Wife wants to separate at end of school year # 2

[WillD78]

Hey Bhuda. My 12th anniversary was on Sunday. I completely ignored it. I played an early round of golf and had lunch with friends, then took my Ds to the pool. It was a great day of GAL! My thoughts were like yours: There is nothing to celebrate at this moment. If we reconcile, we can make up for it on a future anniversary. But at this point, I felt like even acknowledging the day would be tacitly approving W's behavior. Plus, it was a total 180 over last year's anniversary, which was a mere three days after BD, and I practically begged to celebrate. I wish I had done it right the first time.

That said, I did get this comment from a pro on my sitch:

I don't disagree. But I will say when our anniversary came up a few months after BD (we were separated by then) I tried a slightly different approach, I told my XW "I know given our situation that exchanging gifts doesn't make sense, but it seems inappropriate to just ignore our anniversary too so how about we just go have a friendly dinner?" And we did and it was fine. I had zero expectations and of course it didn't change anything, but I did it for ME and I have no regrets. If I had done nothing then I would have felt guilty about it, but that's me. Do what you feel is best for you.

Do what is best for you. That is what we all need to remember at every stage in this process. Good luck to you.