micromanage his life or parenting. I don't need to check up on him. I don't need to ensure he's a competent adult. Not asking doesn't mean not caring. It means I trust DP.

Blended families largely exist because of breakdowns of the original ones, so ‘these are the ones divorcing’ isn’t particularly accurate.

And again, there’s a difference between refusing to remind someone, and it not occurring to someone that they would need to.

It is disingenuous to present it as her husband merely being forgetful of his own child’s birthday though, when it’s not the case that he forgot. He didn’t. What he did was expect OP to do the wife/mother work for him, without so much as a conversation with her. He expected her to assume more responsibility for the kid than the actual parents were willing to.

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!

Do you realise how nitpicking this sounds? Yes, it didn't occur to her to ask several days in advance what was happening. To recap, she had zero reason to believe she would be involved in the planning so zero reason to think she needed to do anything to ensure it happened, presents were already bought, and the kind of thing she had cause to think would be happening were not the kind of things that would actually need much, if any, discussion in advance.

You do realise that not everybody is exactly the same as you? You're really going to argue for days that she's a bad person for not being exactly the same person as you and asking the same level of questions as you about things, even given the above which clearly demonstrates why it wasn't necessary and would purely have been a case of curiosity? You can't just accept that she didn't ask because she felt satisfied with the information she had and didn't feel the need to know as much finite detail at that point as you would?

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.

And again, though you'd seemingly finally understood that this is about not thinking to remind him, not about refusing to knowing nothing will happen if you don't, you've reverted once again to spouting nonsense about "refusing" to remind him. One step forward, two steps back and all that!

But apparently people exist who'll refuse to even remind each other to get milk, because helping each other in a family is bad.

An accurate comparison would be if you'e been forbidden from anything to do with buying or even drinking milk, then the person who forbade you from any and all milk related arrangements getting annoyed that they forgot to buy any and you didn't remind them.

It's absolutely not your responsibility to plan for HIS son!

No it doesn't, you can say that as many times as you want, ignoring people explaining how wrong you are, but you are wrong.

What it boils down to is
A) OP cares about him but has never been involved in planning his birthday before and assumed it was getting sorted as usual.
B) Her DH assumed, wrongly, that she and her family would sort it out for him with no consultation.

Stop spouting this immature response instead of acknowledging what's actually happening.

Don't forget his mother. She doesn't care either.

That how you seem intent on spinning it anyway, far be it for anyone to point out that it is clearly not the case. Reality be damned and all that.

“Treat him like your own! He’s your son too, you have to act as a parent”

OP treats him exactly like his parents have

“No, not like that”

Me again!

Birthday was fine, went to a local shopping place, let him choose a nice lunch and then we went bowling. Everyone was fine and a good day was had. No one needs therapy so far.

Aww glad he had a nice day. Honestly the hyperbole and idiocy on this thread blew my mind 😁 I had no idea that stepmothers are expected to do more than the actual parents. Well I did but its never been as blatant as on this thread!

Glad he had a good day. A lot of the replies on this thread were odd. I don't know that many 8 year olds who have parties rather than a day out. Most would prefer the money to be spent on a more expensive present! At least your DH has plenty of time to plan next year's birthday, hopefully he will learn to be more organised in future.

Is it not surely for your DH to plan and organise?

I mean, I think in your shoes I’d have asked before now what he’d planned and arranged but it’s DH’s job to do, not yours

Glad it all went well in the end though

Pleased to hear it went well OP, though not remotely surprised, it was the obvious outcome!

Glad to hear he had a nice birthday op.

I did think it was odd that you and dh hadn't discussed it at all till the day before, but a lot of replies to you were OTT

Also questionable leaving the thread for five days when you could easily have dropped a quick post

Apologies I have a life outside of mumsnet.

The list of things to tell you off for is endless it seems!