Our First Valentine’s Day

Daniel and I met in July and we got married six months to the day of our first date on January 22, 1999.  Therefore, we weren’t together for a Valentine’s day until we were married.  In fact, I had never been together with someone during the month of February, so I was really excited to have my first romantic Valentine’s day.

Since I hadn’t voiced my expectations, I was really, really disappointed in our first V-day.
Like this year, V-day was on a Sunday.  I had put together a candy gram as my gift to Daniel (a bunch of different candy bars on a poster board that I made up silly statements to match the names of the candy bars).  It wasn’t a huge gift, but that is what made it perfect, I thought.  Five dollars in candy and an hour of my time.


Sunday morning came and we were getting ready for church.  We had been asked to speak in church, so we had a few extra things to do get ready.  While Daniel was taking a shower, I put the candy gram on the bed.  He saw it, thanked me, and then told me that he had forgotten that it was V-day.


Oh, okay.


We went to church and the ladies there were showing off necklaces, rings and other pieces of jewelry from their husbands or talking about the cruise they were going on the next day (we were living in a basement apartment of a very wealthy neighborhood).  I was really upset.  I didn’t want jewelry, but I thought that a card would have been nice. 

After church, I took a nap.  I was trying to come to terms with the shattered idea I had for my first ever romantic Valentine’s day.  As I rested I realized that all was not lost, we could still make dinner together and then make a dessert, maybe make love in front of the fireplace and have a special, romantic evening together.
  
When I woke up from my nap, I was excited to present my plan to Daniel.  But things didn’t turn out the way I had planned.  Daniel was already making dinner (it was probably 5 p.m.).  He told me that his parents had called while I was asleep and that they were in town (they live in Vernal which is about 3 hours away) so he invited them over for dinner.  They would be over in about 30 minutes.
 
Seriously?


I was so hurt, but I did what any self-respecting, mature, new bride would do; I told him that I hoped that he and his parents had a lovely Valentine’s dinner together and that I would be home by 10.  I grabbed my keys and I was out of the door before he could even respond.
 
Classy, huh?

I drove around the area while wiping tears from my face.  What had I just done?  Why didn’t Daniel realize how important this day was to me?  To us?  I wound up at my Aunt Elaine’s house (I was living there when I met Daniel) and gave her my sob story.  I ate dinner there, visited with my cousin, Russell, and then I went home at 10, crawled into bed and went to sleep with nary a word to my husband. 
I am so embarrassed about the way that I handled things.

I really needed to communicate better with Daniel.  I put him in a very awkward situation.  I have no idea what his parent’s thought of me after arriving at our home for dinner and me not being there.  We had only been married for  3 weeks and I was unwilling to spend an evening with my in-laws.  I treated Daniel horribly wrong.  I used such poor and selfish judgment that day.


Daniel came home from work the next day with flowers and a gift for me.  He said that he was sorry.  To me, Valentine’s day was ruined but I really tried hard to accept his apology.
 
It took me a long time to get over the disappointment that I had experienced.  I think that I will forever feel disappointed in my reaction that day, though. 

Our second Valentine’s day together was much better.  We talked about our expectations and we planned our date together.  I was 5 months pregnant with Mark at that time, so we planned to go swimming (because it felt good, but also because we figured that the swimming pool wouldn’t be crowded like all of the other places around town would be).  We came home from swimming and ordered a pizza.  We showered and dressed while the pizza was being delivered, and then we ate a lovely pizza dinner by candlelight.  It was a perfect, romantic evening!

Swimming and pizza has become a tradition for our V-day celebration.  Of course, it isn’t as romantic any more as we usually include the kids in our date (getting a baby sitter isn’t the easiest on that day).

I have learned that communication of expectations is a huge part of a healthy relationship.  I am okay with our celebrations being low-key, because we have talked about what we want.  I really like our celebrations being low-key. 

I am so grateful to Daniel for being patient with me and for being a great husband.  Sure, we had things to iron out at first (and still do occasionally), but I am very happy with my husband and my marriage.  I honestly wasn’t able to say that 11 V-day’s ago!    

However, I think that Valentine’s day still makes Daniel nervous.