Just wondering what others views are on this. So every year I invite my partner’s father over for Christmas dinner (he lives on his own and doesn’t seem to get any other Xmas invites even though he sees other family members all the time). I buy all the food, cook it all, wait on everyone etc. I also usually send him home with desserts and treats etc at the end of the day. A few weeks later it’s my birthday and every year he completely ignores it (I don’t even get a card). He will visit the house and see all of my birthday cards on the mantlepiece but yet he still won’t acknowledge my birthday. He acknowledges my partner’s birthday and our children’s birthdays with cards and presents but he won’t acknowledge mine. My partner and I have been together for approx. 15 years.
Every time he comes to the house to visit (generally throughout the year) it is me who has to say hello first otherwise often we don’t communicate. There has even been many instances where I have said hello and not received a response.
Over the years he has bought a few gifts for me (never for my birthday) but they have rarely been thoughtful, kind gifts (which he gets for others). For example, he returned from holiday one year with a bar of snail soap for me. It was soap made from crushed snails. I was thankful and polite but it was upsetting and in my opinion not a kind gift. When I said thank you he laughed like it was funny.
On another occasion at Christmas he bought everyone new nice gifts but when I opened mine it was a dirty, tatty book that looked like it had been kicked around the floor and had juice spilt on it. My partner saw it and ripped the book sleeve off before marching to the bin to put it in because it was so dirty. No one else had dirty used gifts.
On another occasion we had gone for a walk and my partner and children did a little detour up a little path to look for something while I waited down the bottom with his dad. I was talking to his dad when suddenly (when I was mid-sentence) he walked away and then went and stood about 3 metres away with his back to me staring up at the path waiting for my partner and children to return. I felt so uncomfortable and embarrassed.
This year I’m thinking of not bothering with an Xmas invite. It annoys me that he still won’t acknowledge my birthday which suggests to me that he just doesn’t see me as family. I would love to spend Xmas this year with just my partner and kids but then there is a niggling bit of guilt that if I don’t invite him he is on his own. My partner is always on the fence and doesn’t seem to mind either way. Shall I not bother inviting this year?