I f*ed up my wife’s 31st bday

Spoiler: this is a “I need to vent” type of post.

Hey.

Here’s the overview of the situation – we’re a Polish-Ukrainian couple living in Austria. We have spent a lot of money to move here (basically we had to sell everything we had in apartment in Poland).

We have rented the apartment in Austria via my wife’s “friend” who basically screwed us and we were renting completely overpriced 40ish square meters apartment (for the price we could’ve rent a house in the suburbs). We were broke at one point. Then the war begun. We had evacuated two kids from my in-laws, as they were staying in endangered zone and it seemed like a right thing to do. It still does.

By that time I had to quit my psychotherapy due to amount of money we had to spend on basic stuff like food, school things, transportation etc. Or, that’s what I’m telling myself.

Anyhow, we finally found a new apartment which is located in pretty neighbourhood, is much bigger and cheaper. I had to ask my company for pre-payment of a bonus to be able to afford all the furniture, so that we won’t be living with packs laying all over the place.

Fast forward – we had plenty of fights in the meantime, due to lack of psychological resources, money and any kind of peace of mind.

Back to the point.

Yesterday (minus-1 to bday) it was all good – I gave my wife’s morning massage, I made breakfast and we have cleaned the house with the kids. After that I went shopping and headed out to my client for whom I’m designing a website.

I was working on it for over 1,5 month now just to afford a gift that my wife has been wanting for a long time now. I got the money, but I had to convert it and it will be no sooner than next week, so there’s an obvious delay in giving this present and an actual birthday.

Anyway, before heading out I borrowed money from my wife (at the moment I have no money left as I’m the one paying for the apartment and the bills) to buy her a surprise birthday cake.

I came back to a homemade lasagna dinner. We had to wait for the one of the kids, as she was getting back from the painting classes.

That’s when the things went downhill.

My wife asked me if can I go to petrol station and buy her a wine (we had a plan to go out in the evening, when the kids are asleep and have a pleasant evening by the lake with some wine).

I told her that I’d like to rest for a little bit, eat something and then I’ll go.

She started to insist, and I stood firmly by what I have said. Then she said “I feel this is ungrateful of you, because I made the dinner and spent hours on doing it”.

This was my trigger, because, from my perspective, I have done a lot that day and I should’ve been able to rest for an hour or so.

We had dinner, I went straight for the wine and poured her some of it. Then I poured myself because I wanted her attention (I have been sober since January this year). At first she reacted like “don’t do it, you kept sobriety for so long”, but I reacted like a child with “so?” and that’s what triggered her, so we had to pause the conversation and cool down.

I have spent that time on playing video games (it’s my go-to solution for escapism) and my wife was sitting in her phone in the bedroom.

By 11pm we were about to go out and have a good time by the lake. But then one of the kids came and told us how she’s not willing to go to the camp which triggered my wife, because we’re keeping them safe from the bomb shelling, and their biggest problem is “I don’t want to learn”. Also, I have to pinpoint that their parents approach to raising them up was “here’s the phone, just don’t bother me”, so that’s basically where it comes from.

After that we talked a little and she needed to vent. She started saying how it’s not how she would imagine her life to be at 31. How she doesn’t have a place of her own, a car or a job that she’d actually like to do. I made a mistake and took it personally. Instead of listening, I told her that’s something that she could achieve with working on it and putting more effort into taking care of herself. Long story short – we didn’t go out. She told me that she regrets 3 years that we have been together and not once have I made her a proper birthday (she’s a birthday person and likes to have a small party and do stuff on that day and it’s not something I wasn’t aware of).

She went to the bedroom to cool down. I made another mistake of following her and I told her to not let me ruin her birthday. She told me to get out, so once I saw she was serious about it – I went out the bedroom.

That’s the point where I poured myself a glass of wine, drank it all at once and went out to smoke a small joint by the lake.

I came back and went to sleep on the couch in the living room.

In the morning I thought maybe emotions are not so hot, so I made a breakfast for her and brought it to her. She told me to get out and take it with me.

Then I made another mistake of coming in to get out the cake from the wardrobe (it’s special type of cake – it doesn’t need to be in the freezer) and I tried to give it as a birthday present. Once more I had to leave the room on her request.

So, here I am now, where I’m completely confused, angry with myself for the yesterday evening’s slip of the tongue and angry at whole situation (lack of money, constant stress, additional people at the house).

I don’t even know what to do right now, cause I feel like whatever I’d try will be considered as an attack/insult and could worsen things even more.

I did send her text with the birthday’s wishes and she removed it from the messaging app. So I sent it via different app, and now I regret it because it seems really desperate.

Anyhow, thanks for the safe space to share all of this.

Have a good weekend!