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How do you celebrate your wedding anniversary? Marriage and family therapist William J. Doherty, PhD, likes to ask couples this question.
“They generally respond with an embarrassed laugh, saying that they spend it doing things like watching their child’s soccer game or cleaning up the backyard.”
Doherty observes that “almost everyone makes a big deal of their first few anniversaries, but after that many couples only put energy into the big ones of 25 and 50, if they live that long” (Take Back Your Marriage, The Guilford Press). He ticks off various reasons: “Family and friends don’t track your wedding anniversary like they do your birthday, so there is not a lot of discussion about its coming up on the schedule. Your kids, until they are older and start thinking about marriage themselves, couldn’t care less about your anniversary. What’s more, anniversaries are inconvenient because they fall on any old day of the work week.” Above all, says Doherty, “many…
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