A wedding anniversary is one of the many highlights during the year for a happily married couple. Many couples spend months planning how to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Some are fortunate and are able to celebrate it. But what about when your spouse works for the emergency services and your long anticipated wedding anniversary has to be cancelled? How do you cope?
Don't Sulk
Sulking will not achieve anything other than make you look childish and selfish in front of your spouse. Granted, having to cancel a wedding anniversary is a blow and it will hurt. But sulking will not endear you to your spouse. It will not produce the desired effect, which is to have your spouse take you in their arms and apologise for having to dash off at a moment's notice to save the newborn baby from the burning house.
Be Supportive
As the spouse of someone who works for the emergency services, you will know that working as a fire fighter, police officer, or in any other emergency service capacity is a very demanding and high-stress job. Rather than making your spouse feel bad for leaving you in order to assist strangers in need, you should try to be supportive. Has your spouse had to deal with a death that day? Was a member of the public so badly injured that their life will never be the same again? Even though emergency service workers are trained to deal with high stress factors such as these in their day to day jobs, they are not made of stone and they will still need some support when they return home.
Celebrate Some Other Time
Of course, after your spouse has responded to the emergency call and has returned home, you can still make the most of your wedding anniversary by celebrating it some other time. There is no hard and fast rule that says you must always celebrate your wedding anniversary on the exact date that you were married. Pick a date that will fit into both of your schedules, preferably at a time when your spouse will not be on call to go into work.
Marrying a member of the emergency services will inevitably conflict with important family occasions such as wedding anniversaries from time to time. But your spouse's job does not mean that such events are not important to them. It just means you have more people to share your spouse with, who may at times need him or her more than you do.
