To not remind dh of MIL’s birthday?

[BirthdayBlitz]

Name changed for this one. MIL’s birthday is in the next few weeks. We are not close at all, by her choosing. When together (not often at all, we live far apart) we are cordial but that’s it.

Dh is bad with dates and never remembers her birthday. I on the other hand am good on dates and remember it. We’ve been married 25 years and at the beginning we’d do cards, then that fell off and we’d at least acknowledge birthdays which was fine with me. For the past few years I haven’t gotten even an acknowledgment on my birthday. Dh is remembered (his birthday falls on a holiday so it’s pretty hard to forget) and every year I have to remind him to call his mother, usually multiple times.

WIBU to just skip it this year and not remind dh?

OP...your husband could be forgiven for 'forgetting' a birthday once. After that, it's no longer 'forgetting', it's sheer laziness! I bet he doesn't forget when his team are playing away, or when he has work meetings to attend.

This ridiculous idea that 'men forget' birthdays/anniversaries etc is complete bollocks! They don't forget, they simply don't prioritise.

I would have nothing to do with his life admin from here on...as someone upthread has suggested, give him ONE list with all the important dates on, tell him to put them all on his phone calendar, and that this is the last time you'll be supporting his 'memory' 🤦‍♀️

And do it now, in advance of his mother's birthday, so he has to make some sort of effort nearer the time to call her.

Im a fulltime working mother and need reminders. So i set them on my phone and have a calendar in the kitchen. I dont expect my husband to think for me.

I love my husband enough to recognise that he's an exceptionally competent adult, who is perfectly capable of holding down the kind of CEO role that many women are still kept out of, and that he's capable and efficient. He married a wife he views as an equal - his own choice - and he's well able to organize his own life admin.

I don't compute this strange learned helplessness some women seem intent on projecting onto their husbands. Where do they receive these strange impressions that men are seemingly incapable of remembering their mothers' birthdays or doing their own holiday packing?

I have no interest in wifework and I don't do it. If this equates in some people's minds with not being 'nice' to their husbands, then they've inherited a value system based less on equal, loving partnerships than regressive stereotypes. My DH thankfully doesn't buy into this. I'm pleased I have more respect him than this, and he returns that respect with the attitude that he married a wife, not a personal secretary.

I have no idea when my MiL's birthday is. The scant few years she ever acknowleged mine was after DC was born - our birthdays being only days apart - so she could make a point of continually addressing me as Mrs Hisname and DC as Master Hisname. (Broad hint: neither of these are our actual names, and she ignored DH's polite requests to address us correctly).

Even that low trickle has dried up now, and I'm perfectly happy and comfortable with that. In fact, I prefer it. At least it's honest.

Well said @SerafinasGoose it's the same for me & my DH.

It seems more that people dislike their MiLs so will use this to point score. Rather than the actual reminding the husband.

You have not understood the real issue here at all, have you?

I loved my mum in law dearly.
It still would not have been my job to remind her son of her birthday?

I mean, what kind of useless shite can't remember the birthday of the woman who raised him?

When we cover up for these men we are helping them hide the fact their family is not important enough to them to bother remembering a date. Or programming their phone to set a reminder. Or setting up a Moonpig email reminder.

We're helping them pretend to care when the reality is they clearly don't.

Yes I think I have. The real issue is the OP doesn't like her MiL. If she did like her I think she would be more than happy to remind her DH.

So you wouldn't have wanted to send your dearly loved MiL a card then? Why, because she's not part of your family too?

Because it is MIL's sons job to get her a card. Why should it be the wife's responsibility?

I didn't say it was the wife's responsibility. But in my life a dearly loved MiL would get an acknowledgement of her birthday from me too, not just from her son.

Ok, confession time. She was born in rural Kenya a hundred years ago and always said she only knew the season she was born in.

But that doesn't mean my opinion is different . If she or we knew what her birthday was and my husband couldn't be arsed to remember, no way would I cover up for him. I'd also think a lot less of him for it not mattering.

I'd probably have sent her a card from me and told her her son's being useless again.
And she'd agree with me. That wonderful woman always had my back.

But I remain adamant that we should not collude with our men to hide their lack of interest in their family.

DH sorts her card and gift and writes them from the both of us. I will send her a text wishing her happy birthday and we'll usually go out for a meal too.

I have never and will never remind DH when it is his mums birthday.

No, I wouldn't remind him. I don't remind mine.

No. It’s not a wife’s job to remind her husband of his own mother’s birthday, however nice or awful his mum might be. It’s rarely the either way round. It is more wife work and it’s sexist and unacceptable. If a man can function in other ways, he can remember his own social obligations. It is nothing to do with how much the mil is liked.

I would not want my son’s wife to have to remind him of my birthday. Nope.

Exactly right.

It works the other way, too. My MiL wasn't above forgetting DH's own birthday when he was merely a child. This is why these days we never let it go by unmarked, and always ensure we do something special. It's out of character for DH - he never likes 'fuss' and big events and we even eloped when we married - so for this reason I asked him about it. I think, from memory, she forgot his tenth birthday - now around the age of our own son - to whom I cannot even imagine doing such a thing.

I think it's very kind of him to notice and send cards for her birthday at all. But in my (admittedly biased) view he is by far the better person, and this in no small part is the reason I fell in love with him in the first place.