DH's Birthday
So it was DH's birthday. I made dinner reservations at a fancy restaurant and got him the latest tech gadget he's been hinting at. I get all dressed up for our night on the town and knock on his study door five minutes before we need to go to give him his card and present. So I'm standing there with a big grin on my face saying "happy birthday" and holding out his gift (which I had spent too much time wrapping like a wanna be Martha Stewart) and I notice he's got the phone craddled to his ear. He looks at me and wispers "it's SD" (24) with this look of wonder on his face as if he had just told me God himself was on the line and proceeds to shut the door as I'm standing there in the hallway.
So I head into the kitchen feeling confused. After about 5 minutes, I realize that if he doesn't get off soon, we are going to be late. So I go back and knock to see how much longer he's going to be. He opens the door and leaves it open but is still yapping away on the phone. So he's not even looking at me and it doesn't seem like the conversation is wrapping up so I begin to worry that he thinks the reservations are for 7:30 instead of 7:00 and whisper to him "how much longer? You know the reservations are for 7:00, right?" He looks at me with a look of total annoyance and again mouths the words "it's SD," as if that is an answer to my question, and turns away.
I am totally dumbstruck but go back to the kitchen and call the resturant to let them know we are running late. Another 10 minutes pass and I am begining to worry that we are going to be seriously late (never mind having time to open my gift to him) and wonder if they will even hold the table that long. So I go back to the study to see what is going on and he again shoots me this look and again covers the receiver and hisses "it's SD." So now I'm really wondering why in the world he just doesn't say "hey SD it's great to talk with you but Wife and I are running late for dinner, let's talk more tomorrow." 5 minutes later he comes out to the kitchen saying "sorry but it was SD." I say I know but we are late (during this time he is hurriedly grabbing and opening his card and gift and we are rushing to car/driving to resturant) He says he knows but it was SD and he didn't think I'd mind if he spoke to SD on his birthday. I said of course not but that he could have excused himself earlier. Then I say something about "well it was at least nice she called to wish you a happy birthday" and he says "oh she forgot to wish me a happy birthday she was just calling to fill me in on what's going on with her." This is when I felt like a ballon that someone had just let all the air out of. I struggled through the dinner but I just felt hurt that I had put all this effort into his birthday and he'd rather speak to someone who wasn't even calling to wish him a happy birthday. It wasn't even a situation where he had to choose one of us over the other. All he had to do was excuse himself from the call and call her later.
I know this is such a small issue in comparison to what some here go through, but it's really got me down.
Next time, just cancel and go
Next time, just cancel and go put your jammies on. Then let him be confused and hurt.
So sorry you had to go
So sorry you had to go through this, but you need to tell him how it made you feel with a solution attached to it.
I do not hold back with my SO. His daughter sent him a text the other night when we were having dinner with his parents and his siblings. When he didn't respond right away she called the house. Grandmommy answered and handed him the phone. He spoke to her and then joined us back for dinner.
When we arrived home I told him, I thought it was extremely rude for her to track him down, and that if he didn't set her straight she was going to start acting like crazo and calling, calling, calling, texting, texting, texting when she wanted something. That he should have told her he would call her back after dinner, and not disrupted the wonderful dinner his mother had prepared for us.
So when he saw her on Wednesday night he told her unless someone is hurt she was not to track him down. She was to leave a message and wait for a response. If she ever did it again what ever she wanted or needed the answer would be no.
Boundaries are a must within a blended home. We need to teach our children how to behave respectfully. If I don't tell my SO what I need or expect from him how can he know? I don't want to walk around hurt or angry when he does even know that he has upset me.
I think honest communication is the way to go. My SO has always responded well to my "can we talk" situations. I try not to attack or be negative. Just factual.
Good luck I really think you need to have a chat with him and tell him exactly what you told us.
Wow. That was really mean of
Wow. That was really mean of him. I would honestly have seriously considered leaving him and going to the restaurant alone!! It would have been one thing if she'd called with something super important/serious to talk about, but to treat you that wait just so he can "catch up"? Not cool.
I'm sorry :(.
This is not a small thing. He
This is not a small thing. He was rude to you. A telephone call with SD is not more important than the plans that he made with you, and his action said loud and clear that his conversation with SD was more important than having dinner with you. I have lived the "skid calls, the world stops" life and it is unpleasant.
Dragonfly is right that you should calmly let him know how his behavior made you feel. It worked for me -- DH, being a guy, had no clue that I was upset with him after mutiple, similar episodes. Like you, I thought, no big deal, but it became a big deal to me and I just hated not being able to count on him to do anything or be anywhere if one of his kids called. I began to resent the kids, which is unfair since they have no idea what we're doing every minute. No, it was DH who was behaving badly toward me. So I began to speak up and let him know how I felt -- ignored, unimportant, second best, good company only until a kid called. I knew I'd made an impression once when SS called, but DH told him he couldn't talk at the moment because we were out doing something. DH and I were in the car in our driveway, about to leave, but DH took my feelings to heart and didn't delay our departure. And then he followed througth with SS and called him back later. Everyone behaved properly and no one's feelings were hurt.
I don't get why parents can't tell their spawn the simple truth -- I'm doing something else, but I'll call you back later. What's the big deal?
Just wondering what would
Just wondering what would hapeen if that was YOUR birthday. Would he expect you to wait while SD was blabbering on the phone? I agree with the others here. He was being very rude. You should have told him you would meet him at the restaurant and left.
Thanks. In retrospect, I
Thanks. In retrospect, I should have canceled, but I thought it's his birthday, he should be able to do whatever makes him happy/I don't want to ruin it for him. And I was also looking forward to going out and wanted to try to salvage the evening. In the end, I think I felt more sad trying to go through the motions and silly for thinking that because it was his birthday, it was fine to be rude to me.
I tried talking with him after we got back, but I just don't feel like he got it. He kept saying "I didn't think you'd mind if I talked to SD on my birthday" like I was some evil stepmonster who was trying to ban him from speaking to her. I kept trying to clarify that I wasn't upset that he talked to her or trying to suggest that he's not allowed to talk to her, rather, I just wanted him to pause the conversation out of respect for the effort I had put in. He also kept saying “it was not a big deal if we were late/the restaurant didn't mind” (which they didn't). I kept trying to explain I didn't care if we inconvenienced the restaurant either and it wasn’t being late that bothered me, it was that his behavior made me feel like he didn't care that was the problem. I kept pointing out that he just could have excused himself. He responded by saying "but she so rarely calls" to which I kept responding "right that's part of the problem." Then he brought up how I don’t like SD, which is true -- I don't dislike her, I just don’t like her either. I snapped and said “fine, next year I'm not doing anything; we'll just participate in whatever SD plans for you.” I may have also called him a name, which was not the most adult place to take the argument. Then he apologized and did a whole bunch of “you know I love you/put you first.” This morning, however, when I asked him if he understood what went wrong, he said "he wanted to talk to SD for 5 minutes and I went ballistic." I just looked at him and headed out to work; again, not the most mature move. It is exhausting to try to explain this to him. Unfortunately, we have had quite a few similar episodes in the past with SD and SS (26). Strangely, he’s gotten much better about not interrupting something we are doing if SS calls/wants something, but has made zero progress with SD, which is why I am exhausted. It’s like he has a mental block with respect to SD and I’m starting to feel really stupid for allowing myself to be treated like this/expecting his behavior to change.
Wow, I'm so sorry. I would
Wow, I'm so sorry. I would be just as upset in that situation. We try so hard to be thoughtful and do something nice, and they just don't get it. My DH hasn't done anything like that to me that includes SD20, but he certainly doesn't do anything thoughtful for me on my birthday the way I do for his. I always end up so disappointed and sad and consider doing to him what he does to me, but I can't because I don't want him to think that's normal. We've never gone out to dinner on my actual birthday because he won't go out during the week, and when it was finally on a weekend, he wanted to spend the day with SD instead, or we had a fight. Two years ago he didn't bother to wrap my gifts and didn't give me a card because he was upset with me. Last year he forgot what day it was and only remembered to give me a gift as we were getting ready for bed. He doesn't understand that I really don't care about the gifts, but I'd like to be treated special one day a year! I do it for him on his!