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

But the dying woman still made the effort of sending a gift

We are turning into an ungrateful and unkind society

Read the updates

You are overthinking this and it seems like saying thank you is your “problem” to deal with. It’s the worst time to be bringing this up and harping on about it when your husband has lost his aunt. If you really cared about saying thank you, you would have arranged it yourself. This is isn’t about the aunt receiving a thank you, it’s about your need for your husband to arrange it and your child to say it. It sounds more like a you problem.

For the record, I understand good manners and I understand wanting and needing to say thank you when people send gifts. But in this case it just looks like a power play on your side.

You are a decent human being.

Who has the hearing issue- your daughter or the late aunt? Your post's ambiguous.

If it's your DD then both you and your H ought to have spent the last 12 years helping and encouraging her to write thank you cards and not do the thanking for her.

I declined a call from my dying aunt who was calling from hospital because I was bit busy and could not be arsed to chat

if my partner made me feel bad about this I’d think they were v cunty

in general though you are not wrong , wives should not have to prompt nag or remind their partner yo be decent polite humans

How old is your daughter? Could she not have rung herself? Fwit you chose the completely wrong time to have a go at him.

RTFT I amended this. You’re now the 8th person to point this out.

OP I can see various sides here and agree with some PPs on some points, but I do want to say I know where you're coming from. I think people should be thanked for sending presents and I've always got my two DC to do it - though I help them out by buying cards and writing the details (eg who sent them what, after xmas or a birthday) on a post-it and sticking it in front of them with a pen.

Tbh it's a pain in the arse and I would rather all relatives could just be texted thanks (some can) but I have some older relatives who it's important to, so I do it.

In the case of your H's aunt, it sounds like your H would never have bothered anyway, and his behaviour when she was dying was crap, he should have contacted her anyway IMO, aside from the thank you. My ex was like this, never bothered, couldn't be arsed, he would absolutely have done the same. And while I don't want to be sexist I think there are a lot of relationships where the woman does all this stuff and the man just opts out. It's infuriating and one of the many reasons I eventually lost so much respect for my ex that he is now an ex!

But I also wanted to say I think it's OK to let it go. Think about it, the aunt had many years of sending presents which she probably liked doing, and getting thanks and having contact with her nephew's family that would have meant a lot to her. You did that for her. Ultimately, of course I don't know but I imagine she was probably not obsessing about getting her thanks this time but dealing with her illness and interacting with those closest to her. Overall, you did right by her (though it was your H's responsibility, not yours) and that's what will have made the biggest difference to her - not this one lapse.

There's also a separate issue to do with your relationship with H but I don't think what happened here is the core of the issue. You're possibly annoyed with him and his general attitude and this situation has upset you, but I'd try to take a step back from this one thing.

This, absolutely. Just a few words in a card - how hard is that?

So many people thinking it's the woman's job to sort this

Misogyny in action

BTW, if my brother's kids didn't thank for a gift, I wouldn't hold my SIL responsible for that

YABVU
Your daughter should have said thank you why are you baking excuses for her and not your husband
You could have also called

YABVU
Your daughter should have said thank you why are you making excuses for her and not your husband
You could have also called

Neither can I. The OP doesn’t mention SN so if she ‘struggled’* with phoning she should have sent a card.
*another wildly overused word on MN.

I’m really sorry for your loss, and I am sorry that the majority of posters have been rather unkind to you. I think the above comment is the one you should take on board. Yes someone should have said thank-you and you are right to be bothered that, in the end, nobody did, when she made the effort. Yes, she no doubt would have wanted to know it was received safely and appreciated. But it’s too late and you have to all live with that.

It doesn’t reflect well on your husband and what you do next is maybe something to think about after the grieving.

I'm an Auntie who stopped generous, thought out gifts when the children 18+ because I'd never even get an acknowledgement they'd arrived. Now it's £10 in a card. I understand your thinking but I think you are carrying an emotional load that is your husbands. Maybe the lesson is to consider how many other things you are carrying that are his responsibility and put the load down.

I think you are projecting your own guilt here op. I think she was a lovely lady that deserved much more tbh from your dd, dh and you. She has died now, so you can’t do anything op, but you can learn from this and appreciate other loved ones and make time for them.

And not because it was your ‘job’ as a woman to call her, it’s not about that, it’s about being kind to a lady that has shown such unfailing love for you all.

I can’t bear it when people say it’s not a ‘woman’s job’ - of course it’s not - it’s entirely up to the man too, but I would have WANTED more contact with such a lovely person. It would not have been a duty for me, but one motivated by love and affection.

Oh ffs. A dying woman managed to send a gift. A grown man couldn’t be arsed to lift the phone to say thank you when he knew she was elderly and had a terminal illness.

Oh boo hoo for the grieving man.

Give your head a wobble.

She’s dead!

Exactly this.

I suspect a lot of the replies on here are from people who also can’t be arsed to thank people for gifts.

In my family we do not dwell on a missed thank you, we don't even notice it if we didn't get one as the pleasure is in giving.

You cannot, and should not, control other peoples relationships within their own families. If you dh does not see any need in saying thank you, you don't need to act like his mummy and try to force/teach him to. If you want your dd to say thank you, you arrange for her to able to do it.

Bringing it up as a way to bring him down when the woman has died and he is grieving is a shit thing to do.

You need to reflect on your own behaviour and your tendency to be controlling, not his.

Maybe he didn't like the aunt or care about her or couldn't be bothered. The onus is on him not you.

Then he gets annoyed if you step in.

Sounds like a poor specimen of a man. How can you even look at him?

But he needs to manage his own family relationships not you.

I don't see why a 17 year old couldn't have written a thank you note and posted it. She's old enough to to have thanked this relative herself. Blaming your husband now is unreasonable.

Same. I thought the entire point of insisting on saying thank you was to teach children to do it themselves.