BF booked surprise trip knowing big birthday bash arranged

[Grumpynan]

Little long winded, so sorry.

little back history, daughter 30 on Easter Saturday, lives with us and her younger sister, moved back home about 18 months ago after a really bad couple of years. Slowly recovered, her health improved and she’s getting her life back and got a new BF about 4 months ago.

last year her birthday was not so good, but made the best of things and tried to make it special for her. About 6 months ago DH and I got talking and decided to book something special this birthday, it is Easter after all, and she’s 30 !. So we booked a lovely cottage in Devon, it’s huge, all her brothers/SIL’S/neices/nephews and 2 of her best friend are coming 12 adults and 6 children !.

so far she knows nothing about it, the plan is for everyone to travel down Friday (tomorrow) and be there when we arrive at lunch time. We will tell her when she gets in from work tonight so she can pack. As far as she’s concerned it’s a quiet Easter as everyone has other plans.

discussed all this with BF a few weeks ago when it was obvious they were getting serious and he will need to be included. Plan with him to arrive tonight to have dinner, bringing his bags with him !.

so this morning he messaged, all good, bags packed and he’s coming straight from work. Wanted to know when everyone would be giving gifts ? I replied probably Saturday morning . He then came back with “ brilliant I’ll try and hold back that long , but I’m so excited I might give her mine tonight 😂 “. I replied, “ sounds intriguing, do I get any clues, or is it a secret? ‘

his reply ——- “ I’ve booked tickets for a show in London she wants to see, it’s on Saturday, so I’ve booked to stay in a posh hotel Saturday night, so we will get to spend the weekend in London and I can really spoil her “

what the f*&%

I asked him about the holiday we’ve arranged and the table we’ve booked for Saturday to celebrate, he knew all the arrangements, and seemed happy with them, I’m just totally bemused.

hes just replied, to say he has it all planned, travel with us tomorrow morning as planned, open presents Saturday morning with the family, then he will whisk her away late Saturday morning for a lovely weekend in London, then see us at home sometime Monday when we come home 🤷🏼‍♀️

I haven’t told the family yet, DH is out until 3 so will tell him then. I just don’t know where to go from here .

sit in the corner and cry, shout and scream at him, just go with it. Whatever happens now, it’s ruined as far as I’m concerned. I know that sounds selfish, god knows what my DD will say, do I tell her what’s planned for the weekend or go along with his changes ?

Bloody hell, imagine being the two best friends in that situation and the new bf whisks your friend away to London leaving you with you pal's parents and nieces and nephews! The man is either hard of understanding or a real piece of work.

I also think huge red flag if you’ve invited her best friends and he is basically love bombing her. He could have done london next weekend! How far is the drive to Devon?

You tell him a definite NO.
His plans will NOT be happening.
He is NOT to present this to your daughter as a gift.
No no no no.
Be firm.

This a giant red flag.

People really need to stop projecting their teenage angst on the Op’s 30 year old daughter. They have been planning this big celebration for 6 months! The new boyfriend is only 4 months in and is creepily trying to spoil the family treat and love bomb the daughter.

Definitely tell her first and tell her you invited her new boyfriend along. Don’t bring up his “present” at all. You are trying to inoculate her against his manipulation.

Definitely meet her from work and tell her about the trip. Be clear that boyfriend has been invited too and has known about it since x date, but today he tells you that he’s booked a competing event on Saturday and you aren’t sure how to handle that, as you don’t want to be rude to him, but not sure why he would then book something to remove you from the trip. Be clear he knew about your surprise trip before booking his thing.

@Grumpynan are you going to ring the BF? Or leave that up to DD?

Just thinking he might be able to postpone his plans if you tell him sooner rather than later

I agree, I'm eternally grateful that my parents kept their noses right out of my relationships, especially at 30.

We all go away together, but go do our own things as we want, we have gone away together like this before just never at Easter.

Any chance at all he didn't realise it was specifically a birthday think and not just a big family holiday?

Hope you don’t mind me playing devils advocate here, but could there be a chance that he’d already put his plans in place a few weeks ago, before knowing about the Devon trip? Maybe he was a bit of a coward and didn’t know how to say. I think it’s going to come down to what your daughter is happy with and if it’s his present, you’ll need to let it happen. If she’s genuinely happy then that’s all really. Families are all different and it could be that, although thoughtless, he might come from a family that don’t do big celebrations so he just thought combining the two would be fine. To me it’s probably nothing more than that

OP realises that her daughter has had a tough two years and her last birthdays have rubbish.
She knows her daughter better then you do..

Maybe give him the opportunity to rearrange - it will be enlightening how he reacts:

"Hi Sydney, we have given this a lot of thought and given that we have a family meal booked for our daughter's birthday on the Saturday night, it really won't be a good thing for you to change the plans that we've had in place for our daughter for the last 6 months. Our plans have always included the wider family and friends. We invited you as a guest. Perhaps you didn't mean to ride roughshod over our celebration of Edith's 30th, but it is not something we are at all happy about. Please can you rebook for another date and we will not discuss this again? If you don't consider rebooking and this turns into a battle of wills, please consider yourself uninvited. Beryl."

Can you speak to or message the friends that are going, do they know the boyfriend?

It’s not interfering in your adult child’s life to book them a birthday surprise, especially after a difficult time. And the bf was not on the scene then, and has since been invited and accepted

Not this ⬆️Far too aggressive and will guarantee a big fall out. Approach it in a more friendly way !

What a dickhead.

Tell him that this has been booked for some time, the entire family are going and she is not available for London this weekend.

Tell him to rearrange.

If it were me I would offer to negotiate with the theatre and hotel on his behalf.

He sounds like a right melon.

Oh wow.
He knows you had an entire family weekend planned and decided to take her away from that?
Yea sit her down, tell her what’s planned. Tell her BF was invited for the whole weekend and knew all the plans and then said he’s going to tell you he wants to leave Saturday morning.

utter utter cunt

Alternative theory.

You told bf about family trip, he told daughter, this isn’t how she wanted to spend her 30th and so she’s got him to book what she actually wants?

30th birthdays can do funny things to people.

If she however loves nothing better than a big family get together, then it is likely entirely his doing.

I'm commenting on the posts saying OP needs to put him in his place, take back control, tell him what's what etc. No one irl behaves like that surely, not when their child is 30 years old!!

One of you needs to speak to the boyfriend and tell him he needs to rearrange his plans as yours were made first. Tell him ASAP as he probably won't be able to do anything on good Friday. He sounds incredibly thoughtless of he knew you had already made big plans.

I don’t know how anyone can defend the boyfriend. If you know someone has made plans, and you try and make “better” plans at the same time, it’s just wrong. Why would anyone do that? You basically know you’re going to be upsetting people. It’s mind boggling that the boyfriend booked show tickets and a hotel, knowing his girlfriend already had plans that weekend, that involved a lot of other people going to a lot of trouble.

But what all this confirms is what I already thought - surprise parties/trips/events are a recipe for disaster.

I don’t even think it should get to the stage where anyone tells the DD what the idiot boyfriend has done, he needs to be told you’re all sticking with the original plan and he’ll have to rebook his treat for another time.

He sounds like a right idiot

OP has texts to prove he knows so it would actually be better for him to lie that he didn’t know so her daughter can know he is also a manipulative liar.

Bit bizarre to play along until the very last minute and then trample all over plans you had made months in advance. The thing is, he could have booked her a lovely trip to London for another weekend and gave her tickets as a gift to open rather than attempting to spoil everything.

If he did tell your daughter and they organised it together as an excuse to leave, surely she could’ve hinted weeks before that she would like to do something with her bf rather than a big celebration with all her family and friends.

I’d message him as you set out to meet DD-

Hi, Phil. Such a shame about your plans but there’s no way that will work with the big extended celebration we’ve already arranged. Her friends have arranged to come and would be very disappointed for her to not be there. I do hope you can get your money back and do it another time!