It is my (41f) birthday. Today. My husband (49m) of 19 years can be an asshole, I don’t need anyone to tell me that. His shitty behavior is few and far between though, most of the time we get along, love each other, sex is great and fairly frequent, he is very unselfish in bed, cleans up around the house, ready to jump in and do whatever needs to get done with the kids. Generally a good husband with some bad qualities. The problem arises when we try to resolve conflict and he is extremely defensive to the point it’s aggressive. Hence my post. Last year on my birthday, I didn’t “tell him clearly enough” what I wanted him to do while we planned the evening, he ended up snapping at me then refusing to speak to me, and I ended up crying-driving myself and our kids to the trampoline park. (That’s where I wanted to go. I love it:) He doesn’t.) This year I was clear- I said I wanted to do the pool or another type adventure park by us, think Dave and Busters but also with a zip line. He said oh no, don’t plan anything, he has a surprise! While I was out running a quick errand with my daughter today, he told me to come home because the surprise was almost there.
It was that he invited my mother over for the day.
My mother and I aren’t close. She is emotionally cold and distant to the point she can be rude to me, and he knows our relationship is unfulfilling at best and disappointing at worst. She will sometimes just pretend I’m not speaking and start talking to someone else while I am mid sentence. We don’t spend time together, and my husband doesn’t particularly like her either.
And so far he has spent the day giving us 20 minutes at the table having cake, then he went in our hot tub- alone- now he’s downstairs playing some video games. I am stuck here with my mom who will probably stay until bedtime. I feel like my day is ruined again, I’m seething mad. In all fairness to him, he bought me flowers and several pieces of coach jewelry, even though I don’t wear jewelry which he knows. I feel like he threw money at it, invited my mom to babysit me, so now he can do what he wants. How do I bring this up without causing a raging argument? I feel angry and overlooked, I feel like I was “handled” and then bailed on. Please give me some blueprint for how to handle this.
Tl;dr My husband tries to do my birthday his way, somehow escapes the day to do something else, doesn’t listen to what I want and it ends in tears. I want to broach the subject without it seeming like an attack.
32 comments
Honestly, this should start a fight. Why are you trying to spare his feelings when he very clearly is not trying to take care of yours? He put zero thought into either of your birthdays and ruined both of them for you. I bet if you looked closer, you would see a pattern of this.
That, my dear stranger, it total BS. That’s not a birthday, that’s punishment with a consolation prize.
May I suggest that you plan your own birthday celebrations going forward. He should not contribute anything…at all.
Happy Birthday and sorry.
Cause an argument. Why should you not? He didn’t bother. Let him know you know he didn’t bother and you’re disappointed. Let him know it makes you not want to put effort in for him, because you know he won’t make any effort for you.
Maybe just a “as you well know my mother is not a birthday gift so tomorrow (or whatever day you pick) will be my do over”
Adventure park for sure
That is bullshit. Next year plan yourself something that does not involve him at all. Plan a fun weekend with you and the kids. Let him know he is invited to join you, but you will be doing XYZ.
I hope you will send/sent your mom home at the very least to salvage some of your evening.
For his next birthday tell him you have big plans and then invite your mom over. Then you leave to get a mani/pedi by yourself.
I’m so sorry. when you saw her you should have left. Its early. You still can.
Go find Dave and Busters by yourself. And a hotel.
Just excuse yourself to the restroom, grab your purse on the way out and don’t come back for a few days.
So this is gonna sound a little b*tchy but I would’ve loaded them all into the car and made him drive us to the fun park and made hubby responsible for the family while I had fun. This is probably why I’m not married 🤣
Narcissistic people ruin holidays/birthdays. I didn’t realize I was with a narcissist until I randomly read the book Codependent No More. I couldn’t unsee it after I had all the info. Go get a fancy meal out in a new outfit… on him. 😉
Some fights need to happen.
So he invited your mother, who he knows you don’t get along with, and bought you jewellery, which he knows you don’t like.
He deliberately sabotaged your birthday. This isn’t clueless incompetence, and you have every right to be completely pissed off at him. Is this really your husband showing you his love? Because it seems more like contempt to me.
Please read your post and comments back to yourself. You spend a paragraph saying how he’s so great, and then in a comment you say he has zero interest in you amd refuses to put in any effort for the relationship. You know he’s doing this on purpose. The only times he’s “great” are when he’s doing something for himself. This dude is an ass.
Your husband doesn’t value you the way you might hope he does. Basic birthday expectations aside, he has spent the last 19+ years getting away with minimal effort toward you. After 19 years, he very well knows exactly what he is doing and all of it is an intentional message to you that you have no value worth celebrating. There is no other way to interpret his behavior after nearly two decades together.
This person doesn’t even know (or even pretend to care) what you want/enjoy in life, and I am not sure another talk to explain his blatant disregard of you will change anything at this point. He’s not going to magically change now when he failed to care about your needs for nearly two decades already.
At this point, it’s about how much you value yourself. Do you really want to spend your life with someone who can’t be bothered to treat you special for one single afternoon out of the year? Is that really too high of an expectation in a lifelong relationship? I don’t think so, and neither do you. Don’t settle for the scraps of someone else’s attention.
i would’ve sent mom out to the hot tub and packed the kids up and gone to the adventure park. if he thinks she’s a gift, then he can hang out with her
I’m infuriated for you! You could try waiting a day or two and then bringing it up in the context of trying to understand where communication went wrong. (Understand that I don’t think you miscommunicated at all–I’m just framing it in a way that MIGHT avoid a fight.) Tell him you thought that you were clear, and then felt disappointed (“I” statements) when he went in a different direction. Ask what he understood from your conversations about what you wanted, and what his thought process was when he decided to invite your mother. Assert that you’re just trying to get on the same page so that you can communicate better in the future.
This MIGHT avoid a fight, but honestly I’m not confident because I don’t really think he acted in good faith. But sometimes people surprise us.
Good luck! I hope you’ll give us an update soon.
“in all fairness he did something easy that he knew I wouldn’t like” ????? girl WHAT?
bringing up extremely valid feelings of disappointment and frustration don’t cause a huge argument, his immature ego does. don’t entertain any discussion about him or his feelings, he can bring those up at another time if he so chooses. right now you are talking about your birthday and his complete and utter disregard/sabotage of it.
It’s time to fight. Ask why he’s mad at you. 😆🤦🏻♀️
Also, this sounds like weaponized incompetence.
On the bright side, now you can feel really secure telling him no if he tries to say he’ll plan something. I always plan my own birthday. I like to throw parties so that’s what I do. My husband gives me a gift and gets to be the bar tender at the party. I always have a blast.
If you’re unable to discuss marital issues with him because you fear his anger, that’s the very definition of abuse, at least the early stages of it.
In any successful relationship both partners shouldn’t fear coming to their partner with an issue that requires discussion.
I also fear his ruining your birthday every year is more of the same disrespect and attempt on his part to prevent anything at all being about you. What he did this year with your mother just feels SO passive aggressive and designed to show you in no small way he doesn’t give two shits about you and what you want/ feel.
While you say your husband has many excellent qualities as a husband and father, his using his anger to squelch you being able to express yourself and your feelings is a giant red flag and one worth looking into with the help of a marriage counselor. If he refuses to go, then begging seeing a counselor for yourself.
Your husband’s been controlling this marriage and you for a long time, instead of allowing you to be an equal, and you’re going to need help working thru this.
If I get a dollar every time I see a post on here that went like “My partner is amazing. My relationship is great except this ONE thing.” and then just list every possible way their partners disrespect them, ignore their needs/ wants, is selfish/aggressive/abusive, I will have enough money to have a luxurious vacation.
Kinda seems like narcassism. Narcs don’t like it when people close to them get attention so they sabotage things like birthdays, holidays, trips etc.
Don’t make a scene. Don’t yell. Just casually tell him
“Last year you yelled at me because I didn’t tell you clearly enough what I wanted for ,y birthday. So this year I told you *exactly* what I wanted for my birthday. And instead of the pool/zipline/theme park like I asked, you invited my b**** mother and abandoned me with her for 6 hours. Next year don’t even bother, I’ll just make my own plans with the kids and you can sit in the hot tub or play video games all day long.”
Then before he can say anything just walk away.
Maybe do it as you leave for work so he can’t start a fight about it and has to think about it all day.
What in the honest fuck??
There’s no way he’s that stupid so why is he sabotaging your birthday?
Weird coincidence, but I left my ex husband after being with him for 19 years.
I first started to realize it was abuse when I went away on a vacation on my own. It felt like I was drunk on freedom. I enjoyed myself without walking on eggshells and I loved every second.
It still took me another few years to admit everything to myself.
He was not just “sometimes an asshole” as his best friend had put it, he was an asshole who was sometimes nice.
His niceties were just placating me in order to get away with putting me down, keeping me low and afraid to go, and boosting himself up by blaming me for everything wrong with him and his life.
Abusers are never all bad. They would all be alone if they were. The few and far between badness is what keeps the cycle going. In the times in between it is just good enough to believe it might change. But that doubt, the fear of when the next explosion will come, it will never fade.
How many ways are you going to let him show you he doesn’t care?
Pawn the jewelry and go on a girls weekend with some friends
From what you’ve written in your post and comments it’s clear that you won’t fight for yourself. I want you to sit down and imagine that one of your kids has a spouse like your husband, do you want that for them? Would you be okay knowing that they are not truly loved? Why would you want that for yourself? Why are you okay with your kids seeing you with someone that makes no effort to actually care about you?
Your husband is intentionally messing up your birthdays, then scares you into not bringing it up. He isn’t as good a guy, as you think he is. Clearly is doesn’t like planning your birthdays. Time to start planning your own birthdays and let him just not. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
From someone who isn’t married, I’m in a fairly new relationship myself, take my opinion with a grain of salt……your husband DELIBERATELY went out of his way to ruin this day/moment for you. He absolutely knows how you feel about your mother and he still brought you two together on a day where you simply wanted to enjoy yourself with your family on YOUR birthday. This was cold, calculated, well thought out and planned. You absolutely don’t deserve that. You’ve exclaimed that things for the most part are good/okay in your marriage, which is great, but to be very honest if this is who he is a person, how do you really change that in someone who doesn’t want to change? It’s possible things can change, he himself has to want to change, if not, If you don’t want your marriage to end, this behavior just may be something you have to deal with/live with for the rest of your marriage, the ball is in your court. I do truly hope things work out in your favor regardless.
> Generally a good husband with some bad qualities.
I don’t think this is an accurate, honest description. This whole post is you making excuses for your husband disrespecting who you are as a person, let alone as a wife and mother.
> he is extremely defensive to the point it’s aggressive
Oh okay, so he’s not aggressive, he just gets so extremely defensive that he can become aggressive.
> In all fairness to him, he bought me flowers and several pieces of coach jewelry, even though I don’t wear jewelry which he knows.
In what fairness? He bought you something that you don’t like. He invited over a person that you don’t like. He prevented you from making birthday plans specifically to do these 2 things.
He knows what he is doing. He hates you. I know that sounds harsh but I wish someone had told me that years ago. Men treat you exactly how they feel about you and we have to stop making excuses for them. You gave him a blueprint for how to make you happy and he did the exact opposite. He ruined your birthday on purpose. BECAUSE HE HATES YOU.
..does your husband even like you ? Like seriously if you read post this instead of living it 🤔 what advice would you give ?