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Hello everyone! Hope your all doing fine. Today is my 10th wedding anniversary to my "A" hubby and I am feeling down. He has forgotten again for four years now. Every year he forgets I feel like crap. He is sober today, so I thought maybe this year he would remember seems as tho he's not drinking. But NOPE!!!!
I need to bring myself out of this sadness today but not sure how. So first thing I thought of was to come here and spill my heart out to you people. I have a gift waiting to give to hubby and I will give it to him tonight once I am done work. From there I'm stuck. I thought about having a nice dinner with him but we have guests here from out of town that showed up this morning instead of this evening like we expected. So now I am thinking again. I am not very creative as hubby and I are having our problems in the marriage and things I have mentioned that I thought would be nice in the past he say no. Please help! If you have an idea that I can spice up our day without having to spoil the visit with our guests who are here until Sunday that would be great Thanks Albertarose
((((albertarose))))) I am sorry you are feeling down. Ten years is a big milestone. I can imagine how hurt you feel. I hope you get lots of es&h here.
The only thing I would suggest is close your eyes and really think hard about what you would like to do this evening. What would make you happy? Then suggest it. For me, asking for what I need is foriegn, add to that asking for what I want, at times that is not even in my hemisphere.
I hope that you have a nice anniversary evening with your hubby and guests.
I haven't any real suggestions for you. But I can tell you how I had celebrated the last few of my wedding anniversaries. A couple of years ago, my AH had decided to go on a binge on our anniversary (which is Dec 26 - the day after Xmas-blah!) Anyway, I took the kids and met up w/parents and grandma (who was in town for the holidays) and we ate a wonderful dinner at a local restaurant. I splurged and got myself a pound of King Crab Legs, mmm. I just pretended like my AH was in Iraq, which really got a chuckle out of my parents and grandma......ya know, it is hell over there now and I was basically saying that he was in hell. :)
My last anniversay went kind of the same way....I took the kids and myself out for a nice dinner again and just enjoyed myself tremendously.
Every time I do this, days later, my AH would apologize for not going w/me. I would just say that it was fine, I had a great time w/out him there. And truthfully, if he had gone, it would have cost me more money and I am sure he would have found a way to ruin the experience somehow.
So maybe you can just find some little way to celebrate on your own. If not tonight, then maybe after your guests leave Sunday. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.
I have had many a heart ache over my A's lack of romance. I eventually gave up. I know that isn't a great ESH but giving up helped me. Having hope hurt.
I do think it is great to do things for yourself. I know for me I have tremendous loyalty and commitment to a relationship. I celebrate that. I did give up hoping the A would come through. I raised my hopes so many times. I also gave up in some ways expressing my resentment.
Rigth now the A I have been with is in a lot of mental turmoil. He's really severely depressed. Some days it is much much easier to see him as "ill". I think thats a great stretch sometimes for many of us. The more I can view him as flawed and the less I see it as a personal affront the better it is for me.
Not everyone remembers certain dates. I finally learned to talk about it ahead of time. Like asking,well what do you want to do on our anniversery this year?
Or keep a calendar that is always out and put all kinds of stuff on it to remember. Reminders of what you maybe want him to do, and things you want to do.
I always expected my daddy to forget me on my b day. Made myself sick about it. He never forgot.
Well, I'M the one who forgets anniversaries in our family, so maybe I can shed some light on it.
For me it has nothing to do with how important the marriage was to me, and everything to do with how good I was at remembering dates. (I also forgot how old I was one year....) My biggest "forget" was when we were actually getting along quite well - he came home with a big bunch of flowers and I said "What are these for?" He just grinned at me, and after a while I started to get annoyed - what was this all about, was he trying to make up for something I hadn't even found out about yet.... It was several hours before I remembered. BOTH of us forgot our twentieth anniversary of living together - it wasn't until about a month later that we sorta figured it out.
Gestures are just that - gestures. They are not the real thing. My husband's most extravagent romantic gestures usualy came when I was ready to walk out the door and all they did was make me feel irritated - "I don't want diamonds, I want you to be civil to me...."
If it is important to you that certain dates are marked, then Deb's suggestion is a good one - remind him. "Thursday is our anniversary. I'd like to do something nice together. Will you make the plans or should I?" is a lot better than expecting him (against what experience teaches you) to remember, and being disappointed when he doesn't.
