Have you ever both been too busy to celebrate your wedding anniversary?

[christmastreeblues]

Just wondered how common this is versus celebrating every year. My husband works very long hours in stressful job, I run my own business and we have young DC so it’s not been possible to organise anything - no other family to come and babysit. We are both kind of resigned to it but a part of me worries that we should try harder to make it happen.

Has anyone else not really celebrated but still happily married?

Not celebrated any since getting married 18 years ago! Still happily married and never bothered with anniversary at all.

I think it’s how you treat each other day to day that influences whether you remain happily married.

I really wouldn’t worry about it.

We don’t really do anything these days, married happily for 10 years. We might buy each other a card, although that’s not a given, but that’s it. I firmly believe that what matters is how we treat each other on every day, not on one particular day.

generally don't remember it til a few days afterwards, and then 1 of us will go was it our anniversary last week!

sort of celebrated the 25th one with DH giving me an expensive watch - but that's the only one.

Yes, ours sometimes gets overlooked somewhat, there's work, DC stuff, life gets in the way, it's fine, we're still happy 25+ years.

Never celebrated ours! We've been married 16 years. We only remember when my mum's card arrives in the post.

37 years in, we have never bothered doing anything. I suggested for our silver wedding we have a couple of days away. Dh then got booked in for a hip replacement that day so he got away while I stayed at homes minding his business. We now wish his hip happy birthday on our anniversary.

We don’t celebrate our anniversary beyond exchanging cards and my husband buying me flowers. We went out for a meal for our 25th and probably other milestone anniversaries like our 30th or 40th. It was our 45th this year and we got a takeaway 😆

We've been very busy with work, running our own business and family commitments but we've always done something to celebrate. Even if on occasions it was only a takeaway, a bottle of wine and a good film on telly. I should add often these were the best times...quiet, cosy, just us.

Yes we always celebrate it. Usually just a meal out or a takeaway when the DDs were younger. 25th was in lockdown, it's our 30th next year and we've booked a holiday.

We usually forget ours - we did do a trip away for our 25th and 30th though.

We both totally forgot about ours last week I suppose it’s good that we both forgot! I only remembered when the memory popped up on FB the next day.

we've never really done anything (27 years!) but were planning to use our 25th as an excuse do go away we ended up so busy we didn't manage to get around do doing it until 18 months later!

they always felt a bit weird to me - celebrating not getting divorced that year 😂

Yes, been married over twenty years, and the anniversaries with small children fell by the wayside. It does all get easier down the line.

Well, if you mean "too busy to buy each other a card", then no. But that's usually all we do. We only really "celebrated" our 25th and 30th (ie made it an excuse for a good holiday/weekend away).
I think most long-married couples don't really view it as a big deal.

We've never made much effort for anniversaries, and often forget about it completely. I think we've gone out for dinner a couple of times if we've remembered, and I had flowers delivered for the 1st and 20th, but otherwise it's just another day.

We've always celebrated, if not on the day, the nearest that works. When DD was small, we'd stay in making a point of a nice meal and wine or meal deal. My BIL and his wife have never had much money, so they'd make it a film night and some treats to eat.

We’ve never done anything and sometimes forgot the day completely!

We often forget ours!

No. We both book a week off several months in advance. By contrast, my PILs don't do anything for theirs. Although for PILs it's probably more down to how long they've been married and they're happy to not do anything special.

We'll usually cook a nice dinner at home.

We only occasionally go out to celebrate our wedding anniversary, even now that our dc are older. More often it’s a bunch of flowers, a card, and a nice bottle of wine to have at dinner with our dc. One of us might cook a special dinner, or make a special dessert. Generally it’s relatively low-key and very much a small family at home sort of event.

We did try to make a fuss for our first wedding anniversary: We ordered delivery from a good restaurant, used nice disposable tableware so we wouldn’t have to do any chores, rented a blockbuster film, and had a beautiful little gateau treat for after the film.

We fell asleep during the film. Didn’t eat the gateau until the following day. Admittedly we did have a very young baby at the time!

Nearly 30 years now but we’ve never missed celebrating it. Also is DT’s birthday!

Often. We are 25 years married, I’m currently on an overseas posting, DH has done overseas posting in the past, and even when home, we generally work long hours and have international travel as well as managing DD with SEN and no local family support.

We once managed to get away for a weekend 3 hours drive away - but the house alarm went off during the night and our key holder couldn’t turn it off (it was malfunctioning) so we had arrived at 8pm and left at 7:30am…after a half night sleep.

We have had other years where we’ve managed a weekend away, or a nice dinner out. We found a babysitter for a few years as DD got older.

We have plenty of ways to connect with each other, all the time and not just for our anniversary. As that is what we work on. But it is something that takes active work as we juggle other elements of the chaos of our lives.

Which reminds me, I will be home for our other significant (to us) anniversary so I need to remember that. And I have already booked flights to be home for our wedding anniversary in 2026.