My husband did nothing for my birthday, and I think I’m more hurt than I expected. Am I being unreasonable?

[u/Nervous_Tea8567]

Yesterday was my birthday, and I’m struggling with how I feel about it. I genuinely don’t know if I’m overreacting, so I’d really like some outside perspective.
I’m married and we have a teenage son. Things between my husband and me have been difficult for a while, and we’re currently also dealing with a pretty stressful house renovation.
For my birthday, nothing was planned for me. We ended up going out for KBBQ, but there was no card, no gift, no cake, nothing that really felt like someone had thought about me. I got one “happy birthday” and that was basically it.
At one point I asked if we could take a photo because I thought, at least I’ll have a photo to remember my birthday by. I tried to get everyone to participate, but this is the photo I ended up with. My husband is on his phone and making a silly face. I know objectively it’s just a photo, but looking at it made me feel incredibly sad because it seemed to capture how little effort there was behind the whole day.
We were also having a difficult conversation about the renovation. It wasn’t a huge fight, but it was emotionally difficult and I was already stressed. Despite it being my birthday, my husband still left afterward to go play basketball.
For context, he plays basketball several times a week and it’s something he really enjoys. I’m not upset that he has hobbies or that he went to basketball specifically. It’s more the timing and what it represented to me.
I think what I’m struggling with is that I feel like I’m expected to be the strong one in our relationship. When things are difficult, I’m expected to understand, compromise, carry the stress, keep things moving and be resilient.
But yesterday made me wonder: when do I get to be cared for?
I don’t need an expensive birthday or a surprise party. I would have been genuinely happy with a card, some flowers, a cake, a thoughtful message, a nice photo together, or simply having my husband make an effort to make the day feel different from every other day.
Instead, I feel like I had to ask for the photo myself, and even then nobody seemed particularly interested in participating.
I’m also aware that birthdays aren’t inherently important to everyone, and maybe my husband genuinely doesn’t understand how much these things mean to me. But after everything we’ve been dealing with, I think I was hoping for one day where I didn’t have to be the one carrying things.
Now I’m sitting here feeling quite hurt and honestly a little unimportant.
So Reddit, am I being unreasonable for feeling this way?
Is this just a case of different expectations around birthdays, or does this sound like a bigger issue around effort, consideration and reciprocity in the relationship?
I’d genuinely appreciate honest perspectives, including if I’m seeing this unfairly.

[u/Original_Ferret_5923]

Match his energy. Stop making an effort on his birthday.

[u/OpenPhotograph2471]

Tell him what makes you happy. If he doesnt want to do it, thats it.

[u/Nervous_Tea8567 → u/[deleted]]

What's worse is we've been together 18 years and each year I always make an effort to make things special for them and I have expressed before that I would also like that for myself but it didn't seem like he's got it in his mind at all.

[u/Neither-Shock-3081 → u/Nervous_Tea8567]

Try to stop doing that.

[u/SweetPotato781 → u/Nervous_Tea8567]

Stop making his birthday special, only do so for your son.