The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
For once this year Valentine's day does not hover over me like a neon sign that I am not loved. I spent many a year feeling like I was undeserving if I did not have someone to give me a valentines. The ex A did under duress but never spontaneously.
I settled for so little in the name of having someone, someone to say I was attached to, rather than in constant conflict with. I settled for so so little in order to look normal. Of course I never did look normal as I was absolutely stressed to the max by his antics and addiction. On many many occasions he would pull some catastrophe right next to Valentine's day and then bring me a valentine's card and think that was an amends. One year he practically totaled the truck (it was never really repaired right) and brought me a candle. I took that because I did not want to be alone. I took it because I didn't know how to be alone.
I can't say I like being alone but I don't see it as a sign that I am absolutely unworthy anymore. For that I am very grateful. Maresie.
You love yourself and that's all that matters - good for you.
I say on Valentine's Day you treat yourself to something nice - maybe a restaurant you like, a movie you want to see, or maybe even pamper yourself with a spa treatment.
I don't plan on doing anything on Valentines Day. One thing i won't be doing is fretting that I don't have somone and that means I am less than. I settled for 7 years. I will not settle again for abuse, chaos and catastrophe. If I'm alone I have my own problems but with the ex A they were multipled 100 fold.
My AH and I met on Valentines Day - 40 years ago! I was a student nurse, flat sharing with other student nurses. We held a party as Valentines Day in 1970 was on a Saturday night. He gate-crashed near the end of the party and I got talking to him. I had been going out with a friend of his who was a student at Bristol (UK) University. Boyfriend wasn't at my party because he was staying in Bristol for a party there. This had annoyed me. AH was saying bad things about his/my friend. When I asked why he was running down his friend he replied "because I want to go out with you!" So I did (go out with him) and here I am married to him for 38 years. For 35 years we were happy but he has been alcohol dependent now for the last 5 years and life has turned into a bit of a nightmare. We had always made a big thing about Valentines Day as that was when we first met but, for the first time in 40 years I have said to him "lets agree NOT to buy Valentines cards for each other this year." The truth is - he simply isn't my Valentine any more. He is no longer the lovely man I married. It is so, so sad
I really respect your program and like that you value yourself enough to know that you shouldn't settle for less than you deserve.
A lady I know, my Mom, used to look desperately for someone to love her, to validate her, to make her whole. Unfortunately, many marriages later, many addicts/alcoholics later she has realized that she spent almost a lifetime chasing the vision. I'm proud to say she has been blessed with an awareness that she needs to work on her own happiness to fill the hole, before she can have a healthy relationship with a man.
I don't think it is about self esteem. For me its about that I simply can't do what I have until now. I cannot do that anymore. I surrendered to my way was not the good way.
I see Valentine's Day as a Hallmark Holiday - gives florists a huge markup on pretty flowers in the middle of winter, and guilts people into giving cards. My idea of a great Valentine's Day these days is going to the classroom parties at my kids' elementary school and taking pictures of them exchanging their Valentines.
Nothing sends the message "You are nothing if you are not part of a couple" quite like all the commercialism surrounding Valentines Day, IMO.
To reject that message, I turned it into "What can I do to brighten someone else's day?" So I made a point of sending Valentines cards to my single friends (okay, I'll admit it, they were on a bit of a man-bashing theme) and buying a box of the silliest, most juvenile cards I could find to pass around to other friends with some chocolate treats, because they had been married so long that their husbands didn't bother to do anything for Valentines any longer.
I thought it was a really good excuse to let the people in my life know that they were special to me..... and it sure worked to take my focus off of what I was "missing" that day.
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could... Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Emerson
Marisie: Treat yourself to something for VAL Day. I bought myself a rose one year when my Valentine wasn't quite on. We were separated at the time. He did give me a VAL card but to me it wasn't enough I guess. He was even standing right next to me when I bought it & boy, was he ashamed! I tend to do things for myself when there is what I call a "major" holiday! Love yourself when sometimes it seems the AH just doesn't "get" it!
I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT I WAS MARRIED TWO DAYS AFTER VALENTINE'S DAY 20 YEARS AGO. THAT DIDN'T LAST--MAYBE THIS IS SILLY BUT IF WE HAD MARRIED ON THE ACTUAL HOLIDAY MAYBE WE WOULD STILL BE MARRIED, NOT! THAT'S MY TWO SENSE, AGAIN! JUST ME KATHLEEN
