Valentine's Day is Not Required
Feb 12, 2026
Dear Parents,
By mid-February, the internet is thick with advice about how to do love right with:
Better communication.
Better boundaries.
Better dates.
Better sex.
Better lingerie.
Better versions of yourself.
And if you’re parenting, partnering, or simply living with a nervous system that has taken more than a few hits lately, all that “better” can quietly land as: You’re behind the eight ball and you will never get to“better”anything.
So, here’s my take--one you probably won’t find scrolling between chocolate ads and boudoir studio discounts.
Valentine’s Day is not a performance review, because it just isn’t
There is no scorecard.
No referendum on your worthiness.
No proof that your relationship is thriving—or failing.
Valentine’s Day can be a pressure provoking holiday, and pressure does not produce intimacy. Pressure produces compliance, shutdown, criticism, disappointment, resentment, or over-functioning. Sometimes all at once.
Love doesn’t show up best under spotlights.
It shows up around the edges and in the margins of our lives.
Love lives in the unglamorous spaces especially when you are parenting children from difficult beginnings
Love is not all about candlelight and dressing up with fresh flowers on the table. (Okay, sometimes it is for fun and romance, but not without serious effort, including kidsitters. Oy!)
In my opinion, love is:
- Not biting off your partners head when you easily could.
- Staying close when your instinct is to throw up your hands, stomp off, and slam the door.
- Being the first one to say, “You were right and I was wrong.” (My favorite.)
- Repairing after you said the mean thing you wish you hadn’t.
- Choosing softness in your body when protection mode is ever present with the kids.
For many of us—especially those shaped by trauma, attachment wounds, or years of caregiving under stress—love has more curves to navigate and that requires mindfulness, regulation, and grace for self and others.
Regulated love is radical
A regulated nervous system says:
- I don’t need to win.
- I don’t need to be perfect, and you don’t either.
- I can pause to clear my mind,
- I can stay curious.
- I can come back.
- I can hear your point of view without losing my center.
These are not small things.
If your Valentine’s Day includes exhaustion, grief, resentment, longing, or numbness, that doesn’t mean love is absent. It often means love has been working overtime without enough support for time together doing… nothing.
So, if you are inclined to ask, “Do we still love each other?”
Ask different questions instead…
- Where did I soften when I didn’t have to? Where did my partner soften?
- When did I stay present even while dysregulated? When did my partner do that?
- Where did I choose repair over righteousness? Where did my partner do that, too?
- When did I offer love without demanding a return on the same day? When did that happen for me, too?
Those answers tell a much truer love story than roses ever will. And roses are lovely, I will admit.
If you are still here—still trying, still learning, still willing to pause and come back—you are loving on life’s terms. Bravo.
And to those who do not currently have a love partner on this parenting journey, I have a different Valentine’s wish for you…
Don’t think about this Hallmark day at all. And if you do, make sure it is plenty full of self-love, self-care, self-interest, and requests for help, support and understanding from all you know who love you.
Love is love from wherever it is generated. That’s love worth celebrating.
Your Love Matters,
Ce
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Creator of the Love+ Parenting Model found only in the Love Matters Parenting Society Therapeutic Parent Program.
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