My twin and I turned 30 a few months ago and my father (he and our mum divorced ~20 years ago) called me a few days after my birthday asking if I’d like him to arrange a celebratory lunch. I was really happy he wanted to mark the occasion and agreed gratefully right away. The earliest date we could find was today, and my father booked a restaurant in the city where my adult siblings including my twin live. He, my step-mum, and young half sister live fairly close. My husband and I live about 100 miles from this city, usually an easy train journey of 90 minutes or less.
Today though, we had really bad weather that shut down all public transport from my town to the city. Neither my husband nor I wanted to take the risk of driving that distance in those conditions, so regretfully I called my dad to say we wouldn’t be making it. I was hoping that he would offer to reschedule it, seeing as it was in part my birthday lunch. However he did not. I texted my adult siblings to say we wouldn’t be able to make it, and they said that was a shame and we’d be missed.
I had a huge emotional reaction to this and cried all day on my husband’s shoulder. I’m struggling to understand this. My role in the family is one of those who remembers everybody’s birthdays and reminds my siblings, organises family gifts and celebrations, arranges get togethers so we see each other regularly (my mum also does a lot of this and I learned it from her). I am really sensitive and conscientious about this and genuinely enjoy doing it. But now I feel angry and upset that I put effort into coordinating ways to bring us together and make memories, and it feels like nobody thought it would be important that I be there for my own birthday. I probably sound like a spoiled brat as it was also my twin’s birthday who was able to attend, but I wish somebody had at least offered to reschedule it so I could be present- it’s what I would have done.
From this, I’ve learned that I need to evaluate the effort I put in, with a view to doing less and allow others to step up more, and also work on communicating my feelings and needs in the moment. But I don’t know if or how I should bring up my feelings with my dad and siblings. It’s upset me so much that I feel my choices are either to avoid talking to them for a while until my hurt feelings are soothed, or to bring it up with them individually. What should I do? And if I decide to talk to any of them, what should I say?
TL;DR Due to unavoidable circumstances, I couldn’t attend mine and my twin’s long-planned birthday lunch at short notice. The rest of my family went without me and I wish they hadn’t. Aside from working on myself, what should I do now- talk to them about it or not?
Submitted February 09, 2020 at 02:59PM by somethinghairy https://ift.tt/2tITOW2
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