The Valentine Blues

Last Updated On: 14 February 2017

Valentine’s Day is here… it’s Valentine’s Day and I found a short poem simply signed Bob… It’s called I Want to be Your Valentine

Oh precious oh precious please be mine
I want to be your Valentine
I’ll do anything to be your rose
I want to be the Valentine you chose
Hold my hand and don’t let go
Open your heart and feel our love grow
Lock me in your heart just for a day
Feeling your love while reality fades away
I’ll wait year after year
Crying and sobbing tear after tear
Oh precious oh precious please be mine
I want to be your Valentine!
Bob

Isn’t Valentines Day meant to be one of the most romantic days of the year?  But is it?

In another life I worked in an office, and I wonder if it’s happened to you, that on Valentine’s Day bunches of flowers arrive throughout the day? But I often wondered who the grand gesture was for?

Is it cynical?

Am I being too cynical? It seemed obvious that the flower senders had been primed, which then set the bar for others, year on year. Or was it that the most challenged relationships were likely those in most need? 

Would a genuine gesture of intimacy need an audience? Were those in relationships bereft of flowers at work somehow frowned on when they ought to be jubilant?

Of course it’s a case of each to their own, but this definitely put the cheese into the cheesy gesture that often represents Valentines Day.  

It’s also interesting to observe British mannerisms when it comes to romantic gestures and public displays of affection. For example the younger members of my family rarely show affection for their partners in public, is that a generational thing?

Can men read women? Can women read men?

On other days of the year, there is an increasingly down-on-men attitude that has developed since the ladette graced our culture and beyond. But why has it become the norm to hear women blaming men for:

• being unable to multitask
• not noticing which domestic chores need doing without being told
• not being more sensitive to their partner’s emotional needs
• not being romantic enough

to name but a few 🙂 …

Let’s imagine instead that this festive day celebrates all things of the heart and instead spare a thought for the mixed messages on every other day of the year, where women’s nagging, or men’s bigotry, leads away from being able to please their lover. 

Love needs spontaneity in order to grow closer (in all the best ways) and is vital for igniting the spark that leads to fun and frolics. Who needs the same-old-same-old stereotypical cycle churning.

If there are real issues go and do some personal work, because whatever isn’t working in your relationship, could well have started before you got together with your partner.

Who’s in charge?

When one person wants to inflict control, the impact of those affected will pop up in another area of the lives, maybe decades down the line (especially in terms of your kids) because we handle small trauma’s quite innocuously sometimes. That aside, let’s face it women (that are running in feminine energy) are brilliant at nesting, they can set up a working kitchen in two shakes.

Which means they find it hard to relinquish the reigns, they want things done a certain way, because it’s most effective, efficient, time saving.

In a relationship, in a family, from moment to moment everything is a learning, allowing is being present, being present is all there is. And being playful helps things rub along more easily. It’s okay to let go of being efficient… far more important to play.

Men often earn more, it’s unjustified but is real in most fields of work right now. What if they arrive home feeling resentful? Wanting to know how they can fit in any sense of play?

Lacking patience, being grumpy, feeling that that’s all they are, i.e. a breadwinner, can be turned around. What’s to stop them from reframing those feelings with ones that help them feel good about themselves, such as the opportunities they are providing kids with that may not have even existed when he was growing up?

Is there enough quality time being factored in for all family members!!!

The 2014 figures showed that 70% of male deaths (under the age of 45) in the UK, were from suicide. A staggering figure, and communication is key to changing that inside families, and where families have split up.

Men and women are different, let’s embrace it:

• They think differently
• They are wired differently (scientific fact) just check out the RAS

Then there’s the added complication of masculine and feminine energy, a different thing entirely, where many men have feminine energy and many women have masculine energy, that we can go into another time.

But the energy can flip, anytime, for a number of reasons in a number of different ways!

Which energy are you running?

Suffice to say that there was something that attracted you to your partner when you first got together? If it’s waning where did it go? Was it an illusion? Can you rediscover it more regularly than once a year when the media circus forces you into celebrating with a romantic card and the damp squib of a candlelight dinner?

And subsequently what are your children learning from you without a word being said? They are ever watchful, learning, absorbing every drop and this will mostly inform how they conduct their relationships in the years ahead.  This is known to be how we learn the majority of our life beliefs in all areas, love relationships are no different.

It’s good to talk

That was the strap-line to a telecommunications company in the UK back in the 1980’s but there’s not a truer word when it comes to any relationship, especially with your life partner.  It’s so easy to agree something (without examining the finer details) where you each think you’re on the same page, and it turns out you were not.

The finer points need ironing out otherwise the same issues will keep cropping up and on closer examination are found to be at the root of a cyclical misunderstanding.  Like a missing scene from a play the same issue will keep arising until it’s noticed, amended and revised with both the writer and the cast.

Open active listening, results in a calmer, happier existence that rubs along together, while the original chemistry bubbles under. Then it can erupt into those exploding firework displays of delight on occasion instead of some imploding universal rock formations of despair.

Which keeps you on an even keel, taking personal responsibility and helps evolve your relationship into a deeper understanding and appreciation of your chosen life-long lover.

What are your thoughts? 

Maybe you’ve been happily together forever and have some great insights to share?  Or perhaps you’ve taken your intolerance to a new height? I’d love your hear your views.

Maybe you keep choosing the same type of toxic relationships that don’t ultimately last and want some help to change those patterns?   Maybe you need to unravel the unhelpful beliefs you picked up in the past that are preventing you from being with a loving, loyal, life-partner of your own.

PS: I’d love to support you in getting rid of what’s not floating-your-boat, so that you can learn how to change what works against you and start tapping into your full potential.

Step up to the mark

Are you feeling ready to ditch the emotional roller-coaster, because this approach brings about a significant and noticeable difference?

Now click through on the button below and arrange a 20-min chat to put an end to the run of what’s no longer working in your favour.

Book your Lights! Camera! Action! session here