Hello all! I just want to start by saying my husband loves me and is an amazing father and husband. We don’t really ever fight and he is genuinely my best friend.
We got married a little over 5 years ago now. As you can tell by the title, I didn’t get vows. We said our ‘death do I part vow’ but that’s not the kind I’m talking about. My husband wanted to do spur of the moment vows, which I completely agree’d to. We get up there and do our thing and I say my vows, I pour my heart out in front of everyone and it’s now his turn. I didn’t get any. He clammed up. He has really bad social anxiety and it doesn’t help my uncle gave him an edible and he had a few beers. He doesn’t really smoke or drink. I remember being on the stand and seeing him shut down and saying “are you really not going to say anything to me right now?” He doesn’t. I talked to him about it and it’s always bothered me but it’s gotten a lot worse the last few years. Anytime I bring it up clearly upset he just kind of takes it? I feel like I’m beating a downed dog. So I decided for our 5th anniversary I wanted vows, really thought out written vows. I also told him I didn’t want to plan anything, I wanted to be surprised for it. We’ve always just planned everything together. Come our anniversary, we’re dead broke. Which is fine, so he cancels what he had planned. He just gave up after that. So I went to good will bought every used candle and cooked for us. I had him set up a candlelit picnic in our backyard and we eat and talk, I asked for my vows and to say I was disappointed is an understatement. To get an idea it was about 6 lines and one of them was “ I vow to give you the last bite of everything” for you to get an idea. he said he had been writing them for a while and it some of them had disappeared and he would write more. I feel so incredibly guilty and ungrateful for even feeling so sad and disappointed. I have talked with him about it and he agrees he bombed the anniversary. Another issue that kind of popped up at the same time is, I never get compliments from him, I could take hours to get ready and hear “you look nice” and that’s after speaking to him about it and how much it absolutely bothers me. It’s also like now that I’ve asked for compliments they just mean nothing and it just makes me even sadder. Like I can feel my heart breaking writing this. Like he technically has done everything I asked of him.
How do I get past this? I don’t know how to forgive him for it. How do I accept him for who he is? We love each other very much but these things are killing me inside.
I’ve also been diagnosed as bipolar and with BPD, sometimes I feel like I can blame how I feel on this but I honestly do not know.
Thank you in advance for any help!