When it comes to A + B I believe it = C.... What’s so hard about a card? 

If we were to believe the stereotypes, my positive attitude to A and B would be because I’m a girl. It’s a girly thing for a woman to remember anniversaries or birthdays, or that we feel romance is the sign that our partners remember us.  

So why then, do men so often get touted as forgetting? Is it because anniversaries and birthdays don’t mean anything to the opposite sex? As if! 

“There are lots of men that make a big deal of their partner and their anniversaries,” says Tony, 43. “However, there is a large percentage who really just seem to be clueless when it comes to details like that, or how much damage it does not bothering.” 

So why do men forget? 

Dr Herb Goldberg, a psychologist and author of What Men Still Don’t Know About Women, Relationships and Love suggests that men forget important dates like birthdays and anniversaries because they are wired to focus on the external threats and pressures of the world outside of their “safe” relationships. 

“In earlier times that meant hunting dangerous game and defending the homestead from marauding tribes but today is more likely to mean getting that promotion and ensuring that Jones from sales doesn’t get it,” Dr Goldberg says. 

“A man who forgets an anniversary or birthday is not being cruel or deliberately hurtful but is disconnected from the personal realm by his focus on the external realm. Men can become so focused on things outside of the relationship - work, sport, and hobbies/interests that they become ‘blind’ to everything else.” 

It turns out that long-term love isn’t blind. 

“Divorced men are often bewildered by what happened to their relationships. Their ‘blindness’ wasn’t on purpose,” he says. 

“They’ll say things like ‘I had no idea it was coming’ and ‘I don’t know what I did wrong: I was a good husband and father, I worked hard to provide for my family’.” 

Can relationships really breakdown over forgotten anniversary and birthday cards? 

What do you think? Do you remember anniversaries? Do you think men are more prone to forgot them and if so why? What’s the best thing that someone has ever done for you on an anniversary or birthday? Do you think it’s important to remember them?