Woman plans birthday for BF, he doesn't show up on time because of work, she cancels it.

In theory, birthday parties should be fun.

But the logistics around them - both emotionally and financially, can hamper the joy. This applies extra if you're planning a party for a partner.

In a popular post on AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she's wrong for canceling her boyfriend's birthday party after he failed to show up.

She wrote:

AITA for canceling my boyfriend’s birthday party after he failed to show up on time?

It was my (26F) boyfriend’s (30M) birthday last month. We didn’t spend it together because he was away with family. So I decided to organize him a birthday party with a couple of his friends. Everything was settled, the place, the time, everything.

Maybe three hours before we needed to leave for the party, he got a call from a colleague, asking if he could come help him with something at work and my boyfriend accepted. He promised he’d be back at time for the party. We were supposed to leave at 7:30pm but he wasn’t there so I tried calling, he didn’t picked up.

So I left a voicemail, saying I was leaving for the party and he needed to join me there. By 9pm, everybody was here but not my boyfriend. We all waited for him but at 10, as he still didn’t arrived or gave any news, his friends started leaving one by one and I decided to cancel the party altogether. I texted my boyfriend: 'Party cancelled, everybody went home and so did I.'

When he came home an hour later, we had a fight and he left. I didn’t know where, until his mom texted me, saying that I was horrible for what I did and that he was gonna stay at hers for a while. I do feel bad because I know he was really excited about the party.

People jumped in with all of the thoughts.

TemptingPenguin369 had a clarifying question:

NTA. But if I were you I'd be wary of a 30-year-old running home to mommy after something like this, and her texting you. Does he often have colleagues calling him to go into work from 4:30pm to 11pm without contacting you the entire time?

OP responded:

He does often go help out colleagues and sometimes they go out for drinks after but he usually text to warn me.

suzy7517 wrote:

He's a mechanic? In my decades of owning cars, no mechanic works that late. My dear, i believe he is cheating on you.

NTA.

loverlyone wrote:

I can tell you the day my partner’s mother intervenes where her nose has no business, in a situation where he was clearly in the wrong, is going to be my last day with my partner. He ran home to tell his mother instead of doing what he said he was going to do AND she didn’t tell him he was an AH, herself? Psssh. Hard no. NTA.

Gladtobealive2020 wrote:

NTA. You are mistaken. If he were happy about the party he would have made an effort to attend and would have been in communication with you rather than not responding to calls. So he was gone with no contact from 430pm to 11pm? Sounds bogus and sketchy to me. Where does he work and what kind of work does he do?

Sounds like he got an offer to hang out with a 'friend/colleague' on his birthday and decided to do that instead of return for his party. At the very least he is an a**hole for not responding to calls when he was late for his party. The very least he could have done was be honest and tell you he wasn't coming back, knowing people were waiting for him.

The fact that he didn't call you with an update is most likely because he didn't want you to question him about what he was doing, where he was, and when he would come back. He went to his mom's not because he was upset you cancelled the party, but because he wanted to hide from you and avoid arguments and discussion about why he didn't return for his party.

My recommendation is to cut him loose. I also can almost guarantee you that he didn't communicate with you because he knew you be upset and question him and he wanted to avoid that because he already knew what he was doing was wrong.

Clearly, OP is NTA and her boyfriend is full of red flags.