Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel upset I won’t be invited to his parents 60th?

184 replies

PrueD · 14/02/2025 00:51

I’ve been with my partner for 15 months and I’ve never met his parents. His parents know all about me and he chats to them when I’m there etc but they live in another country in Europe, so he doesn’t see them often.

About 8 months in, he told me they had said I’m welcome to visit any time. I’m now at a point where I know so much about them but we haven’t met. He is also divorced for 5 years.

Now he tells me he and his brother are planning a 60th party for his parents this summer. And tells me we can go on holiday together the next month - I’m basically not invited and I feel hurt.

for all intents and purposes this is a serious relationship and he even spent part of Christmas with my family and see them
a lot. I feel this is just too long to wait.

OP posts:
moanaom · 14/02/2025 05:54

I think a big party like that isn't an ideal setting to meet parents for the first time. It might be that he wants you to meet them in a more intimate setting first?

Basically you need to talk to him about how you feel.

Snoken · 14/02/2025 06:11

Neveranynamesleft · 14/02/2025 04:52

@Ponderingwindow

Total nonsense.

Clearly not since about half the people agree with @Ponderingwindow .

As a foreigner I do too. Some of my family speak good enough English to hold a decent conversation, some understand but won’t be comfortable speaking, some of the older generation and the children don’t speak English. This is not the time and place to introduce you because he’s hosting and he won’t have time to make sure you are comfortable during the party. His focus should be the parents and wider family, you can get to know them at a more relaxed occasion.

UnexpectedCost · 14/02/2025 06:15

OldChairMan · 14/02/2025 04:21

What complete nonsense. Every sentence!

Show quote history

Agreed. I met my husband’s family at his sibling’s 40th. After six months I think. It was a great way to meet them all and they were lovely.

Surely these parents aren’t pathetic enough to think the attention will be taken off them by their son’s partner coming. I would be delighted in their position!

RubyRedBow · 14/02/2025 06:22

I think you should outright ask him.

OneShoeShort · 14/02/2025 06:23

I think this party is likely not the right occasion for this, particularly given the language barrier. Your partner will be hosting, as will his brother and (essentially) his parents. They'll all have a ton of things and people in need of their attention, so it's a really poor time to get to know them and if you don't speak the local language you're going to struggle to mingle with all the guests independently. And frankly that occasion is supposed to be for him to center his parents and their marriage.

But you're certainly not unreasonable for wanting to meet his parents at this stage. Instead of asking where your invite to the party is, tell him you'd like to go ahead and plan a trip to meet his parents and see what he says.

TheyAreNotAngelsTheyDontCareAtAll · 14/02/2025 06:35

Ponderingwindow · 14/02/2025 03:47

His parent’s 60th wedding anniversary party is hardly the place to introduce a girlfriend.

unless the two of you can make a trip to visit before the party, you really don’t need to attend this event. You haven’t been there for any of the 60 years they will be celebrating, you would just be stepping in on that day. His parents must be in their 80s. This isn’t a more the merrier kind of celebration. It’s for people who mean something to them.

This.
One doesn't introduce a new partner at a family event such as this. It really is about family, despite him apparently not seeing them very often, and in this case, everyone will be trying to include you/speak English, which is exhausting and detracts from the main event.

Georgraphy has meant he's met your parents and they've been nice. So? Relationships aren't all checks and balances; if his parents lived in australia, it would be even more difficult - would you expect to go to a strange family 60th celebration there?

Lyannaa · 14/02/2025 06:37

They should have invited you, end of. How disrespectful. Which country out of interest? I'm assuming it's not Italy based upon my own experiences.

TheyAreNotAngelsTheyDontCareAtAll · 14/02/2025 06:37

Lurkingandlearning · 14/02/2025 03:36

He’s enjoying your family’s hospitality and getting to know them but doesn’t think you are worthy of the same. Doesn’t see you as a long term GF and although happy to eat at your family’s table doesn’t want to involve his own family. Or his family are so awful he doesn’t want you to meet them.

You’ve got to ask him why you’re not invited. You can’t have a relationship and not discuss things that concern you.

The different languages isn’t a barrier. You can probably learn enough to get by at the party before the summer. You’d only be having basic chats even if you all spoke the same language

Oh, please. What a conclusion to leap to

Lyannaa · 14/02/2025 06:38

Ponderingwindow · 14/02/2025 03:47

His parent’s 60th wedding anniversary party is hardly the place to introduce a girlfriend.

unless the two of you can make a trip to visit before the party, you really don’t need to attend this event. You haven’t been there for any of the 60 years they will be celebrating, you would just be stepping in on that day. His parents must be in their 80s. This isn’t a more the merrier kind of celebration. It’s for people who mean something to them.

🙄🙄
No

TheyAreNotAngelsTheyDontCareAtAll · 14/02/2025 06:39

OldChairMan · 14/02/2025 04:21

What complete nonsense. Every sentence!

Show quote history

No, it is not.
It's a sensible response

Lyannaa · 14/02/2025 06:39

There are always people on Mumsnet who like to disagree for the sake of it.

Flipslop · 14/02/2025 06:43

PrueD · 14/02/2025 00:59

He doesn’t have kids with his ex wife and they haven’t seen her since the divorce according to him.

I did think that maybe a concern is language barrier at a family party. He said his parents speak decent English but I’m not sure about everyone else.

how do I raise this without saying ‘where’s my invite!?’. We have agreed we are a serious item and seem to be heading that way. Tomorrow my parents are taking us both for dinner and to the theatre. I actually find it quite rude.

Edited

Why haven’t you had this conversation?? You dont have to say you think it’s rude just maybe to say that you’d love to come to the party, is that an option?
blows my mind that people in adult relationships come on here to say how annoyed about a situation they are and haven’t even broached it with their partner 🙈

Tourmalines · 14/02/2025 06:43

Lyannaa · 14/02/2025 06:39

There are always people on Mumsnet who like to disagree for the sake of it.

i don’t think it’s for the sake of it . It’s because they have different opinions .

Meadowfinch · 14/02/2025 06:45

Is he planning on staying in the UK or are you his uk love interest until he goes home and marries locally?

Does he come from the kind of place where parents expect to have a say in his choice of wife?

Is there a difference in religion?

TheyAreNotAngelsTheyDontCareAtAll · 14/02/2025 06:47

PrueD · 14/02/2025 00:51

I’ve been with my partner for 15 months and I’ve never met his parents. His parents know all about me and he chats to them when I’m there etc but they live in another country in Europe, so he doesn’t see them often.

About 8 months in, he told me they had said I’m welcome to visit any time. I’m now at a point where I know so much about them but we haven’t met. He is also divorced for 5 years.

Now he tells me he and his brother are planning a 60th party for his parents this summer. And tells me we can go on holiday together the next month - I’m basically not invited and I feel hurt.

for all intents and purposes this is a serious relationship and he even spent part of Christmas with my family and see them
a lot. I feel this is just too long to wait.

Do you speak their language fluently enough to hold your own at a party, or would your DP need to be at your side permanently in order to translate?

Do you or your family ever talk to him in his language to make him feel as if you and they are trying to make him welcome? Remember, it's very tiring to hold a conversation in anything other than one's first language, so is he the one always making the effort?

IDontHateRainbows · 14/02/2025 06:48

All these people saying not the right time / place to meet them.... surely she wouldn't meet them for the first time at the actual party, she'd fly out and meet them in the preceding days/ day before? Sounds like the perfect time to meet them.
And we don't know the country but it's hardly like Europeans don't commonly speak English as a second language.

I'd be hurt too.

TheyAreNotAngelsTheyDontCareAtAll · 14/02/2025 06:55

Lyannaa · 14/02/2025 06:37

They should have invited you, end of. How disrespectful. Which country out of interest? I'm assuming it's not Italy based upon my own experiences.

What difference does that make?

DutchCowgirl · 14/02/2025 06:56

I don’t understand why you can’t just speak to him about it … all these horrible assumptions people are making here and the only one who can help you out is your partner! You don’t have to ask “where is my invite?”… just ask if he thinks the party would be a great moment to meet his family. And maybe he has a good reason and maybe not, but this bunch of stranger on the internet don’t know the truth, we can only make assumptions.

Why do you want to share your life with someone you cant address such basic topics?

FrannyScraps · 14/02/2025 06:56

Not the point but...

Am I the only one who assumed this was 60th birthdays?!

All my in-laws (divorced so two sets) are in their 60s (dh and I are early 40s)

If they really have been married for 60 years and ate probably in their 80s then their won't be all that much longer to meet them!

SunblockSue · 14/02/2025 06:58

I would be seriously pleased that I didn't have to go!

SamPoodle123 · 14/02/2025 07:03

This is a big red flag and I would be concerned. I would have an open and honest talk with your bf and see his reasoning. No reason is good and if I was not invited after the talk, I would explain I am not wasting my time with someone who does not want me to meet his family. My first seriously relationship was with a guy who would do something like your bf. When his parents would visit he did not arrange for us to meet (until the end when we were breaking up!!!!! bc I was moving back home to my country). Anyway, with my next serious relationship (same culture as my ex) within a couple months he invited me to the family summer house, which his entire family were there!! I was expecting it to just be siblings, but parents were there as well. I married him 1.5 years later.

ThisNeverEndingShitShow · 14/02/2025 07:04

Ponderingwindow · 14/02/2025 03:47

His parent’s 60th wedding anniversary party is hardly the place to introduce a girlfriend.

unless the two of you can make a trip to visit before the party, you really don’t need to attend this event. You haven’t been there for any of the 60 years they will be celebrating, you would just be stepping in on that day. His parents must be in their 80s. This isn’t a more the merrier kind of celebration. It’s for people who mean something to them.

This.
The focus at their party should be on them, not the introduction of you to the wider family and friends.
Also you wouldn’t know anyone so he would have to be by your side all night instead of letting his hair down.

SamPoodle123 · 14/02/2025 07:06

Also, language barrier is a LAME excuse. If it is a problem now, do you think he would ever marry you? If that is what you want. There will be people there that speak English that he could stick you with. My dh is from another culture and when we do group events, I was always sat next to someone that speaks the same language.

HoraceCope · 14/02/2025 07:09

i think it would be polite if you didnt go

OneShoeShort · 14/02/2025 07:10

I would have an open and honest talk with your bf and see his reasoning. No reason is good and if I was not invited after the talk, I would explain I am not wasting my time with someone who does not want me to meet his family.

This is not how you have an an open talk in a relationship. Deciding in advance that the other party's thoughts and feelings are irrelevant because you're right no matter what is actually the exact opposite.

Swipe left for the next trending thread