Marriage and long-term partnership is not for everyone. I think that’s because it involves a lot of unpacking of other’s people’s childhood issues and traumas and all of that.

One reason, anyway.

OP’s wife enjoys getting free things on her birthday.

Today is my wife’s birthday. One of the things she looks forward to is collecting her free birthday food and drinks from places.

For the last couple of days the plan has been that she would go to Firehouse subs, get her free sandwich and also bring me one home for lunch (her idea).

His feelings were hurt, though, when she told him that getting him a sandwich too would make her feel less special.

This morning she suddenly asked me if it would be ok if she didn’t buy me a sandwich because it would make her free sandwich feel less special?

I agreed that this would be fine because we have plenty of other food I can eat at the house. But I couldn’t help but have my feelings hurt with the thought that somehow doing something nice for me or the fact that I also get a sandwich makes her feel less special.

I hear that this is the case and it’s her birthday so maybe I don’t need to understand. But I just can’t relate. Doing something nice for her like bringing her a sandwich would make me feel good.

They tried to talk it out but didn’t really get anywhere.

Before she left, perhaps sensing that my feelings had been hurt she tried to talk to me about it to understand why it was something that hurt my feelings.

I tried to explain it to her but she got frustrated that I was explaining the why (thoughts) over and over and couldn’t go deeper to describe the emotion and maybe where that emotion was coming from at the root.

I told her I would try to process it and maybe we could talk more later and she left with us on good terms but it just makes me wonder if I’m just being a big sensitive baby or if it’s normal to feel hurt by this?

Does Reddit think he should have just dropped it? I bet this one is going to be interesting, as trivial as it seems on the surface.

The top comment agrees with OP’s assessment of the situation.

This person understands his feelings as well.

But this person sees where his wife is coming from, too.

The solution should have been simple.

Everyone is a little bit confused.

This is one of those funny marriage things.

Is it a big deal? No. Can it sometimes feel like one? For sure.

Want to read another story where somebody got satisfying revenge? Check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.