Husband Insults His Wife On Her Birthday And Complains About Why They Were Celebrating Her At 40 — She Laughs It Off
People who have dealt with narcissistic abuse say they've seen it all before.
@jenngstyle / TikTok A woman's videos of her husband jokingly mocking her birthday have raised quite a few eyebrows online.
Many of us have the kind of relationships where teasing and joking is central to the rapport, of course. But some viewers saw something else when reading between the lines, and warned that when a husband insults his wife on her birthday, things might be crossing a line.
A TikToker says videos of her husband complaining and insulting her on her 40th birthday are just part of how they joke around together.
TikToker Jennifer Green (@JennGStyle) recently celebrated the big 4-0, and to mark the occasion she and her husband embarked on a big, fancy shopping trip to New York City. Green documented the trip by having her husband film a few funny videos of their shopping sprees and lively dinners.
In the videos, her husband seems absolutely miserable and at times outright angry and resentful of his wife and her big celebration. Green says it was all a joke, and some of the moments in the videos are genuinely funny. But others include types of incidents we've all witnessed between couples, where you can't help but wonder if her husband's jokes aren't actually jokes at all.
The videos show Jennifer Green's husband profanely mocking her and getting angry about having to celebrate her birthday.
In one video of Green gleefully shopping, her arms loaded with bags, her husband narrates by calling the trip the "f--kin' dumbest birthday I've ever been a part of" and complains about how all of the shopping bags, saying "I've been carrying those f--kin' things all day."
Photo: TikTok / @jenngstyle
In another video at Green's birthday dinner with a group of friends, her husband complains and mocks her during the singing of "Happy Birthday." As their friends launch into the song, he gripes, "we're really doing this?" going on to complain, "A $500 dinner and we're singing 'Happy Birthday'?" and that "everyone's looking" at them.
Most of the jokes seem like just that — the type of jokes based in the well-worn cliché of the cranky, put-upon husband who cracks, "Take my wife — please!" that has existed for decades.
But when it finally comes time for Green to blow out her candle after the final "happy birthday to you," there's a shift. When her husband snipes, "it was f--kin' yesterday," Green, who until now has been laughing along, turns to her husband and says, "Stop!"
It's hard to watch the moment and not wonder if Green wasn't finding her husband's jokes quite as funny as he was.
Photo: TikTok / @jenngstyle
Many people called her husband a narcissist, but she says 'that's just how we talk to each other.'
If the whole birthday trip was an elaborate joke, it was lost on a lot of commenters. "There’s always some truth to 'just kidding,'" one woman wrote, while another commented, "I truly hope you had the amazing birthday you deserve. This video is infuriating to watch."
But in several follow-up videos, Green responded to say that people were taking it all way, way too seriously, and that jokes like this are just "how we talk to each other."
She pushed back on the notion that her husband's supposed jokes were misogynistic. "When I handed him my phone and said 'take a video of me,' I knew exactly what was going to happen. Guys, calm the f--k down!"
Photo: TikTok / @jenngstyle
But for many viewers, it only made them more concerned. "It sounds like you're trying to convince yourself more than us," one person wrote, while another commented, "I used to make the excuses too until I realized more than 10 years later it was narcissistic traits I was making terrible excuses for."
Psychologists say that when a husband insults his wife on her birthday, or ruins any other big event, it often is a key indicator of narcissistic abuse.
According to psychologists, the way a partner responds to big events in a person's life is one of the major signs that they may be a narcissist. "Narcissists hate having the focus off of themselves," therapist Dr. Stephanie Moulton-Sarkis told us in 2018.
Because of this, as psychotherapist Dr. Ramani Durvasula explains in the video below, they do everything in their power to "ruin your big days."
Dr. Durvasula says they do this because "it has to be all validation, all the time" for narcissists, and because they are "afraid of abandonment." So something like a birthday celebration "is almost too much for them... Basically, they're afraid you're going to get too big for your britches... so they spoil it."
Whether or not that's what's going on between Green and her husband is impossible for any of us to know. And, judging from some of her other videos, they do genuinely seem to have a funny, jokey relationship after 19 years together.
Still, that awkward moment while singing "Happy Birthday" is pretty hard to miss.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.