A woman wanted to buy a cake to celebrate being one year sober. Then she told her boyfriend and got a sour response.
Reddit user u/WesternCat5211 posted to r/AmIOverreacting to ask the question: Was she overreacting, considering the less-than-pleasant reaction her boyfriend had to her desire to celebrate her sobriety?
“Alcoholism was something I struggled with in my 20s and I finally got into therapy and got sober. I did SMART Recovery, and it’s been a lot of hard work changing a lot of my habits, and it’s something I’m proud of,” the Reddit user said.
Then, they added, “I thought I’d get one of the berry chantilly cakes. The screenshots are from the convo with my boyfriend when I was thinking about it. He acted normal when he got home but the way he talked to me really hurt my feelings.”
How bad were the screenshots?
The answer is… pretty bad. Break-up worthy, according to some Reddit users, who advocated for u/WesternCat5211 to end things with her partner of three years.
In their text exchange, u/WesternCat5211 mentioned how she wanted to get a cake in an excited and generally positive tone. Her partner asked her why she would do that and then accused her of seeking validation and a pat on the back. “So you’re celebrating doing the bare minimum,” he said, adding after she responded, “You still need my validation to buy yourself a cake.”
“No… I’m not looking for validation,” she said. “I wanted to share with you since I thought you’d be happy for me.”
The conversation devolved, with her boyfriend growing increasingly more hostile. “No, you wanted a pat on the back from me and now [you’re] pissed I didn’t give it to you…” He replied, “I’m not going to act like you’re a hero for doing the bare minimum. You are the one who chose to drink too much, [so] don’t make it everyone’s problem.”
The exchange felt slightly dehumanizing, even from an outsider’s perspective.
Commenters add their thoughts
Overall, commenters didn’t think that she was overreacting to feeling upset about his text messages.
“The bare minimum for a boyfriend would have been to be happy for you, not only was he not celebrating you he insulted you and minimized something that is big and very hard and very important to you! It’s gross and unkind and you deserve better,” read the top commenter’s addition.
One Reddit user said, “You must not have any self respect if you’re not immediately ditching this loser and instead defending him on reddit lmao.” U/WesternCat5211 responded, “This is a really rude thing to say.” Despite their assertion that the comment was rude, some readers insisted that “It is, but this is really what you should have told your boyfriend, too. If you can stand up to a random stranger for saying something mean to you then you really should learn to stand up for yourself to partners, family, friends, etc.”
An update from u/WesternCat5211
Eventually, u/WesternCat5211 updated her audience with more information. “I can’t edit the post, so I hope someone sees this,” she said. “I’m probably going to break up with him tomorrow after I check in with my therapist and group. We live together, but it’s my place and he only moved in a few months ago.”
Since replying to a few different comments inquiring about the cake, u/WesternCat5211 has been silent. She hasn’t given any additional updates as to how the breakup might have gone. Regardless, Redditors seemed happy that she considered her boyfriend’s comments icky enough to ditch him.
U/WesternCat5211 was unavailable for comment.
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