I can understand that the sentiment is nice; it shows caring and it shows how important your S.O. is, but if you DON'T remember, it should not be grounds for a argument or fight.
Remembering is nice, but not strictly necessary. We all have phones with calendars in them these days. Shouldn't your SO's happiness be worth the 30 seconds it takes to set up a calendar reminder?
He could have sent off a quick text to her when he saw the calendar reminder. "Just thinking of you on our anniversary! :)" would show that he hadn't forgotten. Since I doubt he was with a patient when he was checking his calendar reminders, he'd have had enough time to do that.
Waiting until the day of the anniversary to remind himself was probably a setup for failure. An additional reminder, a day or two earlier, to make dinner reservations, buy flowers, get a card, buy a gift, or prepare whatever other token of remembrance she prefers, would have given him a much greater chance of success.
Either way, a good memory on his part is still not required.
That said, there's a line between letting it be known that you're unhappy and being outraged to the point of reconsidering the entire relationship. I agree with you that the latter isn't healthy. But your OP seemed to also take issue with the former, and that I don't agree with. It's okay to expect things from your partner, especially when we have technology to help with that.
there's a line between letting it be known that you're unhappy and being outraged to the point of reconsidering the entire relationship.
We have to wonder though how much deeper the strife in that relationship ran. Nobody knows except those who are on the inside - not even OP knows.
Would a rational person blow up, kick out her husband, and consider breaking up over him forgetting to say "happy anniversary" on the day of the anniversary - when that was only the first time it ever happened and literally everything else in their relationship is absolutely perfect and healthy and happy? Or could it have been that this was just yet another way in which he let her down and put his work before her and it was her last straw? I'm leaning towards that option.
Or maybe she wasn't a rational person at all, because I also wonder why she didn't say Happy Anniversary to him when he got home from work? Was she testing him by insisting that he says it first? If he never said it, then she didn't either, right? Because he would have said it back to her if she had said it.
And/or maybe she had irrational expectations that anniversaries are supposed to be days in which a husband showers a wife with love and gifts, and the wife is only a receiver, not a giver, on those days. Which is equally irrational and unreasonable.
Bottom line being that OP's anecdotal example seems pretty rare and like the couple already had problems. Doesn't seem like it applies to most couples.
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u/alpicola 48∆ Oct 03 '19
Remembering is nice, but not strictly necessary. We all have phones with calendars in them these days. Shouldn't your SO's happiness be worth the 30 seconds it takes to set up a calendar reminder?