When our son was a senior in HS, many parents arranged for a cruise trip for parents and seniors as a farewell and sort of a sendoff to the real world. As usual, my husband avoided talking with me about anything so I always was the one who made any social arrangements that included the whole family. Any social event my husband found out about and went to, he did by himself and went alone. If people ask about me, he’s say, I was either sick, out of town, and any other excuse he could come up with at that moment. I know this because I always run into people who ask me if I’m feeling well or if I’m still traveling a lot.

For that trip, I arranged everything and the way it worked out, each one of the families got a suite where the parents and their kids stayed together. That cruise was seven days and it was a great trip for all of us. We all had a great time socializing and getting closer as friends. Our son had told us long before we went on that trip not to put his pictures on social media and if we did, not to tag him. I think at the time, he was going thru the phase where he wanted to be independent and did not want his parents friends to comment on his tagged pictures which are visible to his friends.

I tried to always accommodate our son when asked for things like this, so I never tagged him or posted pictures of him on my social media accounts. What I did instead, was take a lot of pictures of my son and his friend, and when I came back I made him a souvenir photobook as a keepsake. While on the trip, I gave access to my son to all the pictures I was taking so he could share with his friends and they all had a great time looking at the pictures, sharing them, and posting the ones they wanted.

I did not know this at the time, but apparently my husband was taking lots of pictures of him and our son, whenever he was alone with him, and posting the pictures as well as tagging our son. I did not know and even if I did know, there wouldn’t’ve been anything I could do to ask him not to do so, but at that time, even my son wasn’t taking it seriously. When we came back, however, I was told by many of our family and close friends who knew we had all gone on the trip that all the pictures my husband had posted were only of him and our son. I did not exist in any of the pictures or the posts that he broadcasted to all his friends all over the world. I felt really bad that husband just excluded me from the the memories he was sharing with everyone. I just do not exist in his conscious at all. What made me feel even worse was when I ran into other extended friends who asked me why I did not join my husband and my son on the cruise trip.

This is the example of what husband thinks of me, insignificant. He wants me to work, bring a salary, clean the house, cook, raise our child, and be blank from his life. Other than that, I should not have presence in his life at all.