I need to figure out if this should be bothering me as much as it seems to be today.
Yesterday my spouse and friends threw me a surprise 50th birthday party. I got there at around 3:30. Not long after I got there , a few people left. After about 2-3 hours, most of my friends had left. My spouse had lots of food left that didn’t get eaten. This was a Saturday and I guess I assumed this would be a fun party that would go into the evening. I planned my own birthday party the past few years and always did it on a Saturday and it went into the evening. I felt like I was just settling in and enjoying myself as everyone was leaving. I didn’t even get a chance to open gifts that people got me before everyone had left. It felt like it went by so fast.
I found out a larger amount of friends - most of my core best friends — who all left at the same time (about 1/3 of the guests, including a best friend who helped plan the party) had planned to go out to a bar in the evening. I was not really invited to go with them. I got an off-the-cuff invite as they were all leaving and I started asking questions. But I wasn’t going to leave my tired spouse to clean up from the party. He the plan been to officially move the celebration to the bar in the evening, I would have helped my spouse clean up earlier (though that may have left me only an hour or so to relax and celebrate)
A few friends did stay a little longer, until about 8:30. Though for a Saturday, still kind of early.
I do not want to seem ungrateful for the party. I am very grateful for them thinking of me. But some of these friends are from out of town so I don’t get to see them as often. And all through the time they were there, my friends were talking about plans for later, and talking about how early they needed to leave the party to go get ready to go out later. There was no special event at the bar. They just all wanted to go. And it didn’t seem like I was invited, until I got an off-the-cuff invite as they were leaving.
In the past, at another friend’s party, we had planned in both a party at his house and bar time later, but this didn’t seem like the case. It just felt odd and I couldn’t help but have my feelings hurt as they all left.
I did find out afterwards that they set the end time of the party on Facebook as 6pm - set by the friend that helped plan the party, not my spouse since they are not on Facebook. I guess they set I that early because they wanted to do something else without me later. I just didn’t understand that. This was a big birthday for me and some of them knew 50 was hitting me hard. I would have loved to go out with them afterwards if that was in the plans and we could have all helped clean up and put food away before we left. I just felt like the party started strong but then whimpered off quickly.
Later in the evening I even got a text from a friend who didn’t come to the party asking if I was at the bar, and I said no. Evidently that was the hot spot that night but I wasn’t factored in, even for my 50th.
I don’t want this to bother me and I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I just can’t shake the hurt feelings.
Trying to look on the bright side that my spouse did a very sweet thing and put a lot of work into it, and we are spending the rest of the weekend together.
Maybe this is still a little 50 depression seeping in…. I don’t know. Maybe I just needed to vent about it.