Valentine’s Day For The New Relationship. As a Couples Counselor in private practice for over 20 years I’ve helped many relationships during this romantic yet somewhat highly commercialized day of expectations for what to do on Valentine’s Day. Even when you’ve been in a long term relationship preparing for the day can be challenging. What more when you’ve only been dating your new love interest for a short period of time? What do you do?
Valentine’s Day For The New Relationship
I remember when I was newly married and my then husband sent me a beautiful bouquet of red roses. My entire office thought I was a princess. I shared that with him and he thought I was a little embarrassed about all the attention and the following year I didn’t receive the bouquet. Needless to say I was disappointed and angry. The years we were married he was quite the romantic and did shower me with flowers and chocolates. But, what if you were dating your new love interest for a short period of time, say a few weeks? What would be the appropriate thing to do on such an occasion?
New relationships can be wonderful but you don’t want to rush into anything that can put pressure on it to make people feel uncomfortable. Here are some suggestions for a Valentine’s Day for a new relationship:
- Have a dialogue with your partner of what you want to do for that day.
- Make a plan based on what the two of you agree on.
- Keep it simple.
- If you decide to give a gift – suggestion: give your favorite book or movie; bake something
- If you decide to give a card – suggestion: give a cute rather than romantic card
- If you go the Classic route – suggestion: flowers, candy, wine, champagne.
- If you want to plan an event – suggestion: go out to dinner (maybe another day outside of Valentine’s Day as restaurants are crowded and high priced that night), cook dinner, grab drinks, coffee, picnic, Theme Park.
Remember Valentine’s Day is only special because the culture acknowledges it to be, but it’s really just one day out of the year. Don’t worry about it too much if your relationship is new. If it’s meant to last, you’ll have many Valentine’s Days ahead to celebrate your feelings for one another, though you can also celebrate it every day you spend together.
For more information on how to nurture your relationship please contact me at (858) 735-1139.
