Love Hurts

Good afternoon, my Lovelies!

It is a cold but beautiful Wednesday here on the peninsula and I'm doing something that I do not do very often; I'm taking a day for myself. That's right. I took the day off work and am spending the day being a bit lazy. I've napped, I've read, and I'm seriously considering another nap. (Just kidding, but it's nice to know it's an option.) Anyway, I hope all is well in your corner of the world and that life is treating you well.

This morning I made an Instagram post and I talked about my love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day. First, let me tell you that I truly have no problem with the day or the sentiment behind it. No, my problem with it comes from a personal situation.

When my husband and I first got together he was very aware of little things like Valentine's Day - cards, small gifts, dinner out, etc. He never went overboard, but there was always something. It was the same for our personal anniversaries - the day we first spoke, the day we met in person, etc. He made effort and he never forgot.

After our children came along, all that went out the window. And there were many, many years I didn't receive any kind of acknowledgment for special days. In fact, there may have been a year or two in there where he didn't even verbally note Valentine's day.

The first time it happened I was stunned. I was completely flabbergasted that he didn't remember and/or that he didn't take the time to do so much as purchase a card. And it hurt. It hurt to see the ads on television. It hurt to see that my friends and co-workers were being thought of by their significant others. Don't get me wrong, I held no ill will toward them. I was happy for them. But it broke me.

There were quite a few years there when we had some horrible arguments over it and each year when we were able to move past it, I would tell myself that the following year would be better. Well, guess what?

It wasn't.

In fact, it has only been in the past three or four years that he has started to do better. I still don't receive any kind of "gift" per se, but he does usually stop to get me a card.

What were his excuses? Well, it ranged from "we have more important things to spend money on" to "I didn't have time to stop" to "I tell you every day that I love you. I don't need a special day for that." He has even said, "I can stop and get you a card anytime and surprise you with it. I don't need commercialism to tell me when to give you a card." 

Yeah, I still don't receive cards on random, out-of-the-blue days, but... 

And I'm sure some of you reading this probably think I've made too big a deal out of it, but it was and is a big deal to me. It made me feel very taken for granted. We fought. I cried. I went for days hardly speaking to him. It wasn't pretty. And for someone who deals with clinical depression on a daily basis, it was/is one of my triggers.

I don't know that I can even come close to telling you how badly it hurt me all those years that he brushed it off. And because of that, I still find myself tiptoeing into February every year and hoping that my feelings from the past don't come crashing down on me.

Now, I know he isn't going to be happy with me (if he reads this) for putting this out there, but it is what it is. Did it make me love him any less? No. We will be celebrating twenty-three years of marriage this year, so obviously not. But he did most definitely break my heart. It wasn't malicious - not at all. But it broke me a bit more each year that it happened.

So, yeah, when I say I have a love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day, this is a large part of the reasoning. Is there more than this? Yes. There were prior relationships that experienced issues in and around that time, so I'm sure that plays into it, as well.

Looking back now I think that maybe, just maybe, some of the reason it hit me so hard is that I have such a love of romance. Maybe that's why I write the stories that I do. I want my characters to have romance and I think you'll find that in some way, shape, or form, in all of my books.

Okay. This blog feels very disjointed, but there it is. Anyway...

Until next time and as always,

Much love and heartfelt romance from me to you!

Shelly (a/k/a Dawn Love)

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