Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: It can seem as if many days are difficult and confusing during a martial or trial separation, but special occasions can be particularly difficult. Not only can they be lonely and confusing, but they can leave you scrambling to figure out just how you are supposed to celebrate them. One holiday that can be quite confusing and wrought with anxiety is your spouse’s birthday.

You can be left wondering if you should try to overcompensate to show your spouse just how much he still means to you (especially if you are hoping for a reconciliation.) Or you may be tempted to tone it down this year, but then you may worry that your spouse will think that you don’t care enough (when you know that in fact you do care very much.)

Someone might ask about a scenario like this one: “my husband and I have been separated for about six weeks. Things haven’t been going as well as I might have hoped. I had hoped that we would be reconciled by now, but we aren’t even close to that reality. My husband is very standoffish toward me. He acts as if I bother him all of the time. His birthday is next week. Normally, I would go all out. I would carefully choose a gift that showed my husband that I know him well, that I know what he values, and that I know what is going on with his life. I would also either make him a special dinner or take him out for a special one. However, I hesitate to do all of this now. I worry that he is going to take it like I’m doing too much or pushing myself into his personal space when he’s asked me to step back some. When I think about this, then I’m tempted just to get him a very generic card and then sign that same card in a very generic way. I talked to my mother about this and she said the problem with that strategy is that my husband might think that I don’t care at all or that I’m punishing him with my lack of a gift. So it seems as if I am going to run into a problem either way. I wish everything wasn’t always so hard with this separation. I wish I could just celebrate his birthday with an open heart and enthusiasm like I used to, but I feel as if it’s just a minefield of things to wade through now. Everything is so complicated.”

I totally understand your frustration. I too had a lot of confusion when it came to special occasions during my own separation. My first attempt at it went badly because I proceeded as though we weren’t separated and I certainly did not get the reaction that I wanted from my husband. It was then that I decided to back off, but I just could not bear to pretend that his birthday wasn’t a special occasion or that I did not care. That strategy didn’t feel remotely authentic or genuine to me and I could not bring myself to do this. So I did celebrate, but I dialed it back. I got a gift which I knew that my husband would actually really like, but I did not go overboard in terms of expense. And I did give a heartfelt card, just like always. Except this time, it wasn’t a mushy, love-themed card and I basically signed it with a note that said although things weren’t going perfectly and things were uncertain, I still hoped my husband had a wonderful day and I still wanted him to know how much he meant to me and always would. I figured this respected my need to be authentic and his need for space. It was as happy a compromise as there was at the time. The gift was as well-received as was possible at that time. And it didn’t create a lot of awkwardness because I wasn’t putting a lot of importance on it – as I normally would have.

If you’re still invested in your marriage, or your husband, or even maintaining a good relationship, I personally don’t think that it’s the best idea to just pretend that birthdays or special occasions don’t exist. Not at least acknowledging them could create hurt feelings or misunderstandings – which are two things that you just don’t need right now. This is only my opinion (and of course the individual circumstances need to be considered,) but I think that it can work when you acknowledge the occasion and wish your spouse the best in a genuine way which is adjusted so that you know that he will receive the message without the awkwardness.

Again, this is just my own experience.  But I know if I had celebrated my own husband’s birthday like usual, he would have resisted and I would have had hurt feelings.  I learned this lesson the hard way, when my overzealousness really hurt my chances for a  reconciliation.  I finally got it together, but there were some disastrous times along the way.  You can read more of the story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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