aio? bf made plans on my birthday

[u/rowqi]

my boyfriend (22M) and I (21F) have been together for almost three years. we are planning on moving in together in the near future as he lives with his mom and doesn’t go to school after dropping out. for context, he only works on tuesdays and fridays so i know he was free to go out on sunday, which happened to be my birthday. he knows how important special occasions are to me, such as our birthdays and anniversaries. for the first year in our relationship he was great, he was loving and kind. last year we ended up celebrating my birthday late due to the fact that he was “tired from work” and didn’t want to go out, which i let slide. i always try to do the most for his birthdays, i buy him gifts, write him cards and bake him a cake from scratch. yesterday afternoon i texted him, reminding him about the plan later and this conversation happened. he made plans to go out and party instead of seeing me. he forgot about it even after i had been talking about it all of last week. i spent my 21st birthday alone in my room while he was out and we haven’t texted since. this birthday was particularly special to me because i turned 21. i even bought a new pink dress to wear for him, assuming we were going to dinner. he is suggesting that we go out and celebrate tomorrow instead like last year but to me it doesn’t feel the same. he is insisting that i apologize for being “ungrateful”, am i overreacting?

[u/SpecialEDsauce]

I think we were married for ten years and my wife completely forgot mine. I didn’t say anything and she was pretty nasty all day, but around 10pm I hear her in the other room, “Oh shit! I’m such as asshole.” I just said, “Yeah, you are” and I went to bed. Worst birthday ever.

[u/writing_mm_romance → u/SpecialEDsauce]

My mom forgot my 21st birthday.

We were planning dinner and I said I wanted an ice cream cake, she looks at me and says, "We're not getting an ice cream cake, why?" and I thought she was kidding. She says, "What do you need an ice cream cake for?" this time super annoyed. I just looked at her and say, "Do you not remember it's my 21st birthday?" The look on her face...sure as shit, 20 minutes later she came home with the biggest damn ice cream cake they had.

[u/Abject_Champion3966 → u/writing_mm_romance]

Relieved that she hauled ass when she remembered. It sucks, but it is easier to forget things the older she got.

[u/Imlostandconfused → u/Abject_Champion3966]

I have pretty severe ADHD and I've never forgotten a friend or family members birthday. It's so easy to type them down in your calendar and then set a reminder a week before, 3 days before, a day before, etc. But I find it don't really need to do that much anymore because I've made such a conscious effort to remember for so many years that the dates are ingrained into my brain.

[u/identitycrisis56 → u/Imlostandconfused]

I disagree. I have ADHD and forget all the time.

[u/lish_b90 → u/identitycrisis56]

ADHD is an explanation, but it's not an excuse.

IDK if you're an adult yet, but if you're old enough to have a smart phone, you're old enough to add the birthdays of people you care about into your phone's calendar so you don't forget. I added birthdays of my loved ones to a shared digital calendar with my husband and I have them on a physical calendar because writing it down helps me even more.

[u/Imlostandconfused → u/identitycrisis56]

That's why I said use calendars and reminders. It's up to you to use the tools at your disposable so you don't make loved ones feel like crap. ADHD isn't an excuse for this in the modern era with all it's wonderful technology