To have gotten DDs BF a gift and not DS GF

[sophntheo]

DH and I have 2 adult children, both live far away from home now and we are very happy for them. DD is 23, she met her BF a little over a year ago, DS is 27 and met his GF just under a year ago.
Despite DD living on the other side of the world, I feel like I really “know” her BF, he is so lovely, we met him in the summer and you can just tell he adores DD and she does him, they make a lovely couple. Whenever DD FaceTimes and he is around he will always say hi, have a chat and ask about our lives and things we have told them about. He is just genuinely lovely and so supportive of DD too as she is about to start a course and will be out of full time work for several years and she was worried he would resent this but he is her biggest cheerleader.
On the other hand, we visited DS in October and over the 2 weeks didn’t meet his GF, said she was busy/tired etc. We have met her on FaceTime 2 times and spoke to her on the phone once.

DDs BFs birthday was today, he has a very specific interest and we were able to find a gift he would love, we sent it to him. DD sent a video to the family group chat of him opening it, it was very sweet and he was so grateful. DS and his GF are in this group chat too.

Now DS has messaged me saying that they have seen the video and it’s made his GF upset that we have sent DDs BF a gift but didn’t send one for her birthday last month. I gently explained that we don’t really know her at all and we wouldn’t have gotten him anything if it hadn’t been for seeing something he’d love. DS just messaged with “Do better” .

For Christmas we sent our children gifts and then got each couple a joint gift - sports tickets for one and concert for the others.

Was it unreasonable to not get her a gift when we don’t really know her?

From what we’ve seen about DS and his gf I doubt they will be visiting either way.

This. If she is too busy/tired/can't be arsed/ whatever, then yes you haven't met her. Her and their choice. I wouldn't be tolerating that level of rudeness from my DC.

I would not want to alienate the possible Mum to my grandchildren. You could have sent a voucher if you didn't know what she liked. You could have asked your DS what his gf liked. If my future MiL had snubbed me like that I'd not be too keen on making efforts to take any DGC to visit them. Think about the future. You were insensitive to give DD's bf a gift to open in front of DS's gf.

Not exchanging gifts with a complete stranger who has declined prior opportunities to meet one is hardly a "snub." For fuck's sake.

Btw where was the girlfriend's gift to OP?

I have two children with my partner and i’m still not a member of the in laws family group chat so she’s doing better than me! Anyway, your son is being very cheeky considering he doesn’t send any gifts himself unlike your daughter so i’d of perhaps pointed that out to him when he hit me with “do better”. Despite her rudeness though i’d tread carefully next time, send a voucher or flowers and just keep the peace as it’s not worth the drama if she is permanent and grandchildren become involved because they’ll probably obsess over any favouritism there too.

You have not aknkwledged posters calling out your son for being rude, sending “do better” to your mother is rude irrespective of why. Does he usually speak to you like that?

I also don’t agree with people saying you have to give equal gifts to both, if she didn’t make any effort effort with you just send a token gift, relationships are two way streets.

I’d be having serious words with any child who thought it was reasonable to tell his parents to ‘do better’. How rude.

I don't think it's unreasonable not to send presents to your children's partners. I've been married for 30 odd years and have never had a birthday present from my PILs. I don't expect they even know when my birthday is - why would they? I have no idea if they buy their other children in law birthday presents or not, it's none of my business, but i'd probably feel a bit hurt if they made a fuss of one of the others in public I suppose.
It was a bit insensitive of your DD to post the video in a family chat as it accentuated the fact that you'd treated the 2 partners very differently. Your DS and his girlfriend probably feel that it's been rubbed in their faces that you like his sister's boyfriend better. Of course you may have good reason for that but it would probably be prudent to make it less obvious.

⬆️ this

Very unreasonable and I’d be hurt. You sound like my dad. He buys gifts for his kids many differing bf/gf but not my husband. Then gets arsey when I don’t send them a card,

They've been together a year and she leaving work. Will he be supporting her financially? Because that's insane.

I wonder if he bothered to get her anything for her birthday.

I think this is a really good way of handling it. Putting it back on your ds without being overly critical. I wouldn’t, however, send her a gift now. This is you drawing a line in the sand. And also a way in of being able to openly ask when you can meet her or when is he going to bring her over to meet you etc because obviously as she is important to him, she is it’s important to you. Hopefully one of two things will happen. Either she will be more receptive to getting to know you. Or if she is trying to alienate him from you, your ds will see her for who she truly is.

GF’s birthday was last year so this can be a 2025 policy to buy gifts for both!

In the circumstances I probably wouldn’t have sent the BF’s gift because I would have been aware that I hadn’t given a gift to the GF. But I understand how it happened, you saw something appropriate and bought it.

That message from your DS however was spectacularly rude. So it’s fine for him to never send gifts or cards, it’s fine for his GF to rudely swerve meeting you, but it’s you who needs to ’do better’? I agree with PP, I’d tell him you assumed the relationship wasn’t serious as he doesn’t talk about her and she had the chance to meet you and didn’t take it up.

As for PPs accusing you of favouritism towards your DD, I think it’s the opposite. It’s the classic case of a DD making all the effort in the family while a DS does fuck all.

Oh gosh no!
She has part time work lined up and we are covering the fees and her half of the rent/bills.
We also covered all of DS uni fees/rent/bills including his postgrad so no favouritism or anything.

You were unreasonable . However, your ds is bloody rude telling you to ‘ do better’

The main reason that yabu is that they are both on a family group chat with you so you could have forseen this.

I don't buy gifts for people I've never met in person. I wouldn't expect my parents to buy gifts for people they've never met.

He's not introduced her as a serious relationship, so he can't expect you to treat her as such.

I wonder why DS didn't contact his dad about this. Does he blame women/you and DD for other stuff?

Literally everyone here has been unreasonable except the boyfriend.

I’m not sure how DD has been unreasonable. She had no way to know we didn’t gift DS GF anything and the group chat didn’t exist on the GFs birthday so couldn’t have taken any assumptions from that.
I can see how everyone else has been unreasonable in some way or another though.

She didn’t need to post a video of her boyfriend getting a present from you, it’s very braggy. She or he could have just thanked you directly without making it into an event.

This is the most sensible post I've seen. To the point without being rude, it's a good balance.

Your DS needs to step and and facilitate a relationship between you and his gf.

We always send videos of family opening gifts since they moved away or FaceTime but due to them being busy FaceTime wasn’t an option. Sometimes it’s nice seeing someone’s reaction to a gift if you are excited for them to have it, just like you would if you gave it in person. I assume she used the group chat as it’s currently the most active chat we have.

This! It’s not about how much you like or know them. It’s about treating your children equally. I treat my kids other halfs as an extension of my children and as equal to each other as possible. I never even tell my DH my opinion on them. How I treat them is totally independent of how they treat me.i do that for my children.

That's really sad😪I give presents to my adult sons gf's. They are part of the family. So you actually sit there every birthday and they just ignore you. What about Xmas . Do you exist then? Totally Flabergasted. 30 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And your PIL never said lets send Mrs Avocet some flowers or take her for lunch or buy her a bracelet! Beyond my comprehension. Sad for you. But you seem to be ok with it so thats's the main thing iguess.