AIBU to stop singing around my family after their comments?

[Situationallystuck]

I usually sing when I'm happy. Little ditties and bits of tunes, sometimes a full on song. My voice isn't x-factor winning, but it isn't unpleasant. I was in a select choir when I was younger so I know I can carry a tune. I don't make a big deal about singing, and don't try and take centre stage with it at all, more like I'll sing along to a song on the radio or join in with singing at church etc.
Recently on holiday with my husband and teen children, my eldest said that they don't like it when I sing. I understood this to mean in public, which I get, teens don't want their mum attracting attention. I acknowledged this, but then it turned into a session where my husband said he thinks my voice is terrible and I should never sing. That it's horrible when I do. The teens nodded along. I was really hurt. But I figured maybe they got caught up in the situation, later I asked my husband if it was really that terrible when I sing and he told me that my singing should be best kept for when I was alone.
So, today, I didn't sing at all. They all keep asking me if I'm alright because they can tell something is different, but I haven't said a word about the singing and neither have they.
I feel like either the biggest fool in the world for inflicting my singing on the people around me or an absolute arrogant sod for thinking my voice was not unpleasant. I don't want to be a fool or an arrogant sod, so I've decided not to sing again.
I reckon the first time they will properly notice is when my husband has his birthday next month.
I guess my question is, would I be unreasonable to never sing to/with them again, even though I know they will be sad or hurt that I'm not singing happy birthday? They would obviously prefer for me not to sing at any other time.

You want to feel loved and love is generous by its nature - tell them how they have made you feel. I sing incessantly and really have an awful voice. I wouldn’t expect my nearest and dearest to be horrid about it though.

I can’t sing and don’t sing. My husband and young adult kids don’t just sing, they all hum and tap and whistle, sing and are generally noisy. Two of them are good singers. Sometimes I find it joyful and sometimes I want to kill them. But I don’t tell them to stop unless I am watching TV. It’s about them feeling comfortable in their own home. OP your family was cruel and could have phrased it better.

I hate that baseline human activities like singing, dancing, art and being creative have been turned into skills, instead of just something we do. Everybody these days seem to think that the point of these things is to be good at them, not just doing them because it’s just something we do, the way bees build hives and birds sing. They bring joy, and fuck anyone who says you shouldn’t do something that brings you joy just because you’re not Celine bloody Dion.

Sing OP. Sing your heart out, sing until your throat is sore and you feel like your chest will burst. It’s how we know we’re alive.

Agree with this. Lived with a singer/actress/dancer type at uni, and she used to drive me nuts. She could sing very well, but breaking into song and accompanying choreography first thing in the morning was just too much… maybe I’m the grumpy guts but there’s a time and a place and the people you live with shouldn’t be your captive audience, especially not now you know their thoughts on it.
OP- we have loads of women’s singing circles around where I live. Maybe you can join something like that and get to do what you enjoy with like minded people. I absolutely don’t think you should stop singing at all, but choose your times.
Equally, not singing happy birthday just seems incredibly passive aggressive if I’m honest. It seems like you’re actually waiting a month to get your moment of revenge and guilt trip everyone. That’s a bit bonkers really when you think about it. Just communicate what’s bothering you.

As G.K. Chesterton said, 'If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.' So, even if you were bad at it - which I don't believe - you should carry on singing!

The only assumptions are yours - you've added your own spin onto that. She didn't say she carried on at all. They handled it horribly and they have hurt their mum and wife. It's completely unnecessary.

There's a huge difference on singing constantly - which would be awful for everyone else- to singing happy birthday.
Me and my husband both sing often at home. If one of us didn't sign for a month, no one would notice. You must be singing a hell of a lot for your family to notice on day one.

I strongly recommend you get a few private singing lessons for yourself. Don’t tell your family. You might hold the tune but be slightly off key? I’ve no idea. All I know is that I did a few private singing lessons and it fixed a few bad habits I had and bingo, suddenly I went from having a bad singing voice to what people now tell me is a lovely singing voice

Don’t be passive aggressive, don’t be petty. There’s no need to not even sing happy birthday- that’s just ridiculous. But I can see how you would feel hurt, and self conscious now- and you probably need to spell that out to DH.

However, is there any way he could have phrased it that wouldn’t have ended up in you feeling hurt? It may just have got really irritating to hear you all the time, singing away. I feel like there’s a chance that no matter how gently he phrased it, you’d have reacted the same.

Is that you, Hyacinth?

Emmmmett........!

I'm intrigued by the way thread contributors seem to divide between those who don't mind or even enjoy people singing in their airspace (I'm in that group) and those who find it stressful or annoying. That was a horrible thing your husband said to you, OP, and I can imagine that it came as a shock. I hope he apologises. The teens maybe get a bye for being At That Age when parents are embarrassing just because they exist.

Of course it's not unreasonable for you to give your family what they've explicitly asked for and to limit the amount of singing you do around them. But from personal experience of something similar I'd say don't let them shut your voice off completely, make sure you have times and places where you can sing as much as you want to.

(I suspect my DH now regrets having squashed all the singing out of me early in our relationship, and I regret having allowed it to happen.)

I don’t think people should be singing at work. That’s just odd?

Personally I would find it irritating if the people I lived with constantly broke into song regardless of whether they had a good voice or not and would absolutely ask them not to do it. Perhaps look into local choirs or singing groups if it's an activity you enjoy. There's no need to stop singing, just do it somewhere where it's appreciated. Also agree with previous posters, there is a difference between not breaking out into song and refusing to sing happy birthday to someone.

It would drive me nuts. Op said sometimes it's a whole song . OMG .

I don't mind snippets but not more or less constantly , I'd have to search for a shed to lock myself in 😅

This

This is my question too, like in what scenarios were you singing? You mention about singing in public, when did you do this - as part of a choir or was it a verse and a chorus of Celine at the Sainsbury’s checkouts? If the latter I can understand more of their frustration! I’m just struggling to understand what it is about it that’s bothering them?

Wow, I had no idea so many women hated the sound of their family members singing.

I'm resolving to sing less in the house from now on - yet another instance of MN sucking the joy from my life 😔

My voice isn't too bad - at one point, I even earned a second income from it.

This didn't just baffle my ex when he found out I had started gigging, he couldn't believe that anybody would pay to hear the sounds coming from my mouth as according to him, I was absolutely awful and there was nothing worse than coming into the house and hearing me singing, so I had been told never to do it again in case somebody walking past heard me.

What he actually had a problem with was that it meant I felt happy and free and people might like it - and worst of all, that I might be told I was good at something. Of course, he chucked in criticism of what I wore for performances and that I was clearly trying to be a teenager/did I not realise how stupid I looked.

I lost the ability to sing or listen to music when my brother died - after what, on listening back to a recording, was the best I had ever sung, it never came back. The sounds just choked and I couldn't relax, breathe or get the sounds out anymore. So he got his wish in the end.

Find somewhere you can sing without them. Don't let spiteful teenagers (who will move onto being horrified that you breathe, speak or even exist soon enough) knock you down like they do other children at the school. Don't let him bully you into silence.

Happy birthday's a shit song, anyhow. And going by what they're saying, they'd only complain if you did join in; let them get on with it.

Randomly bursting into song IS annoying.

I have a relative with form for this. She has a great voice but you can’t listen to any music (TV, radio, etc) in peace without her warbling away. She genuinely can’t conceive that you might like to enjoy a piece of music without her spin on it. She will even sing over a preschooler doing nursery rhymes.

She also used to sing descant at school assemblies when relatives were invited, not appreciating how excruciating that is for her kids!

I read about it in 'Lifting the Latch', about rural life in the early 20th century. The dairy maid singing to the cows she milked, the farmer singing in the fields, the boot maker singing in his workshop, the housewife singing in her kitchen. At one time it was just normal to sing because you felt like singing.

Even in the 1970s many of my friends would suddenly burst into song and we all enjoyed it. And in the pub at that time, an old gent would start to thump time on the table and break into song.

My happiest memories are of my mum singing along to her favourite records, just full of unselfconscious joy.
I would feel deeply hurt by their comments.

I can’t carry a tune, that I’m tone deaf is a running joke in my family. I sing quite regularly, very loud in my car or to the radio, around the house if I have a song in my head, or making up little ditties about what I’m doing.

It sounds horrendous, but I’m not singing for anyone’s enjoyment. I doubt DH loves it when I sing, but I’m not singing for anyone else’s enjoyment and he knows that.

Were you singing on the assumption everyone else was enjoying it? I can’t see any other reason why you’d be so hurt and petty about this. Is he really going to be devastated you don’t sing happy birthday, or just think you’re a bit weird and petty? I’m sure DH wouldn’t mind if I didn’t sing happy birthday if he got peace the rest of the time, but he’d be more perplexed that I’m not doing something that makes me happy.

Yes, it’s like people who can’t resist doing the high descant to ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ and are there in a carol service with the tendons in their necks standing out as they solo descant over the rest of the congregation. Or even worse, the ones who do harmonies to ‘Happy Birthday To You’ outside the context of an actual choir.

And after the ‘Happy Birthday Raspberries’ I would stand up and belt out a rendition of Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday song with a funked up funky dance. 💃

I worked with a lovely woman who had a great singing voice. She sang at office parties and karaoke nights and always went down a storm. However, we were allowed a radio at work and she sang along to everything. Songs, radio jingles, adverts. EVERY-FUCKING-THING. It was infuriating and I ended up asking her to please stop before I murdered her.

So maybe that's it - your singing voice is OK, but the actual singing itself is too much?