I don’t get it. I really don’t. He’s totally miserable every year. He doesn’t want to do anything, but says he’ll go out with his friends to celebrate (but doesn’t), he almost ignores me even when I try to do nothing because I’ve basically given up trying to match whatever his birthday style is. In past years, I’ve gotten him great, super personalized gifts, made a cake, got him his favorite whiskey, let him game, tried to take him out...but he’s just so god damn miserable. This year, I let my son pick out a card for him and just put a blasé greeting in it, no gift, no cake. I asked him if there was anything he wanted to do. Nope. Just sleep and go to work tonight. Hasn’t called his twin sister, wished my mom happy birthday (they share the day, all 3 of them), doesn’t even want to have his head in my lap while he’s falling asleep like usual.

His attitude towards his birthday makes me annoyed because if he just didn’t want to celebrate, that’s one thing, but he makes it seem like there’s something wrong with us too in the process. I can’t even tell my son we’ll get him something, or a cake, because he’s so pissy. Like, what’s the point?

Background: he came from a 4 sibling, normal two parent (still married) home in the south. They have always celebrated, he’s loved, they both acknowledge birthdays, his sister does too, and he’s just like this for reasons I cannot figure out. We’ve been living together almost three years, dating for about 4 prior to that. We were always too far apart for birthdays to be a big deal before living together, each year seems to be worse than the last. I want to smack him, because it makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong no matter what I do or don’t do.