In this situation would you have said something (as I did) or keep quiet?

couponqueen123

notanewuser wrote: »

Not generally, no. But having gone all out when she invited them down for the weekend that their daughter was turning 2 (organised lovely day out, homemade birthday cake, catered to their every whim all weekend) I thought she might manage a card (at least) for DD!!!

Once I could accept as a mistake. Twice had me wondering. Three times had me fuming and this, frankly, is the last straw.

(She also kept the stuff we lent them for the first child they had for their second. I could live with that. But she's now lent/given it all to somebody else without even asking if it was okay. Bloody rude IMO.)

then ask for the stuff back if you want it ?

i still couldn't leave the kids out infact thinking about it my SIL hasn't got my 2 girls a present ever but i have her a yankee candle, billabong hat, jamie oliver knife set for xmas so far i wouldnt dream of leaving her out and i dnt even like her,;) i just smile for the family when around her., why dose your brother not get yr kids something then?

why sink to her level if you think shes doing it on purpose she may not rember life moves fast rember

duchy

January20 wrote: »

Your cousin's husband must have known well in advance what his shifts were going to be, and in view of the fact you had to buy special food for him, because of his food intolerance, I think you were right to air your displeasure.

!

Plenty of people who work in non 9-5 Mon-Friday jobs get last minute shift changes pulled on them for a variety of reasons -sickness of other staff, a client visit, a urgent task that for mechanical or other reasons couldn't/didn't get done in the week ....or just an employer who doesn't have consideration for their employees.. As for the "special food" gluten free stuff has long shelf life as a rule -and no doubt the OP served it the following weekend anyway.

I can understand that to the OP as a besotted first time parent this party took on immense importance but to other parents it is "just another birthday party" . It's not like they just didn't show up-or they were the only guests. When you have kids -and when you work....Things happen. The fact the cousin offered to make the long drive the following weekend (no doubt with a nice gift for the child) so the families could still celebrate together seems to have escaped the OP. Six hours in a day is a heck of a long journey for most adults-let alone children.

I'm not saying the OP wasn't entitled to feel disappointed - but they've made a mountain out of a molehill .....and if there are family plans for Christmas the wise thing would be to apologize before other family members wade in and make a bad situation worse.

ash28

Tyler_Durden_UK wrote: »

It was my daughter's 2nd birthday last weekend, we had invited about 20 close friends and family to come and celebrate with us, some people could not come and let us know weeks in advance. We were a little disappointed at this but understood the reasons why they couldn't come.
Now, the day before the party my cousin calls at 17.00 to say that her and her husband can't come because he has to work. Now we knew her husband works weekend shifts so we let them know months in advance to cater for this. We suggested that my cousin could still come, but she didn't want to (we are a 3 hour drive away) and she invited herself (and hubby) to ours this weekend instead.
I should add that the husband is gluten intolerant and we had (as we always do) got gluten free bread, cakes and biscuits in for him.

Initially I didn't want them to come but agreed with my wife that they could as long as we let them know how much they had pee'd us off.
So they came yesterday, we let them in and made them welcome and had a brew, at this point I said that we were really disappointed they couldn't come to the party and that in all honesty they had pee'd us off a bit, basically we said we just had to get it off our chest and we just wanted to let them know how we felt.
The rest of the day was fine, we went out for lunch etc, nothing more was said and they left with (or so we thought) everyone happy.

Earlier today my wife gets a txt from my cousins husband saying how upset they were that I had said something to them :undecided

Did she really invite herself - we're coming next weekend or was it - can we come next weekend? Doesn't her husband normally come with her?

OH, before he took early retirement worked shifts across 7 days in the control tower at Heathrow....his shifts could be planned to infinity, except when they couldn't, it could have been staff shortage or an emergency etc and he would have to go into work. He wouldn't have said "up yours I'm going to a toddler's party". For him (unless it was serious) his job and the safety of planes and passengers came first.....however our friends and family knew the nature of his job and that things could crop up at pretty much the last minute.....I'm glad we didn't get a dressing down from them when it happened.

When they visited I would have said how disappointed you were that they hadn't been able to come to the toddler's party and would have left it at that - didn't you or your wife tell them you were disappointed when they cancelled? - a 6 hour round trip to be told how p1ssed you were at them is a bit over the top. Rattle and pram spring to mind.

Doesn't gluten free bread freeze? Don't biscuits and cakes have a shelf life? Or can they even be eaten by people who aren't gluten intolerant?

Well, you let them know how you felt a week after the event (they probably thought you were okay with the cancellation - wrong) and they have let you know how they feel and that you've upset the wife (and you thought they were okay with being told they p1ssed you off - wrong)

There are many times in life when it's a case of "least said, soonest mended" - this was probably one of those times.

duchy

hazyjo wrote: »

They wouldn't have said anything at the time cos they didn't get a chance to talk about it themselves. Once they were in the car together going home, you can imagine the conversation. They obviously decided at the end of the chat that if you felt it necessary to raise the issue, they would also let you know that they too were peed off that you brought it up. They'd just come 3 hours (each way presumably) to see you/your family. I'd be peed off too.

.

Jx

This was my reaction too. I really think the OP should try turning it around and try and imagine how he might have felt in their shoes . I did also wonder how old the cousin's children are- if they are much older than the two year old -all of the kids probably had a better time all together without a pack of other two year olds around.

LannieDuck

I'm mostly with the OP on this one. It doesn't matter what the occasion was - the guests had accepted the invitation, and the OP had had to get food in specially. I would have been annoyed at such a late cancellation after they'd had so much notice.

However, if it was a one-off, I wouldn't have said anything. Last minute problems happen, shifts change etc. But if they've done this before, I probably would have said something.

I've had something very similar happen to me in the past - an event we were hosting had to be cancelled at the last minute because of illness (insufficient numbers to proceed). We'd catered lunch for everyone, but wrote it off as 'one of those things'. A few months later, the same group arranged to meet on a day we couldn't make. Despite being the same in number as the cancelled event, they decided to go ahead anyway. It wasn't last minute, and they could easily have chosen a different date. We were very annoyed and wrote an e-mail to say so. It didn't go down well, and we let it drop because we didn't want to make mountains out of molehills. But I'm still glad we said something. It wasn't about the money we spent on food, or the event itself, it was about basic consideration for others' time and effort.

Mojisola

LannieDuck wrote: »

I'm mostly with the OP on this one. It doesn't matter what the occasion was - the guests had accepted the invitation, and the OP had had to get food in specially. I would have been annoyed at such a late cancellation after they'd had so much notice.

However, if it was a one-off, I think I probably wouldn't have said anything. Last minute problems happen, shifts change etc. But if this has happened before, I would have said something.

I've had something very similar happen to me in the past - an event we were hosting had to be cancelled at the last minute because of illness (insufficient numbers to proceed). We'd catered lunch for everyone, but wrote it off as 'one of those things'. A few months later, the same group arranged to meet on a day we couldn't make. Despite being the same in number as the cancelled event, they decided to go ahead anyway. It wasn't last minute, and they could easily have chosen a different date. We were very annoyed and wrote an e-mail to say so. It didn't go down well, and we let it drop because we didn't want to make mountains out of molehills. But I'm still glad we said something. It wasn't about the money we spent on food, or the event itself, it was about basic consideration for others' time and effort.

That sounds reasonable and if the OP had emailed/phoned/texted the weekend of the party to say he was disappointed, that would have been understandable - although it was only a child's birthday party, not a royal summons! I don't think I'd have been bothered if relatives had decided not to travel all that way to one of my kids' parties.

It's the calculated way he waited until they had driven all that way, welcomed them in, had a brew and then hit them with his complaint that would have upset me.

I doubt he'll need to worry about getting gluten-free food in again. I wouldn't be going to his house again after being on the receiving end of that treatment.

System

No I wouldn't have said anything but then again, I'd have probably thought the fact they were willing to make amends by travelling the distance on another day to make up for it spoke volumes.

I cant count the amount of functions weve missed down to hubbys working schedule.

Acc72

LannieDuck wrote: »

A few months later, the same group arranged to meet on a day we couldn't make.

We were very annoyed and wrote an e-mail to say so. It didn't go down well,

But I'm still glad we said something.

Sorry to be pedantic, but you didn't "say something", you took the modern day passive aggressive approach.

Can I just ask - did you send the e-mail to everybody in the group ?

Also, have you been invited to any such gatherings since ?

If so, has the relationship or dynamic of the group changed ?

LannieDuck

Acc72 wrote: »

Sorry to be pedantic, but you didn't "say something", you took the modern day passive aggressive approach.

Can I just ask - did you send the e-mail to everybody in the group ?

Also, have you been invited to any such gatherings since ?

If so, has the relationship or dynamic of the group changed ?

I don't think I was passive aggressive - I didn't make snide comments or veiled hints, I addressed the issue directly. Not sure what's passive about that, apart from the medium I used. But it's hard to say something face-to-face to someone who you only see once every couple of months. You think it would have been better to wait until I saw them next? Isn't that exactly what the OP's being criticised for?

I didn't e-mail everybody in the group, I e-mailled the organiser. The group has since stopped meeting. I don't know whether that was as a result of my e-mail, but I doubt it - I think it was more to do with a couple of the people moving further away.

Lunar_Eclipse

A 3 hour drive, each way, for a 2 year old's birthday party? I'm surprised they accepted in the first place.

No, I wouldn't have said anything, partly because I wouldn't have expected them to come.