Anniversaries hold different emotional weights for different couples, which is why communication is key.
In a popular post on the Relationship Advice subreddit, a woman shared her first anniversary quandary with her BF. She wrote:
“My (26F) boyfriend (25M) made plans on our first date anniversary.”
Firstly, I want to make it clear that this kind of resulted as a mistake on both ends.So my (26F) boyfriend (25M) made plans with his friends this week on our first date anniversary. This would be the first time celebrating any anniversary between us and we had spoken about it for a while.We both kept getting muddled up on the days as we’ve both been extremely busy at work (though we knew throughout this month that it was coming).Before I realized the specific day our anniversary landed on, he had told me about his plans since he wouldn’t be able to see me that day (our work schedules don’t often align so he always runs it by me if he has plans on a day he’s off, in case one of us is expecting to meet after work – and vice versa).
Since I didn’t put it together that his plans coincided with our anniversary, I told him it was alright and was really enthusiastic about him going. The problem is that today the penny dropped, and I realized that we made a mistake. I know it sounds silly, but I feel really upset about this. It is our first anniversary and it just feels like such a shame to miss it.
There’s also a part of me that is slightly upset he even made plans on that day – which I know is irrational and hypocritical, seeing as I got muddled up too, but I guess it’s just me wishing that he had realized/kept it in mind, even if I wasn’t aware (I know that’s not fair, but I’m just being honest).
I don’t know whether this is something I should or could bring up to him…I feel like I definitely can’t ask him to cancel his plans, seeing as I already said I don’t mind and he already committed to his friends. I did tell him today that our anniversary is on that specific day, but he didn’t say anything about us not being together to celebrate (I’m ngl a part of me was hoping he’d offer to cancel).
I’m considering asking my work if I can take the day off since its his day off too, and that maybe we can do something before or after his plans, but in the past he’s been very against seeing me when he’s already made plans. I’m not sure if there’s even advice anyone could give me.
I know we could celebrate on another day, and that we will have more anniversaries in the future, but it just feels very sad that we messed this first one up. Should I tell him how upset I am, or would that just be unnecessary guilt?
TL/DR: my boyfriend made plans on our first date anniversary, which I told him I was okay with since we both mixed up the days, but now I regret it.
Redditors weighed in with their thoughts.
Amaranthesque wrote:
I think you’re right to not ask him to change his plans, or try to pile more plans on top of a day when he’s already busy. Just let him know you’d like to plan something special on another day soon, and then you can both enjoy doing something together on another day without looking at the clock to see when he has to rush off to his other thing.That said, it’s fine to be honest about the fact that you’re feeling a little sad that you both mixed up the dates here, as long as you recognize that doesn’t mean either of you has to do anything about that other than make your backup plan for another day.
OP responded:
You’re right. I think a part of me thought maybe doing something on the same day would be a ‘good fix’, but it’s true that it would just put pressure/time constraints on everything, and it’s just not necessary to do anything about it like you said. I am just gonna leave it and make sure we plan to celebrate another day
Jjjt22 wrote:
Just make plans with bf for another day. The celebration of the relationship is important, not when the celebration occurs. I have been married for a lot of years. When we were young we both worked rotating shifts and our days off rarely aligned. It didn’t matter whether we celebrated on the exact day of an anniversary or valentine’s or pick any other holiday.
OP responded:
That’s a very good point and really helps to hear. I’m definitely placing a lot of importance on the actual day – but you’re right that its the celebration that’s important overall. I guess I just needed some perspective.
JMarie113 wrote:
This seems like an overreaction, which makes me wonder if something else is bothering you. You didn’t know your anniversary. So, you can’t be mad that he didn’t either. Celebrate it another day. But, also ask yourself if something else is bothering you.
OP responded:
I wouldn’t say I’m mad at him, its more so me wishful thinking after the fact – but I know that’s hypocritical and that it was a mistake on both our sides. We did know the actual date, and as the month has been going on we did speak about the specific day, but for some reason over the last week it slipped both of our minds.
AuntyVenom wrote:
If you know that you screwed up too, then stop being a hypocrite and discipline your emotions around this, and the blaming. It just isn’t fair. You’re wishing your partner would do something that you yourself weren’t able to. You also said it was OK but had the hidden expectation that he would cancel. Seriously unfair. Mourn the loss, shake it off, make great plans later on. Good luck and happy first anniversary!
OP responded:
I’m definitely not blaming him because it was both our mistakes like I said. I do know that my feelings are hypocritical, but I was just being honest about my feelings/thought process to hopefully help others kind of grasp where my head’s at before they give their POV.I know 100% that my feelings are not reflective of the ‘truth’ of this situation, but me hoping he would cancel/not have made plans in the first place is definitely not an expectation and it’s not something I shared – or will share – with my boyfriend.
It’s just a thought I had in the moment after I realized we both messed up, and more so wishful thinking than anything (just like we all may imagine a scenario that would ‘fix’ a situation we’re not happy about, even if its unrealistic).
But yes, a lot of comments have made me realize it’s not the end of the world to plan things later and I’m placing too much importance on a silly date, rather than just commemorating a special day for us – so it has really helped to get that perspective from others. Thank you for your anniversary wishes!
A day later, OP jumped on with a major update post.
My (26F) boyfriend (25M) has a friend, lets call him Dave, who has expressed his feelings for him. This is going to be a really long post, so sorry in advance. To give some background, Dave is a work colleague and they’ve been friends for a while. Dave is openly gay and we’ve met several times, and I never had any problems with him – we seemed to get along quite well.
This all started a few months ago. Dave and my boyfriend live on the same road, and after a night out with his work colleagues they were dropped off together at Dave’s house, where my boyfriend planned to walk home. That night I had been messaging my boyfriend before bed and at around 3am he had messaged me he was on his way home (I was asleep by then).
The next morning I woke up to see the 3am message, and saw that just after 5am he messaged to say that he was home. I found this a little odd since the place he was going home from was about 30 minutes away, though I thought maybe he just forgot to reply.
When he woke up I asked him about his night and how late he got home. He told me that the whole work crew were being dropped off in the same Uber so it took him about an hour to get back, but this confused me even more because that wouldn’t explain the 5AM message.
I asked if he ended up doing afters at Dave’s house, but he said no and just left it at that (he didn’t even say he forgot to message or anything to explain the missing hour). I found it a bit strange but left it alone, even though his responses were a little out of character and I could tell he wasn’t telling me something. The next date night we had, he finally let it slip that he wasn’t telling me everything about that night.
He told me that while he was walking home, Dave (who had already gone home since the Uber dropped them at his house) suddenly started running after him. He told me that Dave told him that he’s had strong feelings for him for who knows how long, and that he was interested in starting something with him.
My boyfriend said he was really in shock, and that he reminded him that he was straight and has a girlfriend who he’s met. Dave asked if any part of him would be interested in trying anything, and my boyfriend said no. I wasn’t extremely annoyed by this story (other than being a bit bothered that he tried to proposition him that night).
I asked him why he wouldn’t just tell me that this happened, rather than keeping it a secret for a few days. He said he thought I might get upset, and when I asked him why I would be, he ended up adding more to the story.
Apparently, while Dave was making this declaration of love, he was also taking the opportunity to bad mouth me. Dave doesn’t know me extremely well, but, like I said before, our interactions at that point had been pleasant. He was telling my boyfriend that I do not deserve him and he could do much better than me, amongst other things.
This, of course, did upset me and I felt extremely disrespected. Not only did he try and convince my boyfriend to cheat on me, but the stuff he was saying was also extremely insulting. Dave and my boyfriend ended up having an hour conversation in the rain (he jokingly referred to it as “the most romantic thing anyone;s ever done for him”).
I don’t really know how much my boyfriend defended me or made it clear that this type of dialogue isn’t okay with him. He definitely shut it down though.Since then, I’ve felt very uncomfortable with my boyfriend and Dave’s friendship. I don’t want to be the type of girlfriend that has a problem with any of her boyfriend’s friends, but I really felt like Dave had crossed a line.
Still, they are constantly together because they work with each other and my boyfriend spends lot of time with his work colleagues on days off etc. The problem is that, as time goes on, it’s getting to me more and more. Yesterday I posted about my boyfriend having made plans with his friends (the work colleagues) on our anniversary (you can see that post here for context).
Basically, they are planning to play D&D and Dave went over to my boyfriends’ place yesterday at 6:30pm to create his character (since my boyfriend’s never played before). My boyfriend had made it seem like there was a group who were going to help make his character, but it turned out to just be Dave (I only realized this because were on facetime and Dave rang the bell while we were on call).
Because he had abruptly hung up the phone on me, he told me he would call me back later when Dave left, and made it seem like he wouldn’t be long. Well, it gets to midnight and my boyfriend still didn’t call. I messaged to ask whether he was free yet, and he said that Dave’s still there and they’re having some drinks. Because I had work, I ended up just going to bed and we said we’d call tomorrow (today).Today we called and my boyfriend told me that he’s extremely hungover and that Dave stayed until about 4am last night. I asked him wtf happened since it wasn’t meant to be a big night, and he said they were initially drinking beers, but then moved to margaritas and lost track of time.I asked what they were doing all that time (literally 9 and a half hours??), and he said that it took them about 3 hours to make his D&D character, and then after that Dave asked him to ‘teach him how to DJ’ (my boyfriend makes music/DJ’s). I didn’t say anything further than just asking him what happened last night, and he’ll be seeing Dave again tonight for the D&D thing.
This entire situation has seriously bothered me. Call me insecure, but I am not comfortable with my boyfriend spending one on one alone time all night with anyone who has expressed deep feelings for him, let alone someone who completely disrespected me in order to try and convince my boyfriend to get with him.I know that my boyfriend is not gay, but to me I feel just the same as I would feel had it been a girl who was interested in him. Even if nothing is going to happen, it feels like he’s entertaining someone’s interest – particularly someone who clearly doesn’t respect our relationship. Should I speak to my boyfriend about this? What would I even say?TL/DR: I feel uncomfortable that my boyfriend’s friend told him that he has feelings for him and bad mouthed me to try and get with him, but my boyfriend still spends a lot of time with him – including one on one time last night till 4am.
Redditors had a lot of strong responses to the update.
ChuckGreenwald wrote:
No one’s said it yet, so I’m just going to float it–it sounds like your boyfriend doesn’t know how to shut Dave down. He might be afraid of seeming homophobic or being accused of that by Dave for rejecting his feelings.You might think that’s weird, but there’s tons of people out there who interpret rejection of their feelings as rejection of their identity and get extremely vicious in response. PLENTY of people have had their lives ruined by someone accusing them of bigotry for not giving into their feelings.Dave sounds super catty, so if your boyfriend said he was scared of him starting something, I’d believe it. Just a theory, though. You’re right to feel disrespected and wanting it to stop. I just think your boyfriend might be in a tough spot here, especially if he has any anxiety or people-pleasing tendencies.
OP responded:
This has blown my mind. It’s seriously never occurred to me, but my boyfriend is 100% a people-pleaser. I understand what you’re saying about Dave potentially getting nasty if he felt rejected for his sexuality/identity – and could see it as a possibility. Dave has also recently been promoted to my boyfriend’s supervisor at work (though this wasn’t the case when he admitted his feelings).
So maybe that could also be a factor? I’m not sure, but what you’ve said is definitely something I’ll think about.
stillcantsee wrote:
If this was a female friend who had revealed her feelings and your bf went out and got drunk and spent the night at her place, I’d be telling you he’s f#$king the friend or about to do so. It makes no difference it’s a gay dude. Your bf seems to like attention and hate boundaries. I wouldn’t stick around.
This is exactly my problem with the whole situation – if it were a girl he would know that’s not acceptable, so why should it be any different with a guy?
Fun_Diver_3885 wrote:
So rather then him distancing Dave to protect his relationship he is compartmentalizing you like two separate lives. That’s not good at all. You desperately need a sit down with him with no distractions. Please let us know what happens.
OP responded:
I agree. I’ve messaged him to say we need to talk, but he’s still out at this D&D game (apparently a different friend drove him there, so he said he cant leave until that friend is ready to go). I made it clear that we need to speak tonight. With all the feedback I’ve gotten, I’m really not willing to wait any longer to have this conversation. I’ll update once I’ve had the chat with him.
A day later, OP jumped on with another update.
My boyfriend and I had a long talk last night, and a lot of you helped me actually verbalise my feelings towards this situation. So my boyfriend called me immediately after he got home from the D&D game, and I just got straight into it with him.
By the time he got home I was already stewing after reading everyone’s perspectives on the situation, and I think I shocked him with how forceful I was from the get-go (we’ve not really had arguments like that before). I started by saying I am uncomfortable with the fact that Dave stayed over till 4am, one on one with him, and they got wasted.
He seemed surprised and completely oblivious that it would bother me to this level, and he asked me to explain why I was feeling this way. I told him it’s totally unacceptable that he and Dave spent basically the whole night together, when Dave has actively tried to sleep with him, and disrespected me AND our relationship in the process.
I told him that he needs to have boundaries with Dave, given all that has happened. His response to this was that Dave said these things a couple months ago, and that he doesn’t think Dave still fancies him like that (or ever really did).He basically said that Dave was super drunk when he made his admission but it wasn’t that serious, especially since he’s not gay or curious, and doesn’t reciprocate Dave’s feelings at all. I told him whether he took it seriously or not, the whole situation was serious to me, and that I feel extremely disrespected by both of them.I told him if this was a girl who admitted her feelings for him, and they stayed up together – one on one – until 4am, I would immediately think something sketchy is going on, because you don’t entertain someone like that when you’re in a relationship.
Just because Dave is a boy that doesn’t make it okay, and he should still have the same boundaries he would for a girl who says she’s into him, propositions him and talks shit about me.He didn’t really agree with this argument cause he said it’s different – in that scenario there’s a chance of attraction/sexual activity, but with Dave there isn’t. I told him that in any situation, with anyone, there’s that chance – regardless if he considers himself straight.How am I meant to trust that things wouldn’t happen when Dave has already expressed his desire to have sex with him, and they were very drunk and alone together? In what world would I be comfortable with the fact that he’s chosen to spend one on one time with Dave until the early hours of the night, knowing Dave has contempt for me and our relationship?
At the bare minimum he’s showing Dave that it’s okay to disrespect me/us, and that Dave still has his attention after all of this – potentially leading Dave on since he has a sexual attraction towards my boyfriend. He told me he understands my POV, but it wasn’t like that and he didn’t plan to have Dave stay that late anyway.I asked him to take me through the entire night, and explain to me why they would need to hang out for almost 10 hours. He said that when Dave came over they worked on his D&D character/Dave explained how to play for about 3 hours, and they were having a couple of beers until Dave asked for something else to drink.Then they facetimed another co-worker who was hosting the D&D event and stayed on call for like 2 hours or more (apparently it went from D&D conversation to gossip about work etc.). He said after that he was showing Dave the music he’s made/how to produce and DJ, and they just lost track of time.
I asked him how he could lose track of SO much time, when I was messaging him at 11pm/12am to say goodnight – he knew what time it was at that point, so why wasn’t Dave on his way out by then? I told him the whole thing was sketchy (which he took slight offense to, asking me what I’m trying to insinuate and saying it seems like I don’t trust him).
He said, in terms of the lateness, he honestly doesn’t know how that happened and he was shocked when he checked the time, and asked Dave to leave as soon as he realised. He said he didn’t think the situation was suspicious and from his perspective, Dave doesn’t have feelings for him so the night was innocent/they were back to being the same friends as they were before Dave’s admission.
I told him it can never go back, even if he thinks Dave doesn’t have ulterior motives – Dave put this out there and that can’t be taken back. His behaviour needs to change and boundaries need to be put in place.I told him that, without putting boundaries, he is essentially keeping things open from Dave’s perspective. He told me that initially when this entire situation happened, he distanced himself from Dave, except for when at work/work events/group outings (which is a lot of the time, so I’m not sure how ‘distant’ that is).Nevertheless, he said they haven’t met up one on one together for like 2 months. I’m pretty sure they have, but I will concede that he hasn’t told me they’ve been alone at each others’ houses since the admission – more so just the pub if anything (but I could be wrong, he may just have not mentioned another person joining them).
I couldn’t remember the specific occasions where I thought they did, though, so I couldn’t really challenge him on that one. Anyway, he said their friendship was different because he felt awkward (which he didn’t make clear to me at all, he always seemed like it didn’t phase him at all and it appeared to me that nothing had changed between them).He told me that they ended up having a chat a few weeks ago, where Dave apologized for what he did and told him that he didn’t mean anything he said. He also said that, because it happened a few months ago, he’s just moved on from it now and decided to “forgive and forget.”I told him while he can forgive, he can’t forget – because this has happened now and their friendship has to be different going forward, for the sake of his partner and relationship. I also asked him why he never told me about this talk and he said he didn’t think any of this was a big issue for me, so it didn’t occur to him that this would be something I’d want to know.
This then led to us arguing about the fact that he doesn’t share information with me/tells white lies/omits things, including when the Dave thing initially happened. I said that I always tell him immediately if anyone makes a pass at me and even used an example of a friend – lets call him Bill – who had touched me in a sexual way on a night out and said to my best friend that he has feelings for me.When that happened I literally called my boyfriend the same night, while he was on holiday, as I knew I would be seeing Bill for two upcoming group events, including New Years Eve (both of which I invited my boyfriend to).He tried to deflect by saying that he didn’t know Bill had verbally said he had feelings for me, and that I only said that I think Bill has a crush on me (insinuating its the same situation as him and Dave) – which I thought was ridiculous and told him he’s just trying to find a loophole for his own behaviour.
I asked him if he would be okay with me and Bill spending all night together getting drunk. He said obviously not, but (again) he thinks its different, especially since the Bill thing happened more recently. I told him, by his logic, that means it’ll be okay for me to do that as long as I wait a couple weeks/months.We continued going back and forth a bit. He apologized for making me feel upset and uncomfortable, and said that it was never his intention – he just truly thought the whole thing with Dave was behind them. He also apologized if he came off defensive. He said maybe he’s been naive, but he really did not believe that Dave still had any feelings for him or ulterior motives in spending time with him.He also said that it’s become more difficult for him now that Dave is his supervisor, because he essentially controls all his shifts/holidays etc., and that if he alienates him it might impact all of that. He asked me if I want him to cut off Dave for good, because he’s not sure how he can do that given his work situation, and the fact that they often do group gatherings/events.
He said it’s “kind of sad” because Dave had been a good friend to him and they get along. I told him that if Dave was a good friend, he wouldn’t have put him in this position, and that all of this is a consequence of what Dave did – this isn’t something I wanted to happen, I’ve always wanted to have a good relationship with his friends, but it’s not my fault at the end of the day (and he said it’s not his fault either).I told him that, while I am not okay with them spending alone time, I do understand that there’s not much he can do to avoid him at work. He told me that he has no problem with doing that or putting more boundaries, as he doesn’t ever want to disrespect me – he just wasn’t aware that this was something that bothered me this much.
He also said that since he’s looking for a new job, he doubts Dave will be in his life to this degree much longer. We did touch on other things during this conversation, but we weren’t able to get into everything as it was about 2am at this point and I had work in the morning.We are going to speak more again tonight, and hopefully resolve other things (mostly about how I feel I’m being treated, after some comments on the OG thread brought this to my attention). Again, I want to thank everyone for their input – I don’t think I would have been brave enough to discuss this if most of you didn’t validate my feelings.
TL/DR: Update to the previous post – my boyfriend and I had a talk about his friendship with Dave, which resulted in him agreeing to put more boundaries in place. His explanation for his behaviour was that he didn’t believe that Dave still had feelings or attraction towards him, and just thought their friendship had gone back to normal.
Commenters jumped on with all of the thoughts.
Cultural_Shape3518 wrote:
He also said that it’s become more difficult for him now that Dave is his supervisor, because he essentially controls all his shifts/holidays etc., and that if he alienates him it might impact all of that.
Honestly, if Dave isn’t either prepared to draw a firm boundary between his personal relationship with your boyfriend and their dynamic at work, or to back off the friendship himself so there’s no opportunity to get that twisted, that’s also a strike against him being a good guy with no ulterior motives.
I understand that possibility might not make the idea of alienating him any less scary, but your boyfriend needs to recognize he can’t use that as his excuse and simultaneously claim you shouldn’t have any issues with Dave.
OP responded:
I totally agree – I’m surprised he is/was oblivious to Dave’s potential motives. To me, Dave doesn’t seem like a ‘good guy’ at all – good friends do not try to convince you to get with them and insult your relationship in the process. I hope I made him aware of how wrong they both are to try and continue their friendship without boundaries.
Also, something to add – he mentioned last night that Dave has been calling him “fat” now (which is partly why he thinks Dave is not sexually attracted to him), and that this has become a joke with his work colleagues (some started calling him “beefy”) which is just????
I honestly don’t understand how he could be friends with him, he seems awful to me. My boyfriend probably plays it off like it’s nothing but he does have slight body image issues, and I’m sure deep down it plays on his mind (though he would never admit it).
Vxing404 wrote:
Wait, wait, wait. Your BF had his BOSS hit on him, tried to break up his relationship, spends hours together late into the evening, and is now disparaging him physically at work…does your BF know he’s being negged and s*xually harrassed?
OP responded:
My mind immediately went to negging too.
Mundane_Bike_912 wrote:
He kept trying to justify them hanging out.
One of the main rules of a relationship is if someone is inappropriate like this, they reduce contact or cut them off. I don’t see any of that. I wouldn’t be happy with any of it.
ChuckGreenwald wrote:
Is your boyfriend neurodivergent at all? I feel like a lot of people with neurodivergent conditions spend a lot of time explaining their thought processes because they’ve been conditioned to think it’s the only way they’ll be listened to or understood.
OP responded:
He hasn’t been diagnosed with anything, to my knowledge. He has mentioned several times that he thinks he may be on the spectrum (Autism runs in his family), but we don’t know for sure.
ChuckGreenwald followed up:
Well, that’s something to consider. I only ask because I often explain myself a lot because I’ve also been conditioned the same way.
OP is clearly NTA here, this is an incredibly stressful position for her relationship to be in.
