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

He knew her life was short, she had exceeded doctors expectations🥲. My daughter asked a few times will we ring aunt x and it was never the right time for him. I would remind him
and I would be deemed to be nagging. If I rang I was over stepping. Then time passed and now it is too late.

Well you’ve said it quite a bit on this thread op: it annoyed you.

Maybe try to put your annoyance aside since they are grieving - and it won’t have escaped them that they didn’t make the call.

Them feeling guilty won’t bring the aunt back or let them put it right.

Presumably her husband never thanks anyone for other stuff but I agree, daughter is probably taking the lead from her father but should’ve sent a thank you card.

She was not your relative stop obsessing, are you this obsessive about everything?

OP- I realise now as I skimmed before that the gift was for daughter. Not a joint gift. Why didn’t she write to her aunt? She’s seventeen years old not seven.

This is on your daughter who's very nearly an adult.

You're doing her no favours by putting all the blame on her dad.

And picking a row with him at this particular time was cruel.

At least you can bask in your righteousness, so I guess that's something?

Thanking people is your value, not his. I think your value is better, and a lot of men cop out of this sort of building social capital, but he’s an adult and gets to decide how much effort to put into his relationships all by himself. You aren’t his mother. You would be unreasonable to get angry at him in any case. You are very unreasonable to do so now.

Or phoned her and accept the conversation would be difficult.

Jeez, she'd only have to do it on birthdays and Christmas.

Aside from the fact that you're rubbing salt into the wound that he just lost a beloved relative, which is the kind of behaviour the ends long term relationships, this was nothing to do with your husband. Your "child" is 17 years old. If she hasn't learned to dial a landline and be a bit patient with a hard-of-hearing old lady, you've both failed.

If you apppreciate other perspectives, here is mine, unvarnished.

What the fucking hell is wrong with you?

I appreciate your response never looked on it like this. We are from very different cultures. I maybe just need to let him at. I do remind him to call his parents, family etc. I maybe just need to stop that.

It doesn't matter. Your husband had just been told he was losing someone he loved and his mother was losing her sister and you think the most pressing thing was expressing your annoyance? You're seeing your husband grieving and instead of looking to ease it, you're wishing he felt worse.

You owe your husband a sincere apology.

Your "child" is 17 years old. If she hasn't learned to dial a landline and be a bit patient with a hard-of-hearing old lady, you've both failed.

Perfectly put.

Honestly, that's the long and the short of it for me.

My dad is 93 and very very deaf. My DC always make the difficult phone calls to thank him for his gifts.

I'll be honest, they don't look forward to it but I'd be ashamed of them if they didn't put themselves out.

And his accent is hard to understand too.

I knew her well and seen her often when I lived in my husband country. She was very kind to me and continued that kindness to my children.

So your DD is actually 17, not 7 as I'd wrongly assumed! 🙄

If the accent was such an issue on the phone for DD, she could have posted a thank you card, you know, in the post using a stamp to the aunt that lives abroad!

Too late now and no point continuing on months later on about it when the family are grieving!

I don't think YABU. As it goes, the situation is now ended so there isn't much point re-hashing it. You're right that he's behaved rather shabbily, though, taking his old aunt for granted and failing to support DD's good manners.

It's really very normal to have thoughts of "I wish I'd done/said" when someone dies. Perhaps this is yours regarding the aunt? It's a pity, yes. It is, though, unlikely to have been a major issue for her as she declined

If there are other hard-to-understand relatives, it would be better to send a written note-card in future.

So your daughter wanted to thank her (and I can fully understand why she didn't call, I'm not berating her for that) but her dad let her down so you DD is probably feeling guilt in her grief and your DH probably feeling doubly guilty in his grief and you are STILL insisting now is the right time to pile on the guilt?!

WTAF is wrong with you?

You are being PHENOMENALLY unreasonable for making an issue out of this now.

Your only concern should be supporting your husband though his grief; your difference of opinion on present etiquette with DH and DD is of absolutely zero consequence at the moment.

Wrong time to be having a go at your DH, especially as he can't do anything now.
Why didn't you get your daughter to send a thank you note? I actually think her speaking on the phone for 20 seconds is more disrespectful than not speaking to her at all
Your DH is grieving. Don't pile more guilt on him. This might be the wake up call he needs to actually keep contact with his family.

Ffs, these replies.

If he loved the elderly, terminally ill woman that much he would have made the effort to make a bloody phonecall.

Yes, I’d absolutely have asked him if he had called her too, OP.

Maybe he’ll have learnt a lesson from this.

Anyway, your daughter thanked her every other birthday and Christmas, so it’s not the end of the world. She knows she was appreciated.

It was a gift for the seventeen year old daughter, not him. It was up to her to send a card if she wouldn’t phone.

Yanbu. I’d be really pissed off in this situation. So rude not to say thanks for a gift at any time, but knowing his aunt was unwell makes it all the worse.

Yes, why support your partner in times of loss when you can dismiss their grief by instead insisting they must not have really loved the person.

If your response to your spouse hurting over the loss of a family member is to pile on and hope they learn a lesson then you have no business lecturing anyone on kindness or showing people you care.

Ah thank you, but I do think I didn’t pick my timing well this afternoon to repeat what I have said this past few weeks. I always loved being in the room with this relative but we never worked on the phone. I do think I have handled this very badly today. But here that is what Mumsnet is for. I came in asked the question and I can see that I could have handled this better.

I think you need to leave your husband alone. It sounds like his aunt was very thoughtful. Would she want this argument do you think? I’m guessing not.

He may reflect on it in the future and may make more effort to keep in touch with others, but now isn’t the right time for you to go on about it.