Mom Asks If She's 'Overreacting' For Being Upset That Her Husband Planned Nothing For Her First Real Mother's Day
After spending last Mother's Day in the hospital, she was excited to celebrate. Her husband, not so much.
Wavebreakmedia / Getty Images / Canva Pro Mother's Day is the one day a year when kids are expected to shower moms with affection and gratitude for the often thankless job they do. But of course, when your kids are still babies, it's up to your husband to celebrate you, right?
Well, one mom's husband didn't seem to get that memo, and it's left her deeply hurt and angry.
Her husband planned nothing for her first Mother's Day, even after she reminded him.
Couples often have mismatched feelings about the importance of holidays like Mother's Day or Father's Day, which is, of course, totally normal. But this mom of 1-year-old twins even did her due diligence by reminding her husband that Mother's Day was coming.
"I already hinted ages ago, and when it got closer, I even asked hubby explicitly where we were going today," she wrote in a Reddit post.
She didn't even have major expectations, given their workload with twins. "It can't be too fancy, but I was hoping [for] at least a lunch at a restaurant that I like… then some time in a park to relax," she wrote.
Instead, "he planned nothing and said last night, let's just go to a Japanese restaurant nearby for today." Knowing that you typically can't just waltz into a restaurant on Mother's Day, she asked if he had a backup plan, "as I knew there won't be a table if he hasn't booked anything." His answer was a shrug.
Last year, she was hospitalized, so she'd hoped her husband would make this one special. Instead, he didn't even say, 'Happy Mother's Day.'
The stakes were doubly high since last Mother's Day, technically her actual first one, was spent in the hospital recovering from the cesarean section she had for their twins. But as you might expect, given the level of thought her husband put into it, it was a disaster instead.
"Today, as usual, [my] husband slept in, and I did the morning routine," she wrote. By the time they got out the door, it was already noon. "We arrived at the restaurant, and it was 12:30. As expected, it's fully occupied," she wrote.
They ended up at a "very casual" place she didn't like instead, and then there was nothing else planned. "It went by with a walk near the water and grocery shopping." On the way home, the DJ on the radio wished everyone a Happy Mother's Day, and she realized he hadn't even said those three words to her.
"I couldn't hold that anymore and had to let that all out," she wrote, telling him, "I wasn't happy at all as I wasn't 'celebrated.' I didn't expect flowers or cake or any present, but for me, when I see there's not even an attempt to show any effort, it really hits me so hard." She's now no longer speaking to him.
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His lack of consideration is a perfect example of an all-too-common problem in marriages: a lack of emotional intelligence.
This poor woman got some deeply stupid responses from her fellow Redditors. Several scolded her for not communicating her needs even though she explained that she explicitly had. Others insisted her husband did nothing wrong because she is not his mother, so he owes her nothing on Mother's Day.
That is absurd and not how the holiday works. Small children, let alone babies, can't celebrate their mom for Mother's Day. That's why dads step in. This is basic stuff. And even more galling, for his first Father's Day, she went all out to celebrate him.
It all added up to the majority of Redditors sharing her frustration and pushing back on those who disagreed with her. Many argued that nobody should have to "communicate" their desires for basic milestones like birthdays and holidays.
Others saw a familiar pattern at play. "Some men just don't get how far simply acknowledging the day can go," one commenter wrote. In the end, it all comes down to emotional intelligence, and it seems that all too many men nowadays lack even the most basic of such skills.
Signs of low emotional intelligence include a lack of empathy, frequently offending people unwittingly, and not being able to "read the room," which describes her husband to a tee.
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Issues like this are similar to the ongoing discussions around "weaponized incompetence" and the tendency of men to rarely pull their weight when it comes to housework and child-rearing.
As one psychologist put it, issues like this do not come up in marriages with emotionally intelligent men "because there's no way that person would see you working hard, raising their children, cooking dinner, cleaning up, and not want to help you."
The same goes for the simple act of making your wife feel appreciated on her first real Mother's Day. It's not that hard, nor is it an unreasonable expectation.
Lawyers and therapists say men's lack of consideration in these areas is fueling a wave of divorces, which shouldn't be surprising. It shows a fundamental lack of respect for your partner.
Perhaps being ignored on Father's Day, as several Redditors suggested, will wake him up since clear communication obviously didn't do the trick.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.