In many marriages, it’s the wife that remembers all of the dates and the husband that forgets. That’s been fodder for sitcoms and movies for years. In our marriage, it happens to be the opposite. I’m typically the one that remembers dates, and Tara forgets. I guess we’re a product of our upbringing, but that is beside the point.
We went to North Carolina for a family vacation last week. We visited my brother there, and we had three of my four kids with us (add to that my oldest son took his family of five). We had a crowd.
On Friday we found ourselves dining at a local trout restaurant in the mountains. It was a beautiful day and the food was delicious. In the course of the family conversation, our youngest son (who graduated from HS in May and will be going into Culinary School in a week or so) told us that he was planning to make us a nice meal for our anniversary. I replied to him “That would be nice…” then suddenly I began to think. “What’s today’s date, by the way?” Someone at the table calmly announced that it was August 7th. At that moment, both Tara’s and my eyes opened wide, we looked at each other and began laughing. Everyone wondered why, until they heard us say to each other “Happy Anniversary!”
I realize that in some marriages, forgetting an anniversary would be nearly unforgivable. In ours, it was quite humorous. Granted, it helped that we both forgot. Had it been just one of us, feelings might have been hurt. The reality was, we were having a wonderful time together, experiencing many new things and we just lost track of time and date.
I wouldn’t recommend that you ignore your anniversary – not wise. But I would wish for you that you could have a relationship where you appreciate each other on an ongoing basis and not just once a year. Having said that, I did buy her a bouquet of flowers when I ran to the grocery store later that day!
Shocking marriages are like that, and it’s what we strive for. We’re not perfect. I never mean to imply in my blog that my marriage is superior to anyone else’s. But our relationship is one that we don’t take for granted and pour time and effort into. Thirty-eight years sounds like a long time. But I wouldn’t trade any one of those years in for anything else.