SWM015: Valentine’s Day Dangers
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Valentine’s day is just around the corner. Only a few days left in fact. If that started to make you sweat, well, I feel for you. Valentine’s Day, I think, is potentially one of the most dangerous days of the year for married couples. I’ll explain what I mean, and then give a couple tips for how to survive it.
Valentine’s Day is Dangerous
- Expectations are high
- Stress is high
- Communication is low
- High Expectations + High Stress + Low Communication = Failure to meet Expectations
- Valentine’s Day is a holiday of Fantasy, not reality. It forces us to want a fairy tale, and then be disappointed if it doesn’t happen.
Valentine’s Day is a day of Contradictions
- Valentine’s Day is supposedly about love…but in reality it’s about meeting a manufactured expectation. Not out of love, but out of fear.
- You are supposed to guess at what your spouse wants more than anything else, and if your wrong, it’s your fault.
- The prize for winning is great sex. The cost of mediocrity is obligatory sex. The punishment for losing is a lack of sex, on the one day of the year where you are made to believe everyone else in the world is having sex.
- You could deliver a thoughtful gift, or have a nice dinner on any other day and it be seen as a romantic gesture, but on Valentine’s Day, the most romantic day of the year, it’s seen as the bare minimum: Expected, but often not appreciated.
Tips for Valentine’s Day
- If possible, celebrate Valentine’s Day on any other day except February 14th: Cheaper flowers, easier bookings, easier to find babysitters.
- Have sex before having your big meal
- For gifts, buy something that will last and pay dividends while also being personal and something that will draw you two together. (Like Melt, for example)
I am confused.
What if you celebrate Valentine’s day together humbly? A movie and candy…
I think that stuff like this should be established in advance…
I think…
Like I said in the podcast, I think you can do it properly, it’s just that society spends so much time telling us how not to, that we need to be aware of the message.
Thanks Jay!! I dislike Valentine’s Day for the reasons you mentioned. I do encourage love during this season. So, this year I decided to have 30 days of love. Everyday we try to do something special from January 12th (My birthday) to February 14th (about 30 days). So far I have given a box of chocolates, two doz roses (which died in 3 days), several candlelight dinners at home, a balloon from the dollar store, and anything else that strikes our fancy. If for some reason nothing different came to mind that day, we get a chocolate and say “Happy Valentin’s Day” as we share it.
Having been diagnosed with an illness recentlyly, it has made me realize my priorities so much more. Although sex is great, I have found it not to be the most important thing in a marriage. Love, intimacy, caring, commitment, sharing are all very important, and may or may not lead to sex. Without those first parts sex seems a bit empty.
I love Valentine’s Day. I think the concept of lasting romantic relationships and the reality of happy marriages are things worth celebrating as a society. Valentine’s Day is a call to action and I relish the opportunity to do something beyond the usual for my wife and affirm to her the depth of my love. I agree that people can ruin it with unrealistic expectation or embracing a mindset of it being an obligation rather than a joy etc. but that is no reason to scrap the idea. Come at it with the right attitude and it can be a wonderful tradition.
The danger for me with Valentine’s Day is to go too far. My wife is not fond of becoming the center of attention in a public setting and I admit that a couple time my grand romantic gestures (which would have made most other women swoon with happiness) made her feel far more discomfort than affection.
Also, I think women need to take the opportunity to do something for their men as well, don’t let it be a one sided thing.
Hey LDM-
I agree with and can relate to what you are suggesting. My wife once booked a suite at an greenhouse atrium hotel, sent a dozen roses to it and took me out to dinner. I have to say, I felt really special to her.
I very much enjoyed this podcast! I think that it help me to be more realistic in my expectations and not set my self up. Valentine’s Day was great for us. Following the example of your website, I made a survey for us about what we like and don’t like in the bedroom. Then we spent time some time soaking in our tub discussing the results! Now I can’t wait to try out some of our newly discovered “likes”.
That’s awesome, good job!