Don't do a date with her. Don't serve her. Tell her that you just don't want to encourage her to think things will work between you, and that someday you hope you'll have fond memories of past anniversaries, but this won't be one of them, the anniversary just before she left, just after she had been told that you wanted a divorce... it's not going to be a good one, no matter what. There's no way to soften the blow really, other than to tell her that it's hard on you, too. Anything else would be either false hopes, or she'd accuse you of being a hypocrite.

I had a boyfriend, took me out to a wonderful day at an art fair & wine festival on the day he intended to use as the day he was going to say he wanted to date other people. His INTENT was to simply go from being exclusive to being non-exclusive, but the result was that there was no way I was going to continue to date him... WHAT was he THINKING???

For MONTHS after, till I finally got over being cheated upon with a woman I know to be a real witch... well... I was also pretty darned angry with him for making this huge pretense of softening the blow by pretending to have a good day with me at this fair, as if all the romantic stuff we were doing, looking at art that would look good in my living room or on his patio... talking about whether or not either or us would move closer to the other one, etc... was all just a ploy to pretend that all was well, when he had already gone on two dates with some other woman he'd just met (and who he had no idea I KNEW... and I knew more about her character than he did)... his pretense was ... nasty.

What did he think, that I was so pathetic that I needed this pretense? That I had no one who could be genuinely kind to me? That he was such a wonderful guy for treating me like a dating charity case? ICK

JUST ICK.

dont' do it. Dont' treat her like a dating charity case. Dont' be a hypocrite about an anniversary when you've got divorce papers filed and ready to serve.

There is no good time to serve papers, but an anniversary? ICK... JUST ICK.

Wait till next week and take her to the post office. But in the meantime, don't be a hypocrite and make a pretense that all is well when it will soon become obvious that the papers were ready and waiting for her.