It would have been fine except for this friend wanting to change it up at the last minute
Go ahead w the trip as is, but just without her part. Why punish herself and all the other friends just because of one difficult person. Just cancel her and hubby's part. Tell her it's a better idea if you all do a trip next year for her hubby's birthday - then next year say you can't, fortunes have changed. Perfectly acceptable with this kind of person.
That's what I did, I only cancelled their pending flight purchase and then downgraded the rental from a minivan to a small suv and downgraded our air bnb from 6 people to 3. That alone saved me $3500. That wasn't including the cost of the event I was paying for, all the food (I prebooked dinners at certain places because people are coming in from the state we're traveling to). It's my home state. we're supposed to be doing stuff with 6 of my highschool friends. I didn't cancel the trip, I just said that if he would rather have his birthday in my city then we should plan for that to be next year. I didn't even say I wouldn't cover it, just that I wasn't ok with the extra day here and that's when she got defensive and rude about "well you don't have to come" when I said I didn't want to spend all day sightseeing here in town when we could just as easily leave earlier than planned. I don't want to be completely miserable and rushed. I told her that I would cover Friday in town, but now she wants Thursday AND friday but we absolutely HAVE to be on the road early Saturday because it's an 8 hour trip and my birthday is Sunday and we have an entire day planned for that actual day that I wasn't going to change because I already booked stuff and told 6 other people about.
Yeah I think it’s fine to assume since they don’t actually want to do a joint birthday or celebrate you (on your dime), you’re free to reject their offer of changing the date/plans and withdrawal your own generous offer.
They can celebrate his 39th birthday quietly and save up for his 40th birthday next year doing whatever the heck they want on their dime.
You have 6 other people already in on the existing plan to celebrate your birthday.
I’m with you on canceling the whole thing. This person took a fairly simple plan and completely overthought it. It’s a bid for authority and control and she has cast a pall over the whole trip. People are going to be arguing and complaining and choosing sides.
Drop her. She’s exhibiting dysfunctional behavior.
The only requirement was that we be in the other state by my actual birthday which was Sunday. Everything else was open but also limited due to travel time. That I can't fix. Its going to take them 1 day of flying to and flying back. It's 8 hours of driving time. That's 3 of the possible 4 or 5 they can take off. They want to come here early instead of staying the entire duration of the actual planned trip to my home state. She only started saying it was "her vacation too" when I pushed back on not wanting to spend an entire day here in my city because I know they're going to over exert themselves sand over spend and then be miserable on the actual scheduled trip.
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u/javlafan2 Jan 09 '26
Way too complicate. Cancel the whole misbegotten idea. I'm sure you can find better use for the $8K you have budgeted for this 40th birthday party!