Your Partner Says 'They Don't Care About Valentine's Day.' Should You Believe Them?
You ask your new partner if they care about Valentine’s Day, and they say, “Nah, not really!”
Do you A) take them at their word and go about your day, or B) figure they’re feigning indifference and buy a box of chocolates or a bundle of roses just in case?
We’ll make this simple for the dudes out there: The correct answer is almost always B. Assume she’s underplaying her interest, and buy or plan something. (This advice goes for women in relationships, too, of course, but let’s just be real, the onus for gift-giving on Valentine’s Day is largely on men. However fairly or unfairly, straight men are also the ones who have a rep for bungling the day.)
Critics of Valentine’s Day see it as the most Hallmark of Hallmark holidays ― and that may be true! ― but it’s a fool who assumes that their partner feels similarly. The wise ones know that even the most cynical of people can be a bit mushy and surprisingly sentimental come Feb. 14.
That was made clear earlier this week, when the author of Cartoons Hate Her mentioned on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) that she wasn’t as apathetic about Valentine’s Day as she’d initially let on to her now-husband.
“Just confessed to my husband that I actually do care about Valentine’s Day and I’ve been running a pick-me long con for 16 years pretending I was super chill and didn’t care,” she wrote.
In a follow-up essay on her blog, the author explained that this conversation wasn’t some big, drawn-out argument, but more of a “mild chuckle” between her and her husband, whom she’s been with for 16 years. She also noted that the pair now have plans to celebrate this year, just not on actual Valentine’s Day, to avoid crowds. (“Lesson learned, communication is good,” she concluded.)
In the comments on the X thread, many men admitted they’d also taken their girlfriends or wives word on being Valentine’s Day agnostic and that it had cost them.
At least one man was smart: “I’ve had girlfriends in the past tell me they don’t care about birthdays or valentines and didn’t want anything special and I’ve always (benignly) more or less disregarded statements like that.”
That’s probably a good approach, said Kurt Smith, a therapist in Roseville, California, who specializes in counseling men.
“If you’re a guy, I’ll let you in on an important secret ― the vast majority of women do care. Maybe not so much about commercialized Valentine’s Day, but they do care about knowing you still love her,” he said.
Plus, on Valentine’s Day, your wife or girlfriend is going to be clicking through Instagram story after Instagram story of date nights; over-the-top, Kardashian-esque bouquet displays, and other grand sweeping gestures. Do you really want to be the one who did nothing when everyone else is doing at least a little something?
Not participating could look intentional, Smith said, or give your partner the feeling that you don’t really care about them.
“I have women tell me all the time that they just want their guy to initiate something for them as a couple,” the therapist said. “Just last week in a session, I had a wife tell her husband, ‘I have to tell everybody in my life what to do. I don’t want to have to keep doing that with you, too.’”
That frustrated client is exactly the type of person who’d tell their spouse they don’t care about Valentine’s Day, and the spouse would get it twisted and believe them, Smith said.
Does Smith’s client care about big sweeping gestures or the more cheesy side of the holiday? No, not at all, Smith said. “But does she want a husband to do something so she knows he still cares? Yes, desperately!”
“Sadly,” he said, “that man is out of the country this week and will likely do nothing.” (Sorry, but does this man know about 1-800 Flowers?)
Of course, it could be worse. Your partner could acknowledge Valentine’s Day but give you a gift that suggests they secretly hate you. We once asked our readers about the worst V-Day gifts they’d received, and we received those kinds of example: an unsigned Hallmark card, a one-year paid membership to a gym, “a Bible and a lecture about how I had been dressing ‘inappropriately’ by wearing anything relatively form-fitting.” Egads.
Still, you may be asking, why do I have to be a mindreader? Why doesn’t my partner tell me what she wants? And why would someone pretend not to care? Someone asked that last question to Cartoons Hate Her, too, and she explained that she didn’t want to seem high maintenance.
That’s a widely felt concern for many women, said Brandon Gescheidle, a marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles, California.
“Unfortunately, women in particular have been socialized to be aware of becoming a ‘high-maintenance’ partner, so they might pretend to not care in order to appear more chill or easygoing,” he said.
“In an even more general sense, some of us have been conditioned, perhaps through our family of origin, past relationships or current relationship, to quiet our own needs and wants,” he said.
Others don’t expect gifts or anything special on Valentine’s Day because their partner has dropped the ball one too many times, said Nicole Saunders, a therapist in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“To avoid disappointment and protect themselves, it becomes easier to suppress a genuine need,” the therapist said.
So sure, in an ideal world, you wouldn’t have to mind read your partner because they’d be transparent and specific about what really matters to them. But that might not be the world you’re living in, and Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, Gescheidle said.
“We can still put forth some effort, just in case,” he said. “What’s the downside of that?” (Please heed that advice come your anniversary, birthdays and any other holiday you consider silly but can’t get a good read of how your partner feels.)
Saunders agrees with all that.
“Last time I checked, you don’t need permission to show someone love,” she said. “If you want to take advantage of a holiday that focuses on love, don’t wait for your partner to give you the green light, just do something genuine and heartfelt.”
