Hubs forgot my birthday.
I have always been an advocate of setting a spouse up for success. If you want an anniversary ring for your 10th anniversary, ladies, begin telling him that long about your 1st. Unless he is completely dense, he'll get it.
I did. When our 10th came around, we were broke and couldn't afford it. I joined in on the decision to NOT buy the ring. But the fact that we had the conversation told me he had been listening.
If you want him to remember your birthday and take you out for dinner, begin a week before said birthday and say things like, "I can't wait until Monday when we can go out to Carabbas." You might see the gears crank while he figures out what is Monday, but most of them are bright enough to figure it out.
Sometimes he'll surpass your expectations and go above and beyond, but I'm a big believer of being straightforward. I've never been disappointed.
But this year, I kept forgetting I had a birthday coming. I would look towards Eldest's, but I occurred less and less to me that the countdown included me. I'd say ten days ago, Hubs and I had a conversation about that very thing. We also discussed how this was supposed to be a BIG birthday because we were supposed to sell the company by today so we were kind of bummed that it would be less than spectacular.
So when the weekend rolled around and I kept forgetting and I thought, hey, why not, I won't mention it and let's see if he'll forget. Last year he was out of town and he remembered. The year before I was out of town and he remembered. Let's just see, for kicks.
This morning, much to my amusement, he forgot. Granted, it was a big day. Corporate taxes are due (if you have filed two extensions, anyway), toastmasters had a meeting. How much can you expect from a man. When he saw 9/17/07 all he saw were obligations.
I was going to let it go to see how long it would take him, but when he came home from toastmasters to do the taxes, I didn't have the heart. It is one thing to not call him at work to tell him, quite another to look at him in the face and wait for the light bulb to go on. Even when I told him, he face was totally blank. It took a full three seconds for him to get it.
So there ya go. I totally deserved it. I set him up for failure and fail he did. Lesson learned.
5 comments:
See, you trained him too well, that you would remind him! He didn't need to remember on his own.
Happy Birthday, by the way, and I hope that you do get to go to Carrabba's. :)
Happy Birthday! Hope you did have a great evening, anyway!
There is a thing called corporate memory that married people have. A couple can remember more than two single people because they each take responsibility for remembering different things. Rather than remembering something, the spouse relies on the other person to remember that thing. When a person knows that another person will remind him (or her) about something, there is no need to do those things that lead to retaining it in memory. If you want him to remember significant events, keep setting him up for failure.
Timothy,
Hubs says, "Hey, us guys have to stick together! Don't encourage her!"
Corporate memory. That is so true.
You could always do what I did: have a baby on your birthday. That way, my girlie talks about it incessantly and I don't have to say one word!
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