Check if date more than user SQL date timestamp

Question

I am very new to programming and i am trying to make a simple membership login page. However after trying for nearly 2 days now to get my code working accurately and trying multiple different methods i have finally come to a standstill and so i am here seeking advice.

i have used a very simple code to try and achive this. it seems to work if i use if ($now = $memberenddate) - but it does not work correctly and throws a false positive if i try to use if ($now > $memerenddate)

I am not sure why it is throwing this false positive but i am assuming it maybe because of the timestamps differing.

My final code attempts to match this however it is still giving me a false positive.

here is the code, please excuse any indentation.

$memberenddate = date('d.m.Y', strtotime($memberdate. '+ 7 days'));
$now = date('d.m.Y');
    

    if ( $now > $memberenddate ) { 
      include "./login/connection.php";
       $sql5 = "UPDATE `users` SET `member` = '0' WHERE email = '$email' ";
       $conn5=$db->prepare($sql5);
       $conn5->execute(array());        
       $membermessage="You Are Not a Member"; $memberenddate = "CLICK & BUY A MEMBERSHIP!!!";
    }

i have tried multiple veriations of the code but nothing has seemed to get me the results i need, including trying to match the timestamp.

$today = $now = date('d.m.Y');
$now = date('d.m.Y', strtotime($today. '+ 0 days'));