She died and no one said thank you 🥲

[Summervibes12]

My husbands aunt religiously has sent our children Christmas and birthday presents for the last 19 years. I am an absolute stickler for the children having to contact relatives to thank them.

My daughter’s birthday was 8 weeks ago and my husband’s aunt sent gift as normal. My daughter told me she is the only person she needs to thank as she wanted her Dad to make the call, and she would go on the phone and say thank you and husband would continue the conversation. Elderly lady, bad hearing and no mobile phone.

I reminded them numerous times to do this. She has a terminal illness and I was always reminding him to keep in touch. We don’t live in the same country.

At 4pm he told me his mother had rang to say Aunt was very unwell. I asked him had he rang her post our daughters birthday and he said no. I said that I thought that was really poor form and he was really cross at me. Said it was not the time to bring that up. She had a terminal illness and could make the effort to organise a present for our child and he couldn’t be arsed to thank her.

Over our 23 year marriage I have stepped in the past and rang for him but this just annoys him. So I stopped doing it.

She died tonight. I am just so annoyed at my husband. He thinks I am being unreasonable for bringing this up.

I get he is upset as he really loved her but men have to step up and show it.

YABU - I should have said nothing,
YANBU - I was right to call him out

Same again here with DH's grandchildren . They got cards for a year or two after we stopped presents, due to never being thanked, but nothing now. No acknowledgement of DH's major birthday a few years ago, nor when he's been in hospital for weeks. Relationships should normally be reciprocal, so if they can't be arsed neither can I.

Well bear in mind I did leave him. I found his attitude intolerable. But it took me a while to see that I had no choice. In this, and in many other areas like housework, mental load and childcare, it was:

• do it all myself because he wouldn’t lift a finger unless nagged.
• nag endlessly to get him to do maybe 5% of the workload and he’d cause arguments and bad feeling
• only do my share, leaving the house in a tip, kids unattended, bills not paid etc. but as a mum I couldn’t do that.

All these options are shit so I left. I still had to do most of the work of course but at least I wasn’t having to face the lazy git every day, I got maintenance and some days off. He stepped up somewhat as he has to run his own home now.

It’s not acceptable in my family or others I know. Women do not get the blame, most have completely dropped the rope. Are you older and in another generation where it was/is still expected? You might want to challenge it directly within your family.

There are wider groups than just your family and others you know

Are you new to MN? There are countless threads about women taking on this mental load.

She 17

If your dd doesn't like using the phone and there are issues with accent/language, I would venture that she should have been sending a thank you note/card.

At present yiu are being unreasonable. Sorry. DH's family have different perspectives from mine. It is what it is. I therefore ensured the DC acted to the higher standard, and it wasn't a phone call or text.