Did I overstep?
Hi Reddit,
I am a 50f with 3 adult children F29,M27, F23. I raised them by myself and went to school and worked at the same time. In fact I’m still in school, now working on my doctorate. All of my children are college educated and have good jobs. They each have a partner and I really like all of their partners and have been able to maintain relationships with all 3 of them and their partners. We even take family trips, the 7 of us. So the girls have been talking about doing a trip to Vegas for about a year. I’m not really a Vegas fan, I lived and worked there for about a year, but I’m always down for a family trip because we all live in different states. So in February I reconfirmed with everyone that we are going to Vegas on this___ date. There was some issues with the dates but we finally got the dates set. Also another important point,they all have birthdays around this date and 3 of them are turning 30. I thought we could celebrate their birthdays in Vegas and as a Birthday gift for everyone I would go ahead and pay for their hotels room instead of giving them cash. So I did purchase the 4 hotel rooms and pay for them for 4 nights -At a Ceasars location in Vegas on the strip.
Then my daughter’s fiancé started complaining to my other daughter and her boyfriend that I overstepped and saying he didn’t approve it and he didn’t know about it and I was making decisions for everyone. But I have this all in a group text message from all the way back to August 2025. And he definitely said he agreed with the plan and the dates. He just got back from another country and was also complaining how expensive it is here and how cheap it is there. But I told him I purchased the rooms and that was my birthday gift to each of them. And he still kind of made me out to be like controlling or something.
So I canceled the rooms. I told them that they are all adults and can certainly afford to purchase their own rooms. And I don’t even know if this trip is even going to happen. It’s funny how quickly things just fall apart. I feel really hurt because no one backed me up, knowing that this has been confirmed for a couple months.
I did apologize in the group message for overstepping. But I also feel like they are kind of being ungrateful. My parents would never pay for my hotel room- they don’t even celebrate my birthday. I had a rough childhood and I really wanted my kids to have an easier life than I had,so I worked really hard to make sure they were safe and had opportunities I didn’t have. I guess I really don’t have anywhere to vent …any thoughts are appreciated.
TL;DR- So did I overstep by purchasing the hotel rooms as a birthday gift after we had the dates set for a trip?