NC as could be quite outing. Apologies in advance for the lengthy post but I don’t want to drip feed.
It’s my sibling’s milestone birthday next week and I’d asked DM a few times if any plans had been made. She’d said she couldn’t think of anything, so I’d made several suggestions of things sibling would enjoy. I’d also offered to help organise and book, etc. Both sibling and parents live in the city, fairly close to each other, so the things I’d suggested were in the city centre. It takes them 20-30 minutes to get into the centre and an hour or so for me by train, as I don’t live in the city.
Several weeks passed and DM then told me that sibling wasn’t taking the day off work, so we’d have to do something in the evening. I said okay, thinking it would be a meal at a nice restaurant or a private party, as these things had been suggested as possibilities by DM. I was then told that the plan was to go to a pub near to sibling’s workplace, on the other side of the city to where my train gets in, and that meant my EBF baby couldn’t come. We have few childcare options so I explained that DH wouldn’t be able to come either but I would come alone.
I messaged again a week ago asking for details, so I could work out train times and know how much milk I needed to pump for baby. No reply. Yesterday DM messaged saying that they’d chosen a different pub which is another 20 minutes in the opposite direction from the city centre, meaning my total journey would be 2 hours either way. I messaged DM explaining that I likely wouldn’t attend as it was a lot of travelling for a couple of hours in a pub and that maybe sibling wasn’t so bothered about celebrating as hadn’t arranged to have the day off. Sibling has a flexible job where shifts are often pick and choose.
I then got several messages saying that the event hadn’t been organised around me or my baby because it wasn’t my birthday. I pointed out that on my same milestone birthday, the celebration had been organised to be in the city centre as it was easiest for everybody else to get to, despite me living the furthest away. DM has said it involved ‘stress’ for them to get there when actually it was less than half an hour from their house. It also smacked of something thrown together at the last minute which was fine as DH and I tend to do something special together and family things are as well as.
DM is now saying how much planning went into my celebration and that it’s sibling’s ‘moment to be the most important person’ and also that she’s ‘done the best with what she’s been given’ and that ‘it’s not easy being the mum in our family’.
I feel like I am being guilt-tripped which does tend to happen. Sibling and I are very close and I will make the effort to take them out for a meal another time to give them their present, etc. But now I’m second guessing myself and wondering if I should just suck it up and do whatever it takes to be there.