Woman's husband prioritizes sports over her; she considers 'ruining' his 30th.
When this woman is annoyed with her husband, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for not wanting to celebrate my husband's 30th birthday?'
Hi all, I (29F) have been with my husband (30M) for ~10yrs, & married for a few years now. We've had a rocky relationship on and off because he has a serious passion for a specific sport, & I often feel like I'm 2nd best to said sport.
Not only does he have a job working in his sport's industry, but he helps coach a team & during their season has practice 3-4 days a week & for about half the day on Sat.
On top of this he is constantly traveling for events during this season - at least 4 multi-day trips, usually more like 6-8, & two of them are major events & he's gone 4-5 days.
I work 2 jobs, PT retail/food service & FT as a custodian for a school. Because of this, I get the same breaks as the kids.
My husband's 30th birthday is soon, & honestly my field of f**ks is barren. I have always gone all out for his birthday.
I plan parties, make his favorite meal & dessert, buy him presents & cards, plan trips, plan events with all his friends like laser tag... the only time we did something low-key was during the pandemic.
OTOH, my birthday falls right around the 3/4 mark of his sport season, and we haven't ever done anything special for my birthday that I haven't planned, & the last thing I planned was in 2017.
He always gets me some presents & a card, but there's no party, no trips, nothing big because he's always too busy with his sport. Most of the time he misses my birthday itself because he either has practice or he's away at an event.
This year I have 2 weeks off right after my birthday for Spring break, & I wanted to do something for my birthday.
He asked me about a month ago to pick the sport events that work best with our schedule (needed to pick 2 & a back up out of a list of 5 or 6). I said I didn't care, just specifically didn't want the event that is the weekend in the middle of my break.
Well guess what. All the other events were full, so they signed up for the one I specifically didn't want. I'm so frustrated by this, & as a result I just honestly haven't cared about his birthday this year.
We're going on a trip across the country for a big sport event for his birthday, and outside of that I haven't done anything.
No present, no card, I didn't plan a party, etc. He gave me ~24 hr notice that he wanted to have a small get together with some work friends (& other coaches of his team), & ~6hr notice that this get together would be at our house.
We cleaned the house, went shopping, & I made some of his favorite party food as well as his favorite dessert.
The entire time I honestly felt like the maid. We played some party games & I didn't understand most of their inside jokes/references. They talked basically the whole time about their sport, & I just ended up feeling left out.
So WIBTA if I didn't do anything else to celebrate his birthday? I kind of want to ruin it because iIm mad. I'm just so burnt out feeling like I put in all the effort and it's never reciprocated, but I also recognize that I'm a highly sensitive person & I have Autism so idk if this is me overreacting? xo
Let's find out.
sharksarentsobad writes:
It seems like you're about ready to start heading out the door. You've had all you can take, you're done trying, and you're starting to catalogue all the ways in which you're getting nothing out of this relationship but he is.
It's been 10 years and no amount of talking is about to finally make you a priority. You can only tell him so many ways how you feel and he's ignored you every single time. And I guarantee when you do finally decide to walk, he'll act like he had no idea and he never saw it coming.
He's Tom Brady and the amount of equity he's brought to your relationship is nil. It's time to go, Gisele. NTA
tealdragon74 writes:
I'm going to say ESH only because 10 years is a long time to put up with it. You should have never let it go this long.
Leaving may not necessarily mean the beginning of the end for you two. Maybe it will be the kick in the ass that your husband needs. Good luck!