As a kid, birthday parties were the best.

Friends, cake, balloons, presents – and lots of fun without a care in the world.

But as an adult, things can be a bit more complicated.

Especially when, aside from all the planning and cleaning up, celebrating your birthday involves juggling the clashing egos of your friends and family.

That’s what the woman in this story found out, when she headed out for her 31st birthday dinner.

But rather than the food, it was her sister’s behavior that made it a night to remember.

Read on to find out what her family said to make her fly off the handle at them.

AITA for going off on my sister and her boyfriend at my birthday dinner?

I (a 31-year-old woman) just had my birthday dinner this past weekend, and it ended in drama involving my sister (25) and her boyfriend (27).

For context, my sister has been with this guy for about a year, and I cannot stand how he treats her.

His family treats her horribly, and he never stands up for her.

But whenever there’s an issue with me, my husband (30), or our parents, he expects her to bat for him.

Uh-oh. Let’s see where this animosity originated.

My husband and I were recently diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

We’ve functioned our entire lives in neurotypical spaces, and now that we understand our brains are different, we still try our best to exist in these spaces, but it can be exhausting and difficult to navigate.

Socializing takes a lot of effort, especially when conversations don’t interest us, but we are always polite.

With my sister’s boyfriend, we exchange pleasantries, ask how he’s doing, and are generally cordial.

But apparently, that’s not enough.

He claims we don’t like him because we don’t engage enough, while my dad and brother practically kiss the ground he walks on.

His family babies him, and he thrives off of it.

Yikes! Read on to find out how this man-child caused drama at her birthday.

My sister brought him to my birthday dinner (which I wasn’t expecting, but whatever).

At some point, my mom comes up to me and says that my husband didn’t say hi to my sister—allegedly, they only heard him greet the boyfriend.

My mom even acted as a witness to this supposed snub, insisting that she saw and heard the whole thing.

My husband clarified that he absolutely did say hi to my sister and the boyfriend, but somehow this was turned into a whole thing.

He got frustrated, and we ended up avoiding each other for the rest of the night, which sucked because it was my birthday and I wanted to be around him and my friends, not dealing with this petty drama.

And then things started to get messy.

Eventually, we talked, and my husband just lost it (rightfully so) because no matter what he does, it’s never enough.

That’s when I snapped.

I went off on my sister and her boyfriend, telling them I don’t care if we don’t meet their impossible standards for conversation.

It feels like they constantly hold us to expectations we’ll never reach, especially as autistic people.

I was tired of feeling like my husband and I were being made out to be the problem when her boyfriend is the actual issue.

Let’s see what happened next.

After I stormed off to cool down, I came back—and they were just gone.

Didn’t say bye, didn’t have cake, nothing.

And they were planning to leave early anyway because they had other plans with his family.

My sister constantly puts his family before ours, despite how badly they treat her.

Now I’m wondering if I overreacted. I know emotions were running high, and maybe I could have handled it differently.

But at the same time, I feel like this had been building up for so long that it was bound to happen eventually.

AITA?

This was her birthday dinner – and instead of enjoying it, she ended up spending it dealing with the drama that her sister and her sister’s boyfriend cooked up.

It seems like they really had no interest in celebrating her, only in attracting attention to themselves and refusing to embrace her and her husband’s neurodivergence.

Let’s see what Reddit had to say about this.

Some comments thought that, if her family were going to act this way, she should stop bothering to invite them.

However, this person suggested that everyone involved played a part in making this situation worse.

But this Redditor had more sympathy for the birthday girl and her husband.

Sure, this woman and her husband have been adhering to social norms to their best ability for their entire lives, but it doesn’t mean that her family can’t cut them some slack every now and then.

How hard would it have been to give her husband the benefit of the doubt?

All this seems more than a little unfair.

She deserves to enjoy her birthday.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.