Today we’re going to talk about the dinner that I planned for our seven-year wedding anniversary. In today’s age, seven years is a long time, so I tried to do something kind of nice.
The usual pattern for our anniversary dinners is that I do all the planning and she just comes along for the ride. For instance, this time around we went to a restaurant that’s on the water. I reserved a table that was right on the water; there was champagne ready for us, and it was lovely. Lillian had lobster and I had a steak. I had never hired any music for previous anniversaries, so I decided for the seven-year that I would do so!
We have friends that are part of a bagpipe band so I hired a bagpipe player. He played Amazing Grace and a few other hymns and it was really nice. The meal was good, the ambience was good… I thought I pulled it off to be honest. Lillian was not expecting the bagpipes which is funny because when we got there she heard some bagpipes in the background. She commented on how hearing bagpipes was interesting, that we’ve got some nice background music here. Then I asked if she liked it, to which she said “yes”. To her surprise, later on the bagpiper comes down and plays for us! People were looking at us, thinking “who are these Americans getting a Scottish bagpipe player to play for them?” But we had some great comments afterwards from other patrons congratulating us on our anniversary, and letting us know that it was a great experience for them; some said they videoed it! It’s quite unorthodox for British people you don’t know to come up and actually talk to you, much more to say something nice.
I asked her if she had heard of this thing called the “7-year itch”. She googled it and it turns out that when you get to seven years in a relationship people normally get unhappy with their spouses. It said that this is when people go looking for attention elsewhere. I had never heard of it until people at work mentioned it. It seems like the signs that you’re approaching the 7-year itch are regularly feeling frustrated or irritated toward your spouse. It all seems to revolve around being annoyed or dissatisfied with what you’re getting out of the relationship.
That’s the wrong approach to marriage, people. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m sure we’ve said it a million times: marriage is not about what your marriage or your spouse can do for you, it’s about what you can do for your spouse. There are always going to be moments of conflict, but the reality is that we have to manage our mindsets. We have to grow up because persistent disappointment is a childish kind of reaction to life. When people start thinking of what they’re missing out on it’s because they are lacking gratefulness. We need only remind ourselves of what we’re thankful for; if we do this we can escape being picky and disappointed all the time. Everybody has something to be grateful for and we can always change our mindset to become more positive on our outlook on life. It’s about fostering an attitude of thankfulness. The antidote to the 7-year itch is having a spirit of thankfulness.