This happened in the United States, where you can personalize the license plate of your car with a number or name of your choice, as long as it’s available. A husband arrived at the department of motor vehicles of his state and wanted a personalized plate with his wedding date. As he completed the paperwork, he explained to the attendant: “This way I’ll never forget the date.” He completed the process and left.

An hour later the same guy came back and got in line. When it was his turn, he timidly said to the attendant: “I need to fix the numbers on the license plate.”

For some reason unknown to me, men are not as good as women at remembering dates linked to relationships. Of course there are exceptions, men like me tend to forget or, even if they remember, they don’t give as much importance to the date as their wives.

I suspect that this is linked to the different emotional associations that men and women make to each date.  Men generally focus on what happened on the date. While women tend to focus on the significance of what happened. That’s why their emotional association is greater. For us men, our wedding day is simply the date we got married, period. For women, it was the day they were the most beautiful woman in the world, the day they were chosen by their beloved. As for him, he couldn’t wait until it was all over so they could just go on their honeymoon. (But don’t tell her that.)

The fact is that these differences are the cause of most disappointments between couples. In order to diminish this, I put such dates on the calendar of my computer, programmed to daily remind me weeks in advance. And sometimes that doesn’t even work.

Through time Cristiane learned to lessen her expectations. I think she just got tired and accepted the fact that she had a husband with “date deficiency.” She doesn’t make a big deal if I don’t do anything special for her on that special day.

But I also had to learn. It would be wrong of me to wait for her to accept me on this point, without accepting her as she is. So, even if it’s around the date, I try to do something she likes. It works.

Just because it’s not that big of a deal to you doesn’t mean it’s the same thing for her. Make an effort. She’ll appreciate it.

Couples should compensate for these differences so as not to create unnecessary problems in a relationship.

Also read:

[related_posts]