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Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. Bit of mixed emotions, none of which is true happiness that is for sure.

We are going on a little getaway to ‘celebrate’. Celebrate what exactly I’m not sure. Celebrate he shared part of our marriage with another woman? Celebrate we didn’t seperate? Celebrate I’m not threatening divorce? I’m struggling at the moment to tell people I’m even married let alone celebrating an anniversary.

Anyways just need a bit of a vent. I don’t think tomorrow is going to be easy. How did others cope with this. Hopefully the beers at the pub might help 😂

It’s probably too late to say this in terms of your getaway, but you don’t HAVE to celebrate. My husband’s affair spanned our 20th anniversary, and some things happened on and related to that date and event that are still incredibly painful to think about four years later.

We don’t really celebrate our anniversary anymore. Instead, over the summer, we make it a priority to do a nice getaway of some sort just the two of us. That way we get the benefits and bonding of a getaway without the baggage of our anniversary.

Also, you’re still relatively new to this. Take it one day at a time and go easy on yourself.

We didn't celebrate for years.

What would I be celebrating? The hell my WH brought into our lives.

Do what you feel is comfortable, agree with above poster, I would not feel obligated to do anything that doesn't feel right.

[This message edited by annb at 2:13 PM, Tuesday, April 23rd]

That’s a tough one for sure. I haven’t had to "celebrate" my first wedding anniversary post Dday yet and I sure as hell am not looking forward to it as my WH was engaged in his A during that timeframe.

Celebrate might not be the word, rather make the best of what you can out of an extremely shitty situation. I think all of "the firsts" are just tough and we drag ourselves through them.

Like you said, maybe some beers will help Sending you a virtual hug.

Our anniversary is about 9 months after d-day. My W wanted to celebrate. I told her I didn't know if we had been M at all or 9 months or 43 years. I told her she could plan something for herself and invite me. If I liked what she planned, I'd accept the invitation. She did. I did. We had a great time.

We pretended to celebrate 3 years after d-day, because we were with son, GS, STBXDIL, SIL, & BIL. I had a really noce time walking w/ 3 year old GS during a break from sitting with the old people. We might have actually celebrated the 4th post-d-day anniversary; we definitely celebrated the 5th.

Enjoy your anniversary, whatever you do. If you want alone time, make sure you get it. Hell, if you want twin beds, tell the hotel and switch rooms.

I feel for you. Ours is next week. 43 yrs. DD 12/23 A first year of marriage. I know he's going to make a big deal about it, but I'm kind of meh. I wish it weren't so.

What would have been our 40th was on March 17th. Since D-Day and a lack of traction on R and healing, I told my WW I didn’t want to acknowledge the day. She agreed. I get up on that day and there is a card on the counter. I get annoyed. She says "it isn’t an Anniversary card". It’s a thank you card. The first line is "Happy Day that isn’t the day we thought it would be" or something along those lines. Then it thanked me for not leaving and apologized for being a shitty wife.

I sort of "get" the effort but told her "giving me a card on this day brings attention and pain I was trying to avoid". And since it would have been our 40th, our adult kids, friends and family kept reminding us of the day all day long. Yay…..

OP, I hope the day isn’t too painful for you. This was our second since D-Day and much worse than the first for me due to the significance of what the date "should have meant" vs the fact we didn’t make it a year before she cheated and destroyed the marriage (although I didn’t know at the time) much less 40….

[This message edited by ImaChump at 5:24 PM, Tuesday, April 23rd]

Anniversaries were tough for a while, especially since he was starting his A right about the same time we had a romantic weekend away celebrating our 15th. We spent our 16th anni on our boat, throwing our old rings in the lake. It was actually a great day since we were in the throes of HB.

Do you think you'd be able to reframe it as just a little vacation, and not an anni celebration?

Would you want to do something symbolic to end the old marriage?

Anniversaries were/are problematic for us. I always remembered, it was always important to me and WE were always important to me.

My FWS was not so much into them, and then she confessed on the 18th anniversary of our first date.

I went shopping and brought her a gift and she didn't and told me she'd cheated in me (it was a false confession, but hey, if your spouse tells you that they fucked someone else, you take it at face value initially...why would someone lie🤔). I guess it was a fair gift exchange, but I have to admit that her gift had way more impact than mine.

I kept on trying to make them special, but stopped, I wasn't seeing the other person make the effort. This year she completely forgot, not for the first time. Honestly, this bothers me to no end, because I feel like she should be making the effort, particularly as our D-Day and first date anniversary are the same.

I would think that if you couldn't remember that anniversary for itself, the double impact of confessing an affair should make the date more memorable and as a FWS you should be thinking more about the FBS on that date, their feelings, how they are doing.

But, apparently not!

It might help if you frame everything right now is what do I need and want? And then just go according to that. Being authentic in your reaction is not a punishment and it isn’t cruel.

So you have agreed to go. I would say to him "I would like to take the focus off of anniversary and use this time to ______.

And moving forward be selfish for a while. If you decide to be intimate, make it about you. If you don’t want to be intimate then don’t stress. Just honor your own path for a while. You will be surprised the richness of what you learn and the changes that can come from that

I could understand if my strategy doesn't work for most people.

Our anniversary is an explicit day for rugsweeping and just pumping each other up and having a good time. It exists in a cool parallel universe. It's a good day regardless of the whole relationship history.

Our anniversary is an explicit day for rugsweeping and just pumping each other up and having a good time. It exists in a cool parallel universe. It's a good day regardless of the whole relationship history.

This is what we do now too.

I will add that as part of our effrontery to reconcile, starting around 6 months in, I set up a date night once a month, a weekend trip quarterly. These also existed mostly in an alternate universe. It was meant to just let things go and try and bond. It was cancelled a few times, due to squirmishes/him not feeling up to it. But we were pretty consistent. Temporary moratoriums were helpful for us but like thisisfine is saying this might not be a thing everyone agrees with or embraces.

It all was treated a lot like what I described before- h did the things he wanted to do, for his own reasons, in his own way.

Anniversarys were hard early on. Now not as much. I have trigger days [Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, my Birthday] but my anniversary is not one.

I honored my vows.

And if WH wants to "celebrate" I will. Sometimes we just go to dinner and acknowledge it. I always get a card, although post DDay it a generic one.

WH sees it as something to be celebrated - we made it. I see it as something to be acknowledged. Because we are still married, we are still together and we still are planning a future.

But everyone is different. And you will feel what you feel and that can change form year to year. Be true and authentic to yourself.

Although I have just about a year to our next Anniversary. I found the proof, and subsequent D Day, on our 20th Wedding Anniversary. That date will now have a black mark for quite a long time, if not ever.

I will never celebrate our anniversary again. AP was in our wedding.

My fWW's affair began shortly after our anniversary, so it wasn't tainted by her cheating.
But it was two years before I was able to celebrate it again. It still doesn't mean much.