Most of us have been there before, we know that there is something going on today but we can’t quite put our finger on it, before finding out, a day later usually, that we have in fact missed our anniversary. This realization explains the angry loved one, the silent treatment, and the general feeling that you have made a very serious mistake. My buddy Marc Leder did this last month, completely forgetting his and his beautiful wife’s 6th wedding anniversary, as you can imagine it didn’t go down very well. To his credit I believe that Marc has handled this brilliantly, far better than I have in the past, and here is how he did, and kept his wife!
Silence or Everything
Marc discovered that he had forgotten the anniversary on the morning afterwards when a friend of his wife’s sent him a message which is most certainly not appropriate to be repeated here. Marc was stunned at this and angry, and he knew how heartbroken his wife would be. Now most fellas would have ordered a bunch of flowers at this stage, or ran over to her work in order to apologize to her, Marc had a different plan. Marc knew that he had to go big and so he called her assistant and made up a fake meeting for her at the nicest hotel in town. Marc still hadn’t spoken to his wife at this stage, and she of course wasn’t about to speak to him. His wife arrived and he was there waiting, she was angry, but of course very happy with the surprise.
Honesty
Marc could’ve gone down the ‘it’s been so busy at work’ route, or the ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind’ excuse but Marc didn’t do that and the reason why is because they simply weren’t true, he had forgotten, nothing more and nothing less. Before they even sat down to eat Marc simply said to his wife how much he loves her, how sorry he was that he had made a mistake and then asked for her forgiveness. On so many occasions there are a lot of us who try to find the easy way out, try to lie or invent things to cover up the mistake. I have a lot of respect for Marc for his ability to confess to his error and simply ask for forgiveness, and it seems that his wife did as well.
Now of course Marc will have been made to pay for his mistake going forward, and it is only right that he gets the odd backhanded insult, the odd night of silence and has to miss the occasional event because his wife double booked, but that is all to be expected.
The moral of the story is that mistakes happen, be honest, own up, ask for forgiveness and move on.
