Just a little bit of context, me and my girlfriend have been together for about a year now, we are well within our teens and my girlfriend’s birthday is coming up. I understood that she’ll probably go ahead and throw a party since it’s the day she’ll be turning 18. However I never got news of this until today, in fact I only heard it because our friend group was talking about it and that they were all invited, I was momentarily taken aback because I didn’t know any of this until now, she hadn’t even said anything to me previously about mentioning a birthday party. Furthermore, I’m also the one who does her streaks in tiktok because she often passes out by night, and I found out that she had personally invited all her friends through chat and I hadn’t even been told about it yet from her personally. I understand that it’s her party, but this just sort-of makes me feel unimportant and I want to communicate these feelings to her, however I’m afraid this would be an asshole move since it is her birthday.
Is it possible she assumed you’d be spending the day with her either way?
This is my thought. It would not occur to me that it would be necessary to invite my romantic partner to my birthday party.
Yep this is also exactly what I was thinking
Yeah. Special events like birthdays and christmas, i just assume my partner is going to be there with me unless he tells me he’s not going to!
Also my first thought, yep.
I suppose you’re right, but I just find it still doesn’t alleviate the feeling of being unimportant enough to update about her plans. I guess you could say all I’m trying to do is get rid of these feelings by asking for some assurance.
I think it would be entirely okay to talk to her about your feelings.
But it sounds like this is more about feeling valued and thought of than the plan itself. Maybe instead of bringing up how this specific situation made you feel, you could generalise it a bit more. You worry about hurting her feelings or messing up her birthday with a hard talk, so what if we frame it moreso from a perspective of “sometimes i feel this way, but this thing helps me feel good. can you help with that?”
I’ll add an example so it makes more sense what I’m trying to get at –
“Hey babe, sometimes I overthink and I feel unimportant or worry that people forget about me/don’t value me. Something that really helps me is when I’m kept up to date on plans, even if I’m not involved in them. I like to know what’s happening and have people think of me enough to want to tell me about their plans! Do you think this is something we could do more of?”
That’s a great way to put it, I do believe it’s more for the thought of me wanting to feel valued to her enough to be considered rather than the plan itself. I really appreciate your help in this matter because otherwise, I think I would’ve made it sound way bigger than it actually is
No you wouldn’t be TA that’s a bit sus
NTA (unless you’re hiding something hinky like about the ages) Communicate directly with her- “hey, I just found out you’re having a bday party and apparently I’m not invited? Any thoughts you want to share about that?” She might have just assumed that you’d assume that you were invited since you’re her bf.
You should talk to her about how this made you feel, she may have an explanation or end up apologizing.
YWBTA. I don’t see what you would accomplish other than annoying her. You say you understood she’d be having a party, so what’s wrong with her having figured that you understood? Why do you need her to make you feel important on this occasion? Do you think you’re not actually important to her, or do you just need constant reassurance? That can get pretty tiresome.