How to ruin an anniversary

Impromptu babysitting

She's not tired at all . . .

Celebrating my 1 yr anniversary didn't exactly go as planned.  On Thursday night we went out to dinner and had a lovely meal, came home and he started to fall asleep on the couch.  That was not the romance I had planned or really expected.  Eventually we went to bed with barely a kiss.

I laid in bed and let my brain spiral out of control.  I moved myself to the couch and cried for nearly 2.5 hours.  I worked myself up and started having a panic attack.  I woke up my man and sobbed for another hour.  I gushed out all kinds of crap and of course made him cry too.  Waking someone up to make them cry is not an ideal anniversary present.  I need to work on expressing my feelings in a much more constructive manner and he needs to do the same.

Overall it boils down to me feeling very unappreciated, him not acknowledging all I do and me needing a lot more attention.  We are both workaholics, we enjoy feeling needed by our peers and management.  Right now is his time to shine and he's doing a great job, but working 10+ hours a day is not cool with me.  I stay home all day and do training and other boring things.  When he gets home I want someone to talk to, to pay attention to me; not sit on his computer and get all riled up over stupid mistakes his India team makes.  Plus working at that level complete exhausts him and by the time he finally logs off he's 2 min from falling into a deep sleep.

We've pinky promised to really work on these issues.  Every 2-4 months I have this breakdown and feel awful, leading him to feel awful and we have a really rough 24-48 hours.  I ended up not sleeping for nearly 36 hours and was just crabby all day, which to me, really ruined our anniversary.  It'll be memorable but not for what I wanted.  He did get me a really cute card and the most beautiful orchid.  It's just perfect and shows how much he really does listen!

What really made me feel good was his mom and sis in law.  On Saturday we went crafting and at the first stop they both mentioned how good I've been for my man.  His divorce was rough and he privatized the whole ordeal.  His family was super worried about how he'd handle it.  I've turned him around and brought back his positive side.  Per their words, it's obvious how happy I make him.  His mom expressed how worried she was when I said I was stubborn because so is my man.  Neither of us likes being bossed around, BUT what she didn't know was my art of compromise.  Our issues are less about fighting and more about needing to be expressive.

I thought I had ruined our anniversary, but in reality I think I made it better.  After my outbursts he's always more attentive and loving and I'm pretty fragile, both things we need to do more often.  This Thursday is my birthday and I cannot wait to celebrate with him.  We have reservations at a new nice seafood restaurant and I finally get my present.  He's been teasing me with this for a weeks now!  I know it will live up to it's hype!