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

[PrueD]

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.

Why on earth can’t you say where’s my invite ?
you are not a dirty secret , divorce us sorted , no kids

what is wrong with women that were too scared to ask for what we want

who cares if language is a barrier ? Quickly learn please to meet you and my name is ., I am xx girlfriend… lovely to see you
I am learning xxx

honestly if he doesn’t use this as a perfect opportunity to introduce you I’d be questioning his commitment

Stop trying to second guess his reasons and just ask him straight out why you're not invited! It's not hard - you just have to have a conversation with him.

Grand. But he needs to be honest and say that

It isn’t an anniversary party! The OP has said that it’s a joint 60th birthday party. It’s hardly likely they will be old enough to have been married for 60 years!!

FWIW, I agree that you should have mentioned them before now, in which case it wouldn’t have been awkward for you to attend the party.

I would want to be invited. Can you learn some of their language to show your meeting them halfway so to speak?

OP I think you really do just need to have a conversation with your bf and ask him.

But I will say that I met my now DH’s parents and siblings early on and spent regular time with his family for well over a year before he met my dad and stepmother or siblings. That gap had absolutely nothing to do with me not feeling the same about him as he did me or me not being invested in the relationship. It was because my relationship with my parents was very different than his relationship with his parents and the distance (my family is in the US, his are in the UK like us) really exacerbated that. I went to boarding school as a teen then moved to the UK at 18 so my parents stopped being part of my everyday life early on, and that added on to some tough parts of our relationship to make me anxious about the idea of bringing anyone home. And the distance meant that we couldn’t just meet up with them for lunch or similar - we had to travel to another country and stay with them for multiple days, so it was automatically this big meaningful thing to everyone and (even worse) if it didn’t go well or if I was just a stressed out mess it was going to be this prolonged horror with no easy way to end it early. At the same time it didn’t feel as urgent because my parents were so separate from my life in the UK; it didn’t feel like this weird thing for them not to have met my boyfriend after a year or two because they also hadn’t met anyone else in my day-to-day life or seen the places I spent my time and lived.

I would never have chosen a milestone party for my parents (especially one I was responsible for throwing) as the occasion to make that leap. It would have just been piling stress on stress. And then my bf meeting my extended family was an entire additional anxiety because they’re a lot in every sense of the word, and of course the two couldn’t be done at the same time by bringing him to a family function because my parents would be unhappy and embarrassed to show up at a family function and not know the boyfriend I had brought.

Maybe none of that applies to your bf, but maybe some does. Families are so complicated and varied that it can be hard to understand how others will feel about things like this.

They live in another country so you would have more than enough time to arrive before the party and meet them in private. It’s not like they live around the corner and you’d have to walk into a room full of people.

I don’t think there’s any way I could learn it to a decent level in a few months. He himself admits it’s a difficult language.I do intend to learn more than the basics soon.

he told me they are basically fluent in English previously. May not be the case for all relatives but yeah.

Yay!!! I was right ✅️

If it was a 60th wedding anniversary, it would be for the grandparents not the parents.

Just tell him you'd like to come. I don't get the consternation.

If he says no, ask why not, and go from there.

Huh. Just ask him. I'd be assuming I was going and asking him out booking my flight.

His parents haven't invited someone they don't know to a major event. Fair enough

I don’t really understand that. Seems a perfect time to introduce her to me. It does not mean the party will be all about OP. We all met my brother’s gf for the first time at my dad’s funeral.

And they're 60 not 80!

Wrong. They’re a doddery 60 year’s old so can’t possibly imagine having to meet a new person (or should that be interloper) at their party.

Some really weird thought processes here. It’s a birthday party not some underground secretive cult meeting.

I expect the same people who are horrified at a new-ish girlfriend attending a big party, are the ones who were Bridezillas at their own weddings, who need guests to follow a colour theme! I know that I would be delighted at my 60th birthday party or indeed anniversary, to meet a new serious partner of my kids!

I have always celebrated milestone birthdays with big parties. However, that is not because the I want the attention on me. Not at all. It is entirely because I love getting the people I like, close together under one roof and having fun with them. Birthdays are just a good reason to do so!

Well that's quite a leap, and not a very nice one! I had a very small wedding, no colour themes and I definitely don't want to be the centre of attention at every opportunity. That's not what it's about.

However, as a person who has lived abroad for most of my adult life and only seen my family once or twice a year I can see that a rare and big family get-together that I am hosting isn't the best time to introduce a new partner who doesn't speak the language. Selfishly I would want to spend that time having quality time with my extended family, speaking my native language for once and not worry about the new partner enjoying themself or having anyone they can talk to. He has already said they can go together the following month and spend time with the family, I don't see why that is so horrible of him. It will be a much calmer setting.

So do I. I think you need to understand what’s really going on, I know she regretted not getting to the bottom of it from the start,

Tbh, if you’ve been with him 15 months already, I’m surprised you’ve not already learnt a bit of his language? I started learning my DH’s language pretty much as soon as we got together; not because I was presuming we’d end up marrying, but because I was curious about his language and wanted to prepare for any potential meetings with his family. Never a bad thing to learn a new language!

I think it’s easy to misinterpret actions. His family might not be that close, so to him it’s maybe not a biggie if you’ve not met them. He could equally be thinking to himself, ‘why hasn’t PrueD learned my language; she can’t be that in to me’.

It’s a birthday party? Wow. I completely change my answer. I would absolutely expect to attend a 60th birthday party, even as a new girlfriend. Completely different situation than a 60th wedding anniversary.

I’ll stand by this opinion… you’re not a serious as you think if you can’t even ask your partner why you’re not invited. A serious healthy relationship should mean you’re able to speak about your feelings and question things if you don’t think they are right.

Strange isn’t it! I’m in my early sixties and cannot imagine being put out because my son brought his gf. So what if I hadn’t met her or even if she only spoke Klingon! This should be in the ‘only on Mumsnet’ thread.

Couple of points come to me.

how serious can it be when you can’t communicate with each other . Him not explaining why you aren’t invited, and you scared to ask.

and maybe his parents don’t want the first time to meet you there, but feel that’s unlikely.

I agree with those saying a party for the parents isn't the ideal time - how serious is the relationship if you can't have a conversation about it?