Woman Considers Divorce After Her Husband Ignores Their 25th Anniversary She's Been Asking Him To Plan For 10 Years
Everyone's got their breaking point and it sounds like she's just hit hers.
simona pilolla 2 | Shutterstock All too often, it's obvious to absolutely everyone that a relationship is long since over, except for the people in it, that is. Such was the case of a woman on Reddit who was wondering if she was overreacting by considering divorce after yet another slight from her husband. After years of planning anniversary celebrations for them, she asked her husband to take the reins when it came to their 25th. Guess who chose not to do anything?
After 25 years of marriage, their relationship doesn't seem to add up to much but habit as far as her husband is concerned. The problem is that everyone seems to realize it but them.
A woman wants a divorce after her husband ignored their 25th anniversary.
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Not everyone is a hopeless romantic, and not everyone cares about anniversaries. But sometimes you have to do this stuff anyway if it matters to your partner.
I once had a partner for whom gestures like greeting cards were meaningful tokens of affection. I, on the other hand, couldn't care less about a card and immediately throw them away. I had to learn, however, to remember to buy a card for them once in a while. Because that's what you do when you care about someone.
This woman's husband, like sadly nearly all men, missed this memo. Actually, no, that's incorrect — he didn't miss the memo, he just ignored it entirely. "Our marriage has had its ups and downs, but I’ve always loved him," the woman wrote in her since-deleted Reddit post. On the list of "downs" has always, consistently been their anniversary. And it's now put them at a breaking point.
The woman asked her husband to plan their 25th anniversary for 10 years, but he 'hasn't had time to think about it.'
"Every single anniversary has been planned by me," she explained. "I plan the dinners, the trips, everything." What she gets in return is usually flowers, "which I appreciate," she wrote. But for their biggest anniversary yet, she wanted "to feel special for once." So for the past decade, she has been asking him to plan something for their 25th.
"It didn’t have to be expensive — I love the outdoors and would’ve been happy with a hike and a picnic," she wrote. "I just wanted him to put in the effort." You can probably guess how that turned out.
With one week to go, she asked him what he had planned. His answer? "I haven’t had time to think about it." Nah, just 10 years of being asked. No time at all! "I was crushed," the woman wrote. "He knew how much it meant to me."
Now, she's feeling like she's at her breaking point. "I’m tired of feeling invisible. Tired of begging to be considered. If he does nothing on the day, I’m thinking of quietly packing a bag and leaving," she wrote.
She has every right to want to call it quits on this relationship because it isn't a relationship in the first place.
It's not just the 10 years of reminders and requests falling on deaf ears. On top of all that, they've had a rough year with storm damage to their home, health issues, and family crises. All that drama makes the slight that much more intense.
But perhaps most important, she's been in therapy for childhood trauma. "[I] am realizing I’ve let people (family and husband included) gaslight me and minimize my needs for years," she wrote. "Like many moms, I’ve sacrificed constantly and put myself last, and when I try to speak up, I’m told I’m overreacting."
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This is, of course, an incredibly common sentiment among women, and they are often expected to just suck it up because "this is just how men are." But that is nonsense. More often than not, the truth of the situation is that these men don't want to be married. But they don't want to be alone either. So they do nothing, because they've learned they can skate by without consequences.
"We all have our breaking point," one commenter wrote. "It sounds like you've reached yours." Yep, and she needs to listen to it. It's easy to succumb to things like the "sunk cost fallacy," a psychological phenomenon in which we cling to something that isn't serving us simply because we've already put so much effort into it.
Going to marital counseling is always an option, but the truth is just as often that the relationship has become dead weight, and jettisoning it is exactly the thing we need to thrive. Regardless, after 10 years of reminders, "I haven't had time to think about it" isn't just an excuse; it's an outright lie. And as the popular saying goes, "if he wanted to, he would."
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
