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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/LucyAriaRose on 2025-06-30 04:00:27+00:00.

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is ThwayBirthdayTrad. She posted in r/AmItheAsshole

Do NOT Comment on Original Posts. Latest update is 7 days old.

Mood Spoiler: growth and a good ending

Original Post: June 7, 2024

My stepmother’s birthday is the day after mine. Since my father started dating her (about 10 years ago), I’ve been expected to share almost every celebration we make for my birthday with her. I was fine with it because I was in my early 20s and had other people to celebrate with (namely, my mom and my friends), but it still bothered me that my dad and I couldn’t have our own thing.

I’m married with two kids (8M and 3F), and we have a little tradition. Because I was born in the second half of June, there is usually a Pixar movie playing in theaters. Every year on my birthday, we go to the movies to watch it and then have dinner together.

We’ve been doing this since my son was three (though we watched the movies at home in 2020 and 2021). This year, we’re watching “Inside Out 2”. It will be my daughter’s first time joining us (she just started sitting through movies), so we’re all very excited.

I’d never told my father or stepmother about this tradition. Last week, while we were visiting them, my kids told them we’d be going to the movies for my birthday, and I ended up explaining everything.

The next day, my father and stepmother called me to tell me they were paying for the whole family (me, kids, husband and both of them) to go to the movies and have dinner, just like I’d planned.

It was obvious they intended to celebrate my stepmother’s birthday at the same time. They referred to it as “our birthdays” and suggested her favorite place for dinner.

I told them that while I understood it was close to her birthday as well, this is a tradition intended to only celebrate mine, and I prefer to enjoy it with my children and husband. As such, I prefer to pay for myself and would appreciate it if they didn’t join us.

They’re both very upset. My father called me entitled for refusing to celebrate my stepmother’s birthday as well as mine, and said I’m sending a terrible message to my kids by refusing to share.

I feel like I’m too old to be acting like this over my birthday, but I don’t want to share this tradition with her.

AITA?

Some of OOP’s Comments:

Do they know what theater you’re going to?

We don’t know what theater we’re going to yet, and they won’t be informed once we know.

In response to a longer, downvoted Comment:

Sounds like your and your son’s birthdays are very close to mine!

I’ll take the opportunity to state I’m turning 32. My birthday is not an event I look forward to all year, but I do care about it and enjoy celebrating it. I don’t think there’s a problem with that.

If I’d never been expected to share my birthday with my stepmother before, I wouldn’t mind doing it now. But it happened frequently for years, so “do it this year” doesn’t really apply. And I will turn down any “gifts” that come with strings attached, meals included.

Top Comment:

MissSuzieSunshine: NTA

First of all, they invited themselves to the movie celebration. You didnt invite them. That was rude of your Father.

Secondly, how awful to have to always share YOUR birthday celebration with ‘the new wife’ – Why cant you have a celebration of your own? Its almost as though your Father thinks no one will come if the celebration is only for the new wife.

Lastly, your Father is the one sending ‘a terrible message’ to your kids – by making sure they know how UNimportant YOUR birthday is to him that he forces you to share it with the new wife.

Its sad that the new wife cant be the voice of reason and say ‘its ok, we can do mine separately’ But she isnt, she too is upset about it. Talk about entitled!! (not you!)

I would tell them that this is a family tradition between you, your kids and your husband and they are welcome to create their own 'family 'traditions for the new wife that dont include your family, and that all of you can get together at some later date to celebrate the both of you.

OOP is voted NTA

Update Post: June 23, 2025 (A bit over 1 year later)

I posted here about a year ago and meant to update, but completely forgot about it. Still, I was very grateful for your replies, so I want to let you know what’s been going on.

First of all: as I write this, I’ve just celebrated my birthday (June 22) with my husband and kids. We watched “Elio” in theaters and went to a restaurant I love. It was wonderful. My father and stepmother were not involved, as they’ve traveled for her birthday.

Secondly: your comments on my first post, as well as some other things I had going on in my life at the time, led me to reflect a lot about my relationship with my father. I’ve chosen to save the majority of that for therapy, but what’s most relevant here is that I realized I don’t really know how to celebrate my birthday.

I’ve been expected to prioritize what others wanted since I was a teenager. The things we’d do and the places I’d celebrate at were rarely my picks and always for someone else’s benefit. Whenever I said anything about that, I’d get told I was acting spoiled. My stepmother’s presence made it a lot worse. At least when I was younger, it still felt like it was about me.

I genuinely love the birthday tradition I have with my family, but I have no idea what I’d like to do otherwise. One day, me or my children might grow out of this (or these films will plummet in quality to a degree even I can’t defend). If that time comes, I need a backup plan.

I’ve spent the majority of the last year discovering things I genuinely enjoy doing. I’m almost always busy at work, so I’m still working on it, but I’ve made some progress. Turns out I love pinball, painting, board games and building miniatures. My abilities on all of the above range from mediocre to awful, but I have time to learn. And the list keeps growing. My husband just got me a huge Lego set for my birthday. We started working on it after the kids went to bed, and it will take us a while to finish it, but I love it already.

As for my father and stepmother, after our celebration last year (which they didn’t hijack, as some of you thought they would), things were rough for a while. I ended up having a few long conversations with my father about our relationship. Most relevant here, I made it very clear that the fact we couldn’t at least celebrate my birthday privately upset me a lot, and I will not share my birthday with my stepmother anymore.

Overall, our relationship is doing alright. Not great, but it’s better than last year. I do feel like it’s something we’re both working on improving.

I think that’s everything. Thanks everyone!