No acknowledgement 25 yr marriage

[Annie000]

25 years of marriage yesterday. 25 years. Been together over 35 years, six children, 8 grandchildren. My husband woke up yesterday and said 'ooh it's our anniversary isn't it? Fancy a quickie" . No card, flowers, no plans,no posts on his socials. Nada, nothing, zip. I admit I didn't do anything either, because I secretly hoped he would. Not that he ever does. He won't "waste" .only on cards and doesn't"go shopping '.AIBU expecting a little something, a bit of recognition for everything? All the years, all the work, raising the kids, doing EVERYTHING when it comes to holidays, birthdays, Christmas etc. I don't know why I feel so fed up and disappointed, because this is what it's always been like. Not had a dinner or date night on over 4/5 years.
What should I do????????
What are your thoughts????
AIBU?????

I admit I didn't do anything either

You didn’t even bother buying him a card and you want to be mad at him for not doing the same??

You were spoiling for a fight and intentionally didn’t do anything just so you can be mad.

Was there a discussion before today about you’re both going to celebrate it considering it’s such a big one?

If not, perhaps the relationship has just run its course for both of you.

I do get it, OP, I'm the organiser in my family and it gets me down sometimes knowing that if I don't do stuff, it doesn't happen. That said, no good can come from secretly testing your husband to see if he is still shit. All that will do is build resentment!
You need to talk to him. Anniversaries are a joint celebration, its not the same as a birthday. Its not about him spoiling you, its about celebrating together, surely. What happens at Christmas? Do you discuss plans with your husband or do you just do everything? Holidays?
If I just stopped doing stuff in my family, stopped talking about it and making plans out loud, nothing would happen. And that does piss me off. So I do get it. But I also think you knew your husband wouldn't do anything and you've just proved yourself right, what has that achieved. You need to tell him you feel unappreciated, disappointed, whatever you are feeling.

I completely disagree about it being any responsibility of your children to celebrate your anniversary,by the way! I don't even know when my parents' is. I wouldn't expect our children to know or acknowledge ours.

I understand…….had years of no birthday cards, nothing on Mothers Day when the kids were too young to do anything, no thought put into Christmas gifts and wedding anniversaries were never acknowledged even though I always bought him a card. Valentines Day??…..forget that! If challenged he would simply grunt ‘well, I’m here aren’t I, what more do you want?’
Thinking back, the rot was always there 😔

Interestingly you seem to have taken a traditional role, looking after kids, managing your life together but he doesn’t feel he needs to take the traditional role of gifts/ appreciation around anniversaries. Yes in theory you should both suggest and plan something that you do together but that speaks of a more equally balanced relationship. He sounds shit and thoughtless. I imagine his behaviour is just the tip of the iceberg.

We dont celebrate our wedding anniversary, my DM died suddenly around the same time, so its a painful time for me-I know I shouldnt let it be ( she would be the 1st person to say that)
sometimes I wonder why people stay together, no effort, no surprises, we seem to despise each other
My DH cooks for us all, he remembers that i like full fat milk in my coffee, he knows which foods our DD doesnt like, which are our DS’s favourites
He was checking my car early the other morning, oil, water and tyre pressure as I was going on a trip
maybe all these things are what counts?

Sorry you feel like you’re not appreciated for your efforts, especially on a special day. It’s a shame you haven’t planned something together. Do you think he’s scared or getting it wrong so then opted for doing nothing?

Can you go out for the day & task him with getting a picnic or book a nice restaurant for lunch/dinner? Or suggest going out shopping to buy some nice jewellery? Buy some champagne.

I feel like a project manager too but realise if I don’t organise or heavily nudge things just don’t happen. Not quite how I’d like it to be but I guess we play to our strengths. Hope he’s lovely in other ways?

If you’ve had enough you’ve had enough.

We’ve just had our 25th anniversary and we went out for lunch. It was nice but we talked about it advance. We also will have had a quickie, not talked about in advance.

To me it sounds like you have sabotaged it because you say you knew he wouldn’t do anything but you hoped he would. But he wasn’t ever going to. You want him to be someone he isn’t I suppose.

It mine said that I’d laugh and not take offence but we have a good marriage and are a team. There’s a big element of martyr in your post, you’ve chosen to do everything- why would he be any different on your anniversary? We have been married 25 years this year we won’t do anything special but that’s a choice and we don’t resent each other so are fine with it.

your post has probably hit a nerve as you sound like my mother. I can’t abide martyrs. Sorry.

Not sure how you can be disappointed he didn’t do anything when you didn’t either? At least he remembered it.

And ‘no posts on his socials’? Surely that’s a good thing? 🥴

This is the answer.

I wouldn’t get wound up about the fact he didn’t magically transform on your 25th wedding anniversary; he’s the same as he was last year.

Suggest something you’d like to do and get him to do some of the organising so it’s a joint endeavour.

enjoyed the quickie then book a restaurant. no point being a martyr

@Annie000

You could use your disappointment as an opportunity to talk to him about how you are now out of parenting roles that it’s time to shake things up again and reconnect as a couple with regular dates, dinners, romance, gifts?

Me and H don’t really bother with anniversaries or even birthdays (ours not the kids jeepers they get the full red carpet treatment) but that’s because we do the anniversary/birthday things you do when we see something we like, or a show comes to town, or when we are booking holidays, or when we have a quiet weekend etc etc so shoehorning something in, even a card, on a particular date is not required or even wanted.

But it sounds like you get nothing.

I would read him the riot act in a none riot way. I would point out he’s an entitled, ungrateful man, that no I don’t want a fucking quickie, that his interpretation of being a loving husband leaves a lot to be desired. (Posting on socials is irrelevant to us we weren’t even Friends on FB until 3 years into marriage and now neither of us use social media in a personal way so I can’t advise much on that but I can understand if he posts about everything but then not your anniversary it could feel like a deliberate snub maybe).

I would ask nicely if this was my romantic future staying with him. Then at least you know so you won’t expect or more extreme put up with it.

Hi @Annie000 , the fact that ting" you to a quickie says it all! really!

Buy him a copy of "This Is How Your Marriage Ends" by Matt Fray as a lovely anniversary gift to yourself, and think about what you really want from life in the next 25 years (I suspect it's not this)

Agree so hard with this. Equality is often turned against women in these situations. As much as we don't like it everyone knows it is the man's job to do Valentines Day and anniversaries. My husband does and so does every other married couple I know where the guy has any sense. And they are an older demographic so traditional roles here are even more applicable.

“Other mums” eh

I get what you're trying to say. Day to day you carry all the mental load and just for once, on this joint special day, especially with it being a significant anniversary, you were hoping for just once he'd actually do something.

I hope you turned down his crap offer of a quickie..

Well if neither of you did anything, I can’t see the problem. Next year, perhaps discuss it, and both do something?

This is poor. If it matters to you, you need to sit down and have a conversation and set your expectations for this type of thing going forward. Draw a line, make it different.

It's his usual habit so not surprising. Are you happy with him in other ways? Clearly your sex life is still going.

This.

I always laugh when people come on here with this line that @TepidBathwater came out with... 'oh ha ha, insert tinkly laugh I'm not even sure when my wedding anniversary is, in fact I don't even know which month, ha ha ha, what frivolity!' 😆

FGS, everyone knows what date they got married. Do these people not know their own birthdays either? OR their partner's - or children's if they have them!

@Annie000 I'm sorry your husband seems a bit thoughtless overall, but with this particular thing you lost the argument when you said you did nothing either.

Happy Anniversary though. 💖

.

I mean, if you have not been out for dinner with your husband in five years, there was no way anything would be happening for this anniversary. There are problems in this marriage that predate this special occasion.

We had our silver wedding last year, we planned what we wanted to do on the night and we splashed out on an extra special family holiday to celebrate it. But we planned it together. We are a team and both the responsibility and the joy are shared between us.

OT but I can’t believe that you celebrated your silver anniversary and have eight grandchildren already! I guess you must have had your kids young. And you are clearly a lot younger than me if ‘socials’ posting means so much to you.

I am sorry you feel taken for granted OP; you need to be direct with him and discuss how you want to be as a couple.

You've been married 25 years and neither of you thought to have a conversation about how you'd like to celebrate?
Is it worth celebrating or are you done?!

I know. It takes ‘cool wife’ behaviour to a different level! Knowing your anniversary is just something people should be able to take for granted. I’m sure I have needed the date for an official document once too.

This. Op you are sending out martyr vibes. You knew he wouldn't do anything, because he never does. So you didn't say anything and ,surprise,surprise he didn't do anything. So now you get to moan about it. You could have chatted about it months ago and decided on something nice. In our marriage I would have done the organising part ( because I like staying in expensive, beautiful places so I make sure we do. We have joint accounts for everything so we are both paying). We set aside a day each week for going out on a 'date'. If you want that just say 'Id like to go out on Wednesday '. We are both retired. My husband has jobs within our marriage and I have my jobs. We do exchange cards for anniversaries but if we were going to do a specific thing to mark a big anniversary we'd have discussed it beforehand. I wouldn't expect him to say ' Get your passport we're off to Paris'. We'd have discussed it months before.

I think this is called a classic failure to communicate.

Neither of you are psychic. You need to actually talk about expectations and wants. Secretly hoping for stuff will only end in disappointment, you're setting him up to fail a test he doesn't even know he's being given. It's not healthy.

As to what you should do: 1) talk to him and lay out what you want, 2) start taking some initiative yourself, 3) stop using the children as an excuse as to why you shouldn't given they're old enough for you to have multiple grandchildren!