Q: My husband and I have a really good relationship, but we
have a bit of a snag that bothers me. It has to do with our
birthdays. I think that birthdays are something to celebrate, and I
go to no end to make sure that everybody has moments to remember on their special days.
But my husband does not get excited about birthdays. I could probably count the number of times in 23 years that he has remembered my birthday, and the one or two bonuses when I actually got a present from him. To be fair, if I forgot his birthday, which I never do, he would probably not even notice. But I cannot help thinking how nice it would be if he would take more initiative to celebrate my special day. What do you think?
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A: Your disagreement about birthdays could be one of those conflicts within the marriage that is never going to be resolved.
My guess is that it has something to do more with your families’ backgrounds than it has to do with some peculiar psychological trait of either of you.
You likely came from a home where everyone took special note of birthdays and went to no end to celebrate special occasions.
Your husband probably came from a home where a birthday was simply another day in the week, and hopefully someone would notice enough to remember to renew the driver’s licence for another year.
Neither of these attitudes is right or wrong. The problem is that when you expect him to treat your birthday with the ferocity of the Queen’s coronation, you are asking him to treat you the same way that your mom and dad did. That is not reasonable. Just as it is not reasonable for him to expect you to back off and shrug off birthdays as his parents did.
When people get caught in conflicts that originate from the homes in which they were raised, they put themselves into irresolvable predicaments that create unnecessary hardships for their relationships.
Someone once told me that each of our households is like a separate and individual culture. We have our own separate values or rituals, and our own funny little languages for teasing each other. When we get married, we bring with us the cultures from the households in which we were raised.
The goal of the marriage is to take from each of the households and create a cross cultural setting, in which we ultimately separate
from our parents and have our own system to celebrate with each other.
Maybe you will never be able to have a birthday with your husband such as you would prefer, and maybe he will never be able to count his aging years in the quiet he prefers, but I hope you have within your marriage ways to appreciate each other’s value. If that happens to be on your birthday, that is great. But it is just as great if it is on some other day of the year. I just think that it is important to let the mutual appreciation and celebration happen.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan who has taught social work at two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.comjandrews@producer.com.
