The original post: /r/amitheasshole by /u/CannotOpenDocument on 2024-10-12 09:02:54.

My birthday dinner was supposed to be tonight. It was supposed to be a family dinner at a restaurant to celebrate my 30th. This was going to be my main celebration, because I don’t have a party planned.

This afternoon, my brother & SIL called me to tell me that they were pregnant. I was ecstatic for them & asked them all the usual questions. Then they asked me if I would be okay with them telling my parents at my birthday dinner tonight. They said that my SIL had been very sick, which I empathise with, and wouldn’t be drinking, so it would be easier to tell them. But if I said no, then they would tell them at another event (that’s about them) in a few weeks. I said I’d have to think about it & would call them back.

I was upset they even asked me if it was okay & put me in that position. There have been issues at most of my recent birthdays, my uni grad was ruined by COVID. I’m not inclined to marry & have kids. 30 is a big birthday & probably the last major event for me before I hit 40.

I called & told them I would prefer they didn’t tell our parents at my dinner. They were understanding. But when I said that I felt like they’d put me in a difficult spot & really shouldn’t have asked in the first place, they were defensive and angry. They implied that I should feel grateful that they were considerate enough to ask me in the first place. My SIL yelled at me a bit. The call ended badly & I was more upset than I was in the first place.

This put me in a really bad mood & trying to pretend to be upbeat while at dinner with them was not appealing, so I contacted my parents to postpone the dinner. They wanted to know why, which I couldn’t tell them, & let me know there would be a substantial fee for canceling. They were frustrated because I wouldn’t tell them why I was upset. I said I’d call the restaurant and sort it out, which I did.

I then called up my brother & asked just to speak to him. I told him how I felt, & asked him if he would even consider asking someone that if it was their engagement dinner? He paused for a long time & said that he would if there were mitigating circumstances, such as his wife being ill. I said that it clearly wasn’t that mitigating if they were happy to wait for the other event to announce it, if I’d said no. I also said that I don’t understand why it had to be tonight, if they really wanted to tell our parents, why not organise to tell them tomorrow? He couldn’t really give me a straight answer, but said that they weren’t expecting me to be upset about asking. I said I understood they were surprised, but they yelled at me, didn’t apologise and dinner is ruined anyway, to which he did apologise.

Because of my brother’s work, we can’t do the dinner until well after my actual birthday now, so now the whole thing feels redundant.

I feel like I could be TA bc everyone blames me for dinner being cancelled & the conflict in the first place.