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Help! My husband has never bought me a Valentine's Day card

Valetine's Day: there’s something nice about marking occasions - Getty Images Europe
Valetine's Day: there’s something nice about marking occasions - Getty Images Europe

Last week, my colleague was sent an email from someone promoting what they thought was the perfect Valentine’s Day gift: a teddy bear costing £75. For just £115, the bear could even be personalised - because only the most stony-hearted adult would not want their name embossed on the foot of a soft toy.

Meanwhile, a British supermarket - let’s just call it Asda here - included a hairdryer among its suggested Valentine’s gifts online. Romantically, the appliance was reduced from £19.96 to £16. And, really, very few things say “I love you” more than a cut-price hairdryer.

Yet I envy all those who lucky souls will be given a personalised bear or hairdryer today, or even those who will just receive a card; because I am married to a Valentine’s refusenik.

For many years, I have patiently explained to my husband why I would not object to some small token of acknowledgement on Valentine’s Day (and, if it’s not too much to ask, on my birthday and at Christmas - but let’s not push our luck). Through it all, he has remained blissfully impervious to my arguments, strolling past every shopfront Valentine’s display with the insouciance of a man whose domestic harmony does not depend on him remembering.

“It’s so commercial,” he said when we first got together. I dismissed this fondly (OK, not fondly - irately), as the pompous rambling of a right-on student, like the characters in The Young Ones flinging around accusations of fascism.

He’s old enough to know better now, or at least to have realised you can still fight the system and bring about the revolution even while giving your wife a Valentine’s card.

Apart from year-round love and affection, all I'm asking for is chocolate - Credit: Choc Chic images
Apart from year-round love and affection, all I'm asking for is chocolate Credit: Choc Chic images

Yes, it’s commercial for sure. Christmas is commercial, too, but when was the last time that stopped us? (That is not a rhetorical question: the last time was 2015, when I received no Christmas present either. I’ve since forgiven him and forgotten all about it, of course.)

Naturally, he can express his feelings for me any other day of the year. And he does. But there’s something nice about marking occasions, carving out a little space in the humdrum run of things to do something fun and uplifting.

Indeed, since having children, I’ve gone into occasion-marking overdrive, manically celebrating everything going: birthdays, of course, but also Shrove Tuesday, Passover, St George’s Day, Halloween, Hannukah, Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Black Friday, Blue Monday and anything else you’d care to mention. (Not New Year’s Eve, obviously: I have two under-fives and no babysitters.)

So each Valentine’s Day I stalk the relevant shelves of Marks & Spencer, glaring at whoever snaffles the last Dauphinoise potato side dish included in the special deal, while planning a beautiful, ready meal-based dinner à deux  - just us, our meal deal and the baby monitor.

Who could ask for more?

Again, that’s not rhetorical: the answer is me. But all I want in addition to year-round love and affection is a card with a shiny red heart on it. Or maybe one of those chocolate lollipops that would make you feel like a child again, were your actual children not clambering all over you to eat it themselves. Yes, chocolate would be nice. It doesn’t even have to be heart-shaped. But I  won’t demand a hairdryer, and I’d settle for a bear under £75. I’m willing to compromise, you see. That’s true love for you.