Sometimes it is important to set boundaries with your family members before they start taking your actions for granted!

This mother shares how her SIL expected her to plan her son’s birthday but she backed off at the right time.

Check out the full story.

AITAH for not planning a double birthday party for my son and nephew?

I (26 F) have one child who will be turning 2 this year. My brother (29), let’s call him Jeff, and his wife (29), let’s call her Zoe, have 2 kids (9 M) and (5 F). My son was born 2 days before my nephews 8th birthday.

For context, last year, Jeff and Zoe were a one income household and they were struggling a bit. (They have had 2 incomes now since the end of last summer.)

This is where everything gets tricky…

When I started planning my son’s first birthday, the weekend day that would work best for most family members to attend just so happened to be on the day that fell between their birthdays.

My husband (30 M) and I agreed that it would be nice to include my nephew in the celebration considering 1) his birthday would be the very next day and 2) Jeff and Zoe weren’t going to be able to afford much of a party for him.

So, we collaborated with Zoe and got plans set in place to have a double birthday party at a water park. She invited her family and we invited my husbands family.

My husband and I paid for the party and only asked that each person attending pay for their ticket in, as that would have been too large a cost for us to cover (we have bills to pay too).

Things seemed fine at first until…

There were 10 free tickets included in the birthday package however, we were willing to pay for a few extra people if they 100% could not afford a $25 ticket.

We did not want money to stop anyone from coming to celebrate with us.

But, the majority of attendees would have to pay their way in. Everything was coming out smoothly and most everyone that was invited had confirmed they were coming.

So, day of the party, everyone is there and having a great time aside from the food included in the birthday package not being enough for everyone.

My husband and I were already a tad over budget so my mom bought more food for everyone. The rest of the day was really good. Everyone had fun and everyone was happy.

UH OH…

This year, my son’s birthday just so happens to fall on a Saturday. This works great because most of my husbands family works week days aside from his mom.

But she already reached out to me to ask if I knew when we were going to have a party for him so she could plan to request off to be there (she did not get to make it to his first birthday) so it just made sense to go ahead and set the date for that Saturday.

I did not have a definitive plan as far as location or activity but at least we knew a date to shoot for.

So I went ahead and made a Facebook event for that date and invited everyone that is important enough to be there.

I made a post on said event page asking if everyone would want to go to that same place this year seeing as everyone had a lot of fun last year.

She was trying to have a nice arrangement for everyone…

I was immediately met with excitement and it seemed like a no-brainer. I was not going to buy the birthday package again however because that was very pricey.

I decided I would buy food and cake elsewhere and we could picnic before going to the Waterpark this year to save on expenses.

This seems like a better idea anyways since it is cheaper to pay for group tickets than to have everyone pay separately (there is a discount for groups of 15 or more) and if we have a picnic first we won’t have the issue of waiting at the gate for last minute stragglers.

(We did have a slight problem with that last year)

BUT… shortly after making this event page and polling the family, I get a text message from Zoe. It states,

This is where things get worse!

“we should combine the boys’ birthdays again”

“And I think we should change the date”

“Maybe the week before their birthday would be good. Because the week of their birthday Jeff is on call so he won’t be able to go.”

My response:

“I’m not changing the date. My husband’s mom already asked off for the day of his birthday.”

She then preceded to tell me that my mom wasn’t sure she could get the day off of work (for context, I live in the same town as my mom, brother and his wife and kids.

UH OH…

My husband’s family is 4 hours away and the water park is the halfway point, 2 hours away for everyone attending.

The possibility of my mom not getting the day off is important because she would be Zoe’s ride as they do not have a car that would do great with a 4 hour round trip) so if my mom could not go then none of them could go.

Then she said, “you didn’t even consult us on this to see if we could make it.” To which I responded, “why do I need to consult you on my son’s birthday?” And she said that she figured I’d want family there.

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Things escalated between them…

I do want family there and that’s why I went out of my way to plan this 2 MONTHS in advance and invite everyone 2 MONTHS in advance and poll everyone invited (2 MONTHS in advance) to see if they want to go to the same place as last year.

But I’m not going to be able to cater to EVERYONE and if I’m going to take anyone into consideration it’s going to be the family that lives 4 hours away and doesn’t get to see my son as often as the family that lives right down the street from me.

So Reddit AITAH for not planning it as a double birthday party?

YIKES! That sounds horrible!

Who would have thought relationships would cripple over a birthday party?!

Let’s find out how people on Reddit reacted to this one.

This user knows having separate birthdays is the only logical way to go about it.

That’s right! This user knows what the other mom is up to!

This user knows SIL doesn’t want to do the work.

This user knows this woman is not at fault here!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a friend who is upset they missed out on cheap festival passes due to her pal’s indecision.

This user thinks the SIL is just too much!

Somebody did great by not stepping back!