To get dejected that my wife doesn't do anything for me?

[obstinatrix]

I've been with my wife for 13 years. We're a lesbian couple. She jokes that we're Chandler and Monica, with me being Chandler, and that's fairly true.

The thing is, she doesn't do anything to make me feel special. I get that I'm quite traditionally butch so it may seem as if I fall into the "husband" role and therefore she thinks she doesn't need to, but -- you straight women do so much for your husbands! I know this to be true! And also, I'm butch, I'm not a man. I think she forgets this sometimes. She also doesn't exactly adhere to other traditional m/f roles, like doing all the housework. In fact, she doesn't do any housework because she doesn't like to "get dirty," so it's up to me to take the bins out, change the cat litter, vacuum and clean the toilet.

I don't normally get emotional but on Valentine's Day just past, I got a bit sad at the realisation that she's literally never given me anything to mark the occasion. I gave her a card, which I always do. For the first three years we were together, I sent her a massive bouquet of flowers, but her response was so consistently lacklustre and confused that I stopped. I assume she isn't interested in gifts, really, because she has never got me anything for my birthday or Christmas, either, in all the years we've been together. I have got her something every time, even if just a nominal something. She doesn't ever seem embarrassed in the sense of "you've got me something and I haven't got you anything." She's never been stimulated by my actions to reciprocate.

Am I being unreasonable to feel a bit unloved? I know gift giving isn't everything, but in terms of "love languages," I do all the acts of service in this relationship, as well as all the giving. I just don't understand how it hasn't occurred to her that I might want some attention.

It’s a bit hard to understand why you bought a house with someone you tried to finish with so many times. But hey ho, could you not afford a mortgage on a flat alone or with a lodger?

OP my heart goes out to you. You sound lovely, giving and strong. But you’re wasting your best years because you’ve allowed yourself to believe there is no alternative. She is not your child, she’s an adult and you have the right to leave her, even if it might make her unhappy for a while. Don’t fritter your life away feeling so unfulfilled. There will be someone - many people - out there that you could have so much more fun with.

You seem determined to stay with her, OP. You buy a house with her despite having ‘tried’ to leave several times, you say you can’t leave because you can’t face renting or trying to meet anyone new, because she doesn’t have any friends and can’t drive, and she moved countries for you.

You’re going to have to decide whether any of these things are more important than your own happiness.

I’ll tell you one thing, OP — there are no ‘good effort’ endurance prizes for people who stay in unhappy relationships. No one is looking down approvingly on you thinking ‘She’s so selfless!’

The thing that would bother me most about your situation is that you've told your wife how much it means to you for her to mark special occasions with a gift or gesture and she still doesn't (ever?) do it. ADHD isn't a reason/excuse - people remember, or find ways to remind themselves of, all sorts of things. And the fact that she would not like or doesn't care about those kinds of things is really beside the point - she knows you do care, very much.

I would find it very odd/OTT if my partner presented me with a dozen red roses on Valentine's Day. But when we lived in London, I used to get very down/out of sorts in the long dark run from Hogmanay into spring, and cheer up once I started seeing little signs of spring like snowdrops and crocus (croci?) in the grass. My DP would keep an eye out for the first bouquets of daffodils popping up in florist's carts and bring me a bunch. The issue was never the cost, effort, or time - you can buy a bunch of daffodils for a couple of £ in any Tesco Express in London in March - it was knowing me well enough to remember a weird, quirky thing that would make me happy and following through on doing it for me.

I don't know the answer here because it sounds like you feel you'd be worse off out of the relationship than in it and unhappy, and no one has a crystal ball to say for sure.

I would also point out that straight men typically find it very difficult to talk to their mates about anything important because of toxic masculinity, which is why they all kill themselves. !!!!! #notallmen