Do you celebrate your wedding anniversary every year, or can you put it off for a little while?

This may sound like a dumb question but there's reason I ask. Every year my wife feels that if we don't do something special for our anniversary then the past year has been a waste. In a few days we're going to be celebrating 13 years together and I guess she thinks money just grown on trees. No, we're not independently wealthy or have disposable funds in the bank. We struggle just like the next couple to pay bills and have a few dollars in our accounts for things that come up unexpectantly. A few weeks ago she made mention that we were going out this coming Sat for our anniversary. Here's the thing. My wife and I don't have a joint account where all money goes into. Well, technically we do for household bills but that typically stays empty for the most part until we need to pay a bill then we both transfer money into it from our own accounts. Several years ago I told my wife we needed to combine all money and get on a budget so we could work on improving our finances. She refused and didn't want to combine anything. Ok, so now with that being said when she told me we're going out for our anniversary I would assume that she was going to pay for it.

A few months ago she started complaining that we never take a vacation, excuse me, let me put it the way she said it. "You never take me anywhere." So we have planned to take a few days in July and go to Charleston, SC. That actually is around my birthday on 7/4 but I am in no ways looking at this as a birthday trip. That trip is not going to be cheap so we found a fairly cheap hotel to stay in and we're going to drive there which is about a 3 maybe 4 hour drive.

A few moments ago she walks into the bedroom and asks if we are still planning on going out to eat tomorrow. I told her who was paying for it because she picked the restaurant and from what I gather has already made reservations to some steak house in our city she found. She knows I'm not a steak eater. Not once have we gone out to eat and I've ever ordered the steak. She seemed to be upset when I told her that we just don't have the funds this weekend to do that and we could go out to eat some other time. Maybe in 2 weeks when we don't have so many bills to pay. With Easter coming up in about 10 days we've been getting two of our granddaughters dresses and things for church next week. Plus, we've arranged to have their pictures made at a studio next weekend too which again is not going to be cheap. We like to keep updated photos of these two girls hanging in our house. PLUS, right now my wife's car is sitting in the driveway that she can't drive because we had it towed home from the repair shop yestereday because she needs a new alternator and a battery and that is going to run her some $700 or $800 easily. The dealership quoted her a price of well over $1100.

I honestly do not have a problem celebrating our anniversary but I have to look at the bottom line. There's no need in spending $100+ on a dinner and then the power gets cut off next week. No lie, she told me to tell her when I pay my portion of the power bill so she can call them and make payment arrangements on the rest of the bill. If we have to not pay a bill in order to go out to eat then that makes no sense to me. Or if we got paid today and then pay bills and take what we have left to go out to eat but have no money to live off of till we get paid again then that also makes no sense to me. She literally just sent me this text.

"Don't negate our anniversary over taking pictures next week cause it's like putting our special day on the back burner. These kids/grandkids can't always come before us. If that happens then what is the point of being married?"

Trust me, I'm not putting our anniversary on the back burner, I'm just saying we can celebrate it at a later time. What's wrong with us saying the Charleston trip in July will be our anniversary trip and we go all out for that? What she doesn't know is that right now I have $750 worth of Visa gift cards in my wallet I plan to surprise her with on the Charleston trip that were mailed to me so we can afford to do more things than just walk around and sight see. Right now she's sitting in the kitchen almost to the point of tears because we can't do anything tomorrow. Our anniversary isn't until Mon. I told her we could go out to eat in a few weeks when our money looks better but to her that isn't worth a hill of beans considering our anniversary is in 3 days. She said going out to eat in a few weeks is fine but what are we doing tomorrow? Hold up, if we're putting off celebrating the anniversary until our next paychecks then no, that means we do nothing tomorrow. We're doing it in 2 weeks. If she still wants to do something tomorrow then scratch the outing in two weeks. You can't get both. If I tell her about the gift cards now then she's going to want to use them now. I know her. So when we go to Charleston we'll be on a budget again and will have to eat fast food every day or not be able to go do what we want.

Do you have to celebrate on the day for it to be special? And why can't you say "for our anniversary in April we're planning to go on a trip this summer." And I know how she thinks. If I don't post something on Facebook on Monday telling everyone it's our anniversary so she can get the acknowledgements from all our friends and family then it wasn't worth getting married. I come from a family with 6 other siblings and we knew money was tight then since dad was the only one working so we didn't make a big deal out of birthdays and things like that. Whereas in my wife's family they made a big deal out of everything. Birthdays, anniversaries, an A on a report card, etc. They think you should celebrate your birthday every year. When my birthday rolls around my wife gets upset when I tell her I just want a card and just for her to say "happy birthday" to me, that's it. Again, I was born on the 4th of July so we go uptown to see the fireworks and she thinks that's a big deal. Excuse me, our city didn't put on a massive fireworks display just for me.

Remember, her car is sitting in the driveway needing hundreds of dollars worth of work done on it to get it back on the road but she's upset we can't go out to eat tomorrow. I guess in her mind the economy is affecting everyone else but us.