My girlfriend and I have been together for about a year, and we’ve been living together in our own place for the last six months. She turns 21 next week.
Lately she’s gotten really into making music – it’s become her big thing and so I decided I wanted to go all out and set her up with a home studio, with all the gear she’d need. I’ve been genuinely excited about giving it to her.
A few weeks ago she told me that on her birthday she’s going skydiving at 10 a.m. It’s about a 45-minute drive away, near where her friends and family live. She never asked if I wanted to come or tried to include me in those plans, but I figured it was her day and maybe more of a family/friends thing, so I didn’t push it.
Today she told me that instead of coming back home after skydiving, she’s going to book an Airbnb with her mum and stay the night there. Again, there was no “do you want to join us?” or any mention of me being part of the evening at all.
So as it stands, even though we live together and share a home, I’m not going to see her at all on her 21st birthday.
That stings a bit. It feels strange that she wouldn’t want to spend any part of her birthday with me. It’s making me question where our relationship actually sits in her priorities, and it makes me feel a bit ridiculous for going all out on a full studio setup when she doesn’t seem too fussed about having me involved in her day at all. Now I keep thinking about dialing the gift back.
I can’t tell if I’m being selfish or petty for wanting to scale back the gift, but I do feel really sidelined by her plans, especially since we live together and I just assumed I’d be included in some way.
Am I being selfish?
EDIT: OP here – I have kind of tryed to make plans with her. Throughout the year I’ve asked her a couple times what she wanted to do for her 21st – stuff like “it’s a big milestone, what do you want to do, I’m excited for you.” Her answers were always kind of wishy washy.
The only semi-specific thing she’s ever said (back in March/April before we moved in together) was that she might just book a rainforest retreat and have a few quiet drinks with her girlfriends. I took that as her wanting something low-key and more so that she wanted a girls night type of thing so I backed off. I didn’t think much of it at the time because we were more so just dating.. but I feel like our relationship is a lot more now than it was back then.
NTA and not selfish but it sounds like you two need to sit down and have a serious talk about your relationship.
I think that you need to talk to her and tell her how you feel instead of letting it brew inside. Maybe ask her if/why she doesn’t seem to want you spending her birthday with her.
NTA, it is absolutely BIZARRE that you live together and she doesn’t even bother to ask you. You need to bring this up with her and tell her how it makes you feel.
INFO: how old are you and have you met her family before?
She’s turning 21 and wants to spend it with her family. That’s pretty normal.
It’s unusual that she didn’t offer to include you, so maybe ask about it. Maybe she thought you wouldn’t want to travel to see her family, etc.
First of all talk. I now such things got you itching and burning to be petty but it’s really making you bitter.
Talk to her about why she is making these plans like that
If she was even planning on spending any time with you. You too leave together so it’s strange that those plans didn’t have you involved or that she didn’t ask or plan something with you.
Anyway, you would only be an asshole if you dialed it back, gave her a gift and went, “I was planning on giving you something cool but I got mad at you so take this Keychain instead” Idk
So have you actually talked to her prior to this about what she wanted to do for the birthday? It’s a major one, so not surprising there would be big plans. Your gift idea sounds very thoughtful, but with something so big and a milestone birthday while surprises can be fun, honestly it might be better to actually talk to her about what she wants. She is equally guilty of not doing this- she should absolutely have talked to you and included you in her plans (as in her making the plans). You’ve not given your age, but she’s obviously very young and this may just be a communication issue. She might have thought you would make plans with her and when you didn’t, made her own.
With her birthday being so soon, it’s kind of odd that you’ve not yet talked to her about plans or suggested anything and it’s reasonable that she doesn’t want to end up with no plans at all, but equally odd she didn’t just talk to you about it.
I’m thinking she’s pissed that he hasn’t mentioned anything and decided she would do her own “big birthday” – OP should at least let her know he’s planning something
Have you previously spoken about doing something in her birthday? Most people have something big planned for their 21st. Maybe she feels like you don’t care because you haven’ttold her you’ve planned something, so she’s organised something for herself.
Communication really is key in a relationship. It sounds like neither of you are communicating well.
NTA. That’s not normal behavior at all. You need to speak with her about this to make sure she’s not just making plans because you haven’t told her you made any plans for her birthday. Unfortunately I don’t think this will be the case but it’s best to make sure it’s not just a miscommunication. If her intentions were to ditch you for the entirety of her birthday without any discussion, I would 100% dial that gift way back. Like to zero. Her reaction to this discussion will speak volumes and let you know where you fall on her list of priorities.
You have a reasonable expectation of spending time with your live-in girlfriend on her birthday. Good luck.
Info: did you try to make plans with her for her birthday?
Is it possible that the two of you just have different approaches to birthdays? Could she have made plans because she was disappointed you didn’t suggest something and was trying to make the best of it?
User for less than an hour and a post that really feels like AI, just fuck off.
NTA – although I have had a similar experience with my boyfriend (now husband). His family had arranged to go out to a local spot they visited when younger and go out for lunch, but I didn’t go. Turns out his mum did text to ask if I wanted to go, but she didn’t have the right number so just assumed I didn’t want to go. I did ask my husband why anyone thought I would just ignore his mum’s text instead of just getting him to ask me about it, but it was just a miscommunication all around.
I do wonder if your girlfriend is just getting a bit swept up in all the birthday celebrations and just hasn’t thought it through? Maybe she is worried about the vibe changing if you were to come or just wants to do something with her friends/family (I’m assuming she spends a lot of time with you on a day to day basis?)
Honestly, you need to ask her about it or it will just eat away at you.
I need to hear the other side of the story because it seems from reading this that you’re possibly not the planner or have failed to plan in the past so she took it upon herself to plan her own milestone celebration. Is this correct ? Do you normally plan to do something on her birthday? Your love language might be gift giving while hers is quality time . But yeah she’s not going to plan her own birthday celebration without a logical reason.
Are you sure you’re in the relationship you think you are? Why wouldn’t you just ask her, or tell her how you feel when she talked about her plans?
Have you met her family? Are you really just roommates? Something is off here.
Communication is essential. She’s right there — ask her!!
Can’t make a call on this: need info.