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It was my 19th birthday. I was killing it in my first year of undergrad, had a solid group of friends, and had been dating a guy I really liked for the last six months. As far as I was concerned, life post-high school could not have been going better.
That night, my friends had planned a surprise birthday party for me. Of course, it wasn’t actually a surprise to me – people rarely pull off surprising me – and I was so excited to spend the evening with good friends and my boyfriend. It was the first birthday we were spending together since being set up by a mutual friend just after Christmas the year previous, and I wondered how he would celebrate with me.
When I arrived at my friends house, fashionably late and acting appropriately surprised, I was surprised my beau wasn’t there yet. I checked my phone in case he had called or texted, but no notifications awaited. I told myself– and everyone who asked– he was probably still at work and would probably be here soon.
A half hour into the party, my boyfriend’s best friend walked in, shaking his head. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the other room. “I don’t know what’s happening.” he said. “He and I were just at a baseball game the other night and he told me he was super into you. He said he could see himself marrying you. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what he’s doing.”
I was confused. The truth was, I could see myself marrying this guy too. I didn’t see how that was a bad thing.
“What are you talking about?” I looked at him expectantly, wanting him to explain, before catching sight of the guy I was just imagining marrying walking through the hall toward the living room.
Finally.
I ran out to catch him, only to catch sight of the loud blonde hanging alllll over him.
“Who the fuck,” I thought to myself, as I watched him take her hand. Under a chorus of her obnoxious giggles, I did what any girl would do in this situation– I locked myself in the hall bathroom and cried.
I ignored the knocks on the bathroom door as I felt all the feelings. When I looked into the mirror, I was a wreck, but fuck him. I would be the sweetest wreck he’s ever met. I vowed that I would be so kind and so cool and so “whatever” about the whole thing that he’d know I was different by the time the night was over. Which, of course, would make him pick me anyway.
Right?
———–
Fast forward five long years. It was the night before my 24th birthday and I was alone in Heathrow airport awaiting a return flight from a job I had just finished in London.
My little house in Philly awaited, along with my fiancee and my little weiner dog. He had been texting me all week teasing about a birthday surprise, and I was so looking forward to his plans and to sleeping in my own bed. My job, at the time, was at a small media company, and while I loved the travel, that year had been heavy with longer and more frequent trips than normal.
The next day, I took a cab from the Philadelphia airport to my house. My fiancee was working and couldn’t risk the time off to pick me up, he said, but I was glad to have a few hours to myself after such a long trip. Visions of a hot bath and a nap kept me going until I reached the front door.
The front door, through which loud music was blaring when I walked up.
I actually checked the house number (lol)
I mean, I HAD been gone for some time, and I was so confused at the sheer volume of noise coming from my house that I thought perhaps I had gone to the wrong one.
Spoiler alert: I hadn’t.
Lugging my bags up the steps, I unlocked the front door and let it swing open on its own, only to reveal my fiance, in the middle of the living room, surrounded by wires and toy instruments.
And it was so loud.
So loud that he didn’t even hear me open the door or notice me standing there.
It was only when the dog started to bark and ran to greet me that he looked up from the little simulation drum-kit he was hunched over and acknowledged my presence.
“Babe!” he yelled over the blaring music of the video game. “You’re back! Happy birthday- I got you Rock Band! It’s so awesomeeeee! I couldn’t go to work today, I just HAD to play it.”
In retrospect, I don’t even have words for the thoughts and feelings that coursed through me in that moment. But I can tell you that I left my bags in the doorway, picked up my dog, and stormed up to the second floor bathroom. If anyone knew me, they would know that this was perhaps the least appropriate gift to get me, nevermind the cab I took from the airport because he “had” to work.
I definitely locked the door behind me.
I definitely cried.
And by the time I let myself come out of the bathroom, to an imploring and slightly confused fiance, I had decided that I would just play the stupid video game, be amazing at it, and make him take me to dinner later to make up for it.
———–
Different guys. Same disappointment.
And, let’s get real, I had very valid, real reasons for feeling disappointed in both of those situations. Disappointment, as a temporary emotion is intended to show you that your expectations for a particular person or situation were different from the reality you were faced with.
The challenge becomes how we choose to respond to disappointment when it happens.
I can tell you, based on experience, that locking yourself in the bathroom and crying doesn’t really accomplish much – though I do recommend taking time to feel and acknowledge any emotions related to the disappointment you may have.
In both of these situations, I resorted to one of the most destructive patterns of behavior I see among people in relationships and on the dating scene: I altered my own response/behavior in hopes of eliciting a desired response/behavior from another person.
With bf #1, I assumed that by acting like it didn’t bother me that he showed up to my birthday party with another girl, he would in turn realize how cool/different I was, realize his mistake, and want to be with me anyway.
With fiance #2, I reasoned that if I were amazing at the video game I didn’t want, he’d find me more irresistible (what’s that they say about girls who play video games?) and WANT to show me love and acknowledgement in the tangible ways I’d been hoping for in the first place.
And taking me out to dinner? Yeah, he took me, and it was fine– be he didn’t know that in my mind he was actually taking me out to dinner to make up for being a dick about my birthday.
Ladies, you cannot predict or control another person’s thoughts, feelings, or behavior with your own. And this passive-aggressive, manipulative, probably habitual tactic only separates you from your own wants, needs, and desires.
In the face of disappointment in your relationship, you need to get really, deeply clear about what actually disappointed you, what you expected, and why.
And then you need to get really, deeply clear with your partner about what disappointed you, what you expected, and why. Leaning into and learning from your disappointment will make you a better partner, and will teach you to better honor yourself
Feeling disappointment? Click here to try this EFT tapping video to shift your emotions fast.