Hidden Valentines--How My Unromantic Husband Romances Me

We don't celebrate Valentines Day at our house. My husband is not American and figures it is yet another profits-driven holiday designed to inflate romantic expectations every year and thinks it probably causes more harm than good. Actually, my husband simply does not bow to the American romantic ideal, ever. Gifts and flowers are all well and good, but he doesn't understand why, if he shows me love, care, and consideration every single day of the year that any particular day should oblige him to waste money on flowers that die and unhealthy sweets. Having been raised in America and brainwashed into thinking American magazine-style romance is the only way to show love, it took me a few years to realize that he's absolutely right, and a little bit longer to start appreciating my husband's unique ways of romancing me.

The sweetest thing my husband does is to randomly announce "Wife Appreciation Day", and ask where I'd like to eat supper. He usually announces this as I'm standing at the stove halfway finished making supper, but I've learned to cheerfully cover the cooking pot, stick it in the fridge, and say "Lets try that new Chinese place!". To turn down an offer like that or ask for a rain check would just ruin the moment. We rarely go out to eat, and I know that because of our low income, my frugal husband is screaming bloody murder on the inside as he hands over the debit card to pay for the meal, but that makes our outings so much more special. When we eat out, it is never out of a sense of obligation on his part (or fear that not taking me out would put him in the doghouse). Rather, it is a serious act of self-sacrifice, made entirely out of love and appreciation for me and a sincere desire to bless my little heart.

My husband does many other things on a daily basis to show me he loves me. None of them could be labeled "romantic" according to the book, movie, or magazine definition of romance, but I have come to appreciate these little acts of love much more than I would appreciate a bunch of roses. When my husband shoos me out of the kitchen and washes the dishes even though his hands are cracked and hurting from the winter dryness, that's romantic. When we discuss pregnancy cravings and he tells me "If you feel like pizza, order one any time" that's romantic (considering our need to pinch pennies and his extreme health-consciousness). I see his love in the fact that he wakes up in the wee hours of the morning, every morning, to go to a job he doesn't like much so that I can be home with our children. I see love in his reminding our sons to obey me and treat me well (and in his disciplining them when they don't!). He romances me by sharing his big dreams and secret fears as we are falling asleep at the end of the day. He makes me blush and giggle by telling me I'm beautiful-when I'm overweight, seven months pregnant and covered with stretch marks and loose flesh-and meaning it. His heightened concern for me during my pregnancies and our children's births has come to mean the world to me, and I now understand his defensiveness and anger against the intrusive medical world as loving protectiveness towards me. He believes in me and the strength of my body more than I do, when it comes to having babies. He holds me when I need to cry, even though tears and emotionalism really bother him. He fixes things, takes care of broken cars, turns junky backyards into beautiful garden spaces, eats the food I cook, compliments me on my skills as a wife and mother, and overcomes his cultural background in order to give me the hugs and kisses and physical reassurance of his care that I need on a regular basis.

I may not get flowers and chocolates on Valentines day (or any other day of the year), but I know now that I am romanced by my husband every day. And as the years go by, I'd far rather have his little un-romantic tokens of love than obligatory cultural symbols of affection.