Why Abusers Destroy Every Special Occasion

The abusive mindset that leads them to ruin life's most meaningful moments.

Recently, I asked people on social media whether their abuser had ever ruined a special occasion. Nearly one thousand people indicated they had, and over 300 shared detailed accounts of how their most meaningful moments had been sabotaged or overshadowed.

What emerged was a clear and recognisable pattern. Across hundreds of responses, the same dynamics appeared again and again. Survivors described how moments that should have been joyful, meaningful, or even sacred became overshadowed by conflict, cruelty, or disruption.

The occasions they named covered the full spectrum of life. They spoke about holidays like Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, and New Year’s Eve, as well as birthdays, both their own and their children’s. Family vacations featured heavily. Many described how everything surrounding the arrival of a new baby was affected, from prenatal appointments and scans to baby showers, the birth itself, and christenings. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, weddings, honeymoons, family visits, job interviews, promotions, and graduation ceremonies.

The behaviour also extended beyond traditionally happy events. Survivors also described funerals, hospital visits, the final days of a loved one’s life, and moments of grief and remembrance being disrupted or overshadowed. No occasion seemed protected from it.

“Every Occasion I Spent in Tears”

Survivors described this pattern in their own words:

• “He ruined my career, my attempt to get it back, my early motherhood, holidays and birthdays, and any attempt at autonomy after a while. Also anything I planned nice for the family to do together and me making it to my grandma’s funeral almost. So much more.”

• “Every chance he got. Happy occasions and even the sad ones. I remember getting into a fight just before my grandpa’s funeral. I wasn’t even able to feel those feelings. It was all about him.”

• “All of my important milestones as a new mum…”

• “Holidays and my ‘wins’ in life were her favourites. Even if she celebrated a win initially, it became clear it was a threat to her and it would be weaponized against me.”

• “Every special occasion for 28 years. Christmases, Mother’s Days, birthdays, anniversaries. Every occasion I spent in tears. That’s when he was happiest.”

• “My last day of chemo should have been a reason to celebrate. I spent the whole time I was there getting abusive messages.”

• “I remember one time he started on Mother’s Day, threw all the dinner on the kitchen floor and left me to clean it all up. Then told the children, ‘Look at mum, such a cry baby.’”

• “All the time. My birthdays, Mother’s Day, anniversary, work functions, job interviews, Christmas, family outings. It got to the point that I started doing things alone with the kids.”

The consistency across these accounts points to the fact that these weren’t just isolated incidents that were ‘bad timing’ or where an argument got out of hand. They describe something patterned and deliberate.

How Abusers Ruin Special Occasions

The way these events and occasions are disrupted tend to follow similar patterns. Many survivors describe tension building in the lead-up, with arguments starting the night before or just before leaving. This creates emotional exhaustion and shifts the focus away from the occasion itself.

In other situations, the disruption unfolds during the event. Attention is pulled away through hostility, sulking, or sudden escalation, leaving the survivor trying to steady the situation instead of experiencing the moment. Practical interference also plays a role. People describe being delayed, prevented from attending, or left to manage everything alone. Others recall being interrogated, criticised, or accused during what should have been meaningful or celebratory experiences.

Eventually, the event itself fades into the background. The energy of the day becomes centred on anticipating reactions, managing moods, or avoiding escalation. Survivors described many of these patterns:

• “He’d pick a fight before and after I went out. They do this on purpose to destroy your happiness.”

• “He often did low key sabotage like making me late for work. One time, I told him about a special cliff walk I’d really like us to do. On the day he sat in the kitchen and made me listen while he talked for 8 hours about ‘what’s wrong with people’. Finally, we left but then he found something to interrogate me about and ruined the walk by shouting at me most of the time.”

• “All the time with every good occasion but the most heartbreaking one was my daughter’s birthday. It was a Sunday and my daughter, not a church goer and deaf, stayed home but was up, showered and ready with excitement to celebrate the day. He, being the ‘religious’ one, told her that because she hadn’t attended the morning service she didn’t deserve to celebrate her birthday. With that he took my car and his car keys so that even I couldn’t leave the house.”

• “Any event that required any effort was grumbled about. I was given notes on how to act and constant questions on ‘how long did we have to be there?’ Then he would leave without me if I didn’t leave when he wanted to go, even if I was mid-conversation, and then berate me all the way home.”

• “The night before every big work commitment he would start an argument then demand it be resolved, yelling and lecturing me until the early hours.”

• “He ruined my dad’s funeral as he refused to go and then constantly sent me text messages asking how long I would be because he was waiting for his dinner. He done the same when my dad was dying. He sulked because I was spending time with him in hospital and had the nerve to ask if I was really seeing him or meeting another man.”

Why They Do It

Understanding the why is critical, because without it, you are often left trying to “fix” something that was never about you in the first place.

The reasons behind this pattern are rooted in the mindset that drives abusive behaviour.

Special Occasions Shift Attention Away from Them

Special occasions naturally direct attention toward a person, a milestone, or a shared experience. A birthday centres the person celebrating. A graduation highlights achievement. A funeral gathers people around grief and remembrance. These shifts in focus are part of what gives those moments meaning. For someone who expects to remain central, that change in focus can feel uncomfortable, destabilising, or threatening.

Several survivors described this clearly. One wrote, “He ruined every birthday, Mother’s Day, family outing, and family holiday. Every time the focus wasn’t solely on himself.” Another said, “He destroyed anything where he wasn’t the centre of attention.”

When attention moves elsewhere, abusive individuals will make efforts to pull it back onto them. That can take the form of tension, conflict, or behaviour that redirects the emotional atmosphere of the day. The result is that the original purpose of the occasion becomes secondary to managing their response.

Entitlement and Double Standards

At the core of the abusive mindset is entitlement, which is the belief that their needs matter more, their feelings come first, and their preferences should take priority. As one survivor shared, “I explained how I wanted a weekend away for my 50th birthday and see a show. But he planned everything he wanted to do the rest of the weekend instead of even asking me what I wanted.”

With entitlement comes double standards. They expect their special occasions to receive attention and effort, while yours are minimised or ignored. They want their achievements to be celebrated, while yours are dismissed or criticised as bragging. They believe their grief deserves compassion, while yours is treated as an inconvenience.

As one survivor wrote: “He would ruin my birthday every year. ‘It’s just another day’, is what was said. But if I didn’t celebrate his, watch out!”

Gradually, even deeply personal moments begin to revolve around their expectations.

They Resent Your Joy

Another reason abusers will ruin special occasions is that they resent your joy. As one woman shared, “Every time I’m happy, he just picks a fight. It’s like he wants me to feel as bad as he feels.”

This often comes down to how the abuser experiences your happiness. If they feel insecure, left out, or dissatisfied in themselves, your joy can highlight that contrast. Instead of sharing in the moment, they experience it as distance. Your attention is elsewhere and your emotions are not centred on them. That can feel threatening to someone who expects to remain emotionally central.

In some cases, there is jealousy. Your success, your excitement, or even your ability to enjoy something can make them feel diminished. In others, it is about control. If your mood is independent of them, it means they are not shaping your emotional world in that moment. Disrupting your happiness becomes a way to restore balance from their perspective.

Your Achievements Challenge Their Sense of Superiority

Events tied to achievement often bring particularly strong reactions. Promotions, graduations, creative milestones, and recognition can shift how value and status are perceived within the relationship.

One survivor wrote, “My ‘wins’ in life were her favourites. Even if she celebrated a win initially, it became clear it was a threat to her and it would be weaponised against me.” Another shared, “She ruined my University graduation. I was the first person in the family to ever pass school and the first to go to University. She asked why I didn’t get a High Distinction and then left early because it was her birthday.”

When someone relies on feeling superior or central, another person’s success can feel unsettling. Your success shows capability, independence, value, and a life that reaches beyond them. That challenges the hierarchy they want to protect, so instead of celebrating you, they minimise, criticise, compete, or redirect attention to themselves.

When You Stop Expecting Joy

After enough experiences like this, the tragedy is that you stop anticipating a happy occasion and start expecting a disaster.

Instead of looking forward to events, you feel the tension building in advance. Ahead of a birthday or celebration, you have a feeling of dread that something will go wrong. As you get closer in time to a planned vacation, you feel your anxiety increasing. And instead of feeling a sense of pride or excitement about a personal achievement, you start to worry about what the backlash will be.

As one survivor said, “I couldn’t be excited for or look forward to anything or he’d ruin it.”

This repeated pattern can lead to pulling back socially, lowering expectations, or making yourself smaller in order to avoid the fallout. The meaning of the occasion shifts, shaped more by what surrounds it than by what it was meant to represent.

And yet, many survivors also describe finding ways to reclaim these moments once they are no longer in that environment. One said, “Soon after I escaped from him, I went on a trip on my own to do that walk again and complete it. It meant so much, like a victory!” Another shared, “Nowadays I make sure to do something nice for myself on my birthday to push off bad memories of him.”

Wanting to celebrate your birthday, to feel joy at Christmas, to grieve without managing someone else’s reactions, or to feel proud of your achievements are all deeply human responses.

The problem was never that you wanted too much. The problem was that you shared those moments with someone who believed their needs, feelings, and desires should always come first, even when the occasion belonged to you.

That was never your failing. It was always theirs.

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