I’m a therapist in a loving relationship. And I absolutely hate Valentine’s Day.
I’m a psychodynamic therapist who works with women who lose themselves in relationships. I’m in a loving long-term relationship. My practice is sex-positive, GSRD-informed and I’m a full-on activist for love in all of its many beautiful, wonderful, unique forms. On paper, I should love Valentine’s Day right? All the whimsy and romance and the red and pink filling up the shops (the more astute amongst you might have noticed I enjoy a pink and red combo).
But I detest Valentine’s Day.
To me, Valentine’s Day is a glossy, sanitised and well-marketed performance. One that asks women to be grateful, pleasing and emotionally uncomplicated on its schedule. It flattens the reality of love and intimacy into something palatable and Instagram-ready, and quietly punishes anyone who feels ambivalent, resistant, bored, or angry about being expected to feel grateful for a handful of roses once a year while carrying the emotional and relational load the other 364 days.
Which is to say: I believe that Valentine’s Day props up a version of love that only functions because women are trained to carry the emotional weight quietly, and call it romance.
Why you feel disconnected in a loving relationship (and what it means)
Valentine’s Day can feel uncomfortable because it demands a very specific emotional response on cue, and many women sense the gap between that performance and how intimacy (in any sense) really feels on the inside. It asks for certainty, reassurance, and visible satisfaction, even when real relationships are messy, contradictory, and alive with more than one feeling at a time.
There is very little room, culturally, for mixed emotions on Valentine’s Day. We are expected to feel chosen, secure, and grateful. If we feel flat, irritated, disconnected, or quietly sad, those feelings are treated as problems to be dealt with or hidden, rather than information worth listening to. Discomfort becomes something to manage away, rather than something that might be telling us what’s happening under the surface.
For many women, that discomfort doesn’t come out of nowhere. It taps into older questions about being enough, being wanted, or being at risk of being left behind. Valentine’s Day can quietly stir fears about whether love is secure, whether desire is mutual, or whether being chosen once still guarantees being chosen again. These are ‘relational’ concerns, shaped by earlier experiences like caregiver attachment, power dynamics in past relationships or our certainty/visibility in the world.
The trouble is that women are rarely encouraged to stay with those feelings. Instead, we learn to smooth them over, minimise what we want or need, and act contented so no one else feels unsettled. Over time, that pattern of censoring or silencing ourselves can create distance… not just from a partner, but from ourselves too.
What looks like romance can slowly become disconnection underneath.
When Valentine's Day triggers relationship anxiety: What your discomfort is telling you
For many women, love is supposed to make things clearer. Once you’re in a relationship, you’re meant to feel settled. After all, you’ve been chosen. What a relief! Love is meant to answer the question, not keep raising new ones. So when doubt, irritation, longing, or restlessness show up, it can feel like something has gone a bit wrong.
You might love your partner and also miss parts of yourself. You might feel close one day and strangely distant the next. You might want reassurance and also want space. None of this is unusual, but in my experience it rarely gets named. Instead, there’s pressure to smooth it over, to make sense of it quickly, or to talk yourself out of it altogether.
Many women learn to turn those complicated feelings back on themselves. If something feels off, the assumption is often “I’m being difficult”, “It’s a ‘me’ issue” or (my personal favourite) “It’s not that bad, I should be more grateful”. The focus shifts away from the relationship itself and onto correcting ourselves. Over time, this can mean editing our own needs, softening anger, or silencing wishes or desires in order to keep things feeling stable.
Valentine’s Day intensifies this because it demands emotional clarity. LOUDLY. You’re expected to know exactly how you feel and to show it convincingly to the whole wide world through Instagrammable dinners and aesthetic present-giving. Mixed feelings simply don’t fit society’s script. They raise questions about reciprocity, effort, and who is actually holding the relationship together. So instead we push them down, ignore them, or assume they’re some kind of personal inadequacy.
But one thing I know for damn sure is that feelings don’t disappear just because they’re inconvenient for you/them/us/society. When there isn’t room for complexity, it often shows up elsewhere, like resentment, a numbness to the relationship or partner, or a sense of ‘going through the motions’. Love becomes something you do rather than something you’re inside of.
“Why do I lose myself in relationships?” The pattern beneath the performance
Valentine’s Day often exposes this kind of disconnection, not because it causes it, but because it puts a spotlight on what’s been quietly happening the rest of the year.
Feeling disconnected is rarely about not caring enough. More often, it’s a sign that parts of you have been managing, adapting, or staying quiet for a long time in order to keep the relationship going.
Complicated feelings about love are not a problem to be solved. They’re often the first signal that something important is happening inside you. That a part of you is waking up. That something wants to be noticed, named, or taken seriously after a long time of being hidden away from yourself.
Repeating relationship patterns: How women disappear to stay connected
Many women I work with are insightful, thoughtful, and emotionally literate. They’ve read the books. They’ve reflected deeply. They can explain their patterns with precision. And still, they find themselves feeling small or lost in relationships, over-functioning emotionally to avoid conflict, or quietly disappearing in order to stay connected to a partner. Insight alone hasn’t shifted it, because the work isn’t about understanding more. It’s about allowing more of yourself to exist in the relationship without rushing to edit it down.
My therapeutic work isn’t about helping you become more accommodating, more appreciative, or better at managing your reactions. It’s about making room for your anger, your desire, your ambivalence, and your autonomy. It’s about understanding why you learned to disappear in the first place, and what it might mean to stay present now, even when that feels risky and properly uncomfortable.
🙅🏻♀️ You don’t need to love Valentine’s Day.
🙅🏻♀️ You don’t need to do romance “right”.
🙅🏻♀️ And you definitely don’t need to smooth over discomfort to prove to anyone that your relationship is valid.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is listen closely to the parts of you that are unsettled, rather than rushing to silence them.
