“Where exactly is the compromise between me doing everything and him doing nothing?”

She went quiet.

Then I told her something I probably should have said years earlier.

Desmond hadn’t invented the idea that his needs were more important.

His family had spent his entire life treating his birthday like a national holiday while describing women as needy if they wanted the same consideration.

Lorna called me bitter.

Then she hung up.

Twenty minutes later, Bridget sent me several long messages about family loyalty.

Soon afterward, she posted something online about “fake family.”

I turned my phone off.

That evening, Desmond returned home carrying flowers.

For one embarrassing second, hope rose in my chest.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Maybe we need marriage counseling.”

I relaxed slightly.

Then he continued.

“A neutral person might help you see why you’re making such a big deal out of this.”

The flowers instantly became meaningless.

Still, I agreed to counseling.

Not because I thought a stranger would magically save us.

I needed to know whether Desmond was capable of hearing the truth when it came from someone he couldn’t dismiss as an overly emotional wife.

Desmond chose the counselor himself.

Her name was Vivien.

She was around fifty, calm, observant, and impossible to rush.

At our first session, she asked why we were there.

Desmond said we were having “some disagreement about birthday stuff.”

I explained what “birthday stuff” actually meant.

Nine years of forgotten birthdays.

Nine years of elaborate expectations for his own.

Within the first ten minutes, he interrupted me three times.

Each time, Vivien calmly asked him to let me finish.

By the third time, Desmond looked personally offended by the concept.

Then I took out the notebook.

I read several entries.

The golfing.

The forgotten dinners.

The comment about marriage being my gift.

Vivien listened quietly.

Before we left, she asked whether she could read the notebook before our next appointment.

The drive home was awful.

“You ambushed me.”

“With what?”

“That notebook.”

“With our history?”

“You made me look terrible.”

“I wrote down what happened.”

“You twisted things.”

“Which part?”

He never answered.

The following morning, Desmond announced that Vivien was obviously biased toward women.

“You picked her.”

He didn’t appreciate that reminder.

At work, my coworker Yara noticed how exhausted I looked.

We had worked together for five years and mostly discussed parking, deadlines, and terrible office coffee.

But that day, I told her what was happening.

When I finished, she stared at me.

“If my husband ignored my birthday for nine years while expecting custom cakes for himself, he’d be enjoying his next birthday at a hotel.”

I laughed despite myself.

Then she told me about an argument she’d once had with her husband over wet towels.

He dropped them on the floor constantly.

Eventually she stopped washing any towel that never made it into the hamper.

When he complained, she told him she wouldn’t continue providing effort that he refused to return.

Then Yara said something that stayed with me.

“A marriage works when both people contribute. Otherwise one person has a partner and the other has an unpaid assistant.”

At our next session, Vivien had finished reading my notebook.

She asked Desmond how he believed his behavior had affected me.

He shifted in his chair.

“I guess she felt ignored.”

Vivien waited.

That was apparently all he had.

Then she asked him to describe what I had done for his birthdays.

Suddenly, he had plenty to say.

Restaurants.

Parties.

Custom cakes.

Presents.

Surprises.

Invitations.

Friends.

Reservations.

Remembering what he wanted.

Coordinating everything.

For several minutes, he described all the care I had given him.

Then Vivien asked,

“And what have you done for hers?”

Desmond opened his mouth.

Closed it.