What Happens the Day After Valentines Day?

Six Hacks for Your Love Life 365 Days a Year

Feb 15, 2023

This is the sign you've been looking for neon signage — Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

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Hey.

If you’ve found a person who loves you just the way you are, and you love them back that same way, well that’s just frickin awesome.

You’re going to want to hang onto that.

Just don’t kid yourself — it’s not just about flowers, chocolates, or dinner out on Valentine’s Day. Staying in mad passionate love over time takes regular work.

_____

Across a life that’s been pretty damn great so far, the very best part has been my relationship with my partner Dan. We were only nineteen and twenty when we began dating (here’s us below, newly married, in our mid-twenties) and this summer we celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary. Which means we’re old (ha!) but we’re as much in love now as we ever were.

If you want love that lasts, then I want that for you. And, I want to help.

So today, the day after Valentine’s Day, I’m sharing a few examples of the efforts Dan and I make regularly in order to stay in love over time.

1. The Business Card

Imagine walking to your parked car and seeing a small note tucked into the windshield wiper. Is it a note from someone who accidentally hit you? No! It’s a note from someone hitting ON you lolz.

At first you wonder who did it, and you look around, and of course for an instant you’re hoping it’s not creepy. Then you calm down and realize it’s your partner’s handwriting, and when you turn the note over you see it’s their business card. You blush as you get into your car and drive away.

BENEFITS: Keeps the playfulness of the early years very much alive.

SUPPLIES: 1 business card and 1 pen (works with regular paper, too, but seeing “call me” with their number on the back is more fun)!

BONUS POINTS FOR CREATIVE TIMING: It’s much more intriguing and fun to discover this note when you’re in the grocery store parking lot rather than outside your own place. So, you get bonus points if you keep them in your bag, and tuck one into your person’s windshield when you notice their car around town.

2. The Mini Love Note

Imagine you’re anticipating a tough or important day at work, or you’re traveling away from home for a night or two. You reach into your bag to pull out what you need and you notice a little surprise. A mini love note just for you.

BENEFIT: Shows you’re thinking of them not just when it’s their birthday, Valentines Day, or whatever. Life is busy but they know they matter.

SUPPLIES: Dan loves these from PioneerHouse on Etsy. For many more options Google “mini i love you card.” Or, if you’re creative, make them yourself!

BONUS POINTS FOR KEEPING THEM WHERE YOU CAN SEE THEM: These are a constant reminder that I matter to this guy (and him to me - I give them too) so, I like hanging onto them. I stick them in the frame of our bathroom mirror, along with The Business Cards.

3. The Gratitude Frame

Imagine coming home to a note like ⬆️ from your person. Or ⬇️

I mean, right?

In the most challenging years of our relationship — when our kids were small and we had zero time for each other — we learned of a secret way of being that purportedly helps couples stay together through tough times: regular written expressions of gratitude.

One person writes for the other and you switch back and forth every few days or weeks. For the messages to be meaningful and really hit the mark, specificity is key. Writing regularly is also key. As is reciprocity. We recommend putting the frame in your bathroom because each of you is guaranteed to spend time there daily.

Twenty years after getting this advice, Dan and I still use it. Truly a tried and true method for us. Don’t let your little sign sit there unattended for more than a few weeks. If that’s happening, you need to get your gratitude in gear!

BENEFIT: You both feel appreciated for the way you are and the things you do. And, a regular practice of expressing gratitude for the small good things in your life helps you feel more satisfied with your entire life overall. Really!

SUPPLIES: A drugstore picture frame, a thin dry erase pen in the color of your choice, and a piece of paper on which you print or write the sentence “I love you because ___________.” No need to buy an eraser because the message is behind glass and you can wipe it off with your finger!

BONUS POINTS FOR FREQUENCY: Trade messages multiple times a week.

4. The Sassy Photo

orange and yellow flame illustration — Photo by Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash

Imagine you’re trying on some stuff and you’re like oh hey I’m looking really good right now, and you take a selfie and text it to your person. Imagine how it feels to get the response Where ARE you? Or I’m on my way.

Go for alluring rather than laying it all out there on the table; it’s about your attitude as much as what you are or are not wearing.

BENEFIT: Stokes the embers of passion

SUPPLIES: Phone. Cell Coverage. Intention.

BONUS POINTS FOR DISCRETION: This is between y’all. Let’s keep it that way.

5. The Song

Imagine back to the early months of COVID when you couldn’t go anywhere and had to make up stuff to do to keep everyone’s spirits up. Imagine a playlist with songs the family loves. Imagine your wedding song being one of them, and when it comes on, you and your person drop everything and go outside and dance in the yard.

This was us.

Our wedding song is Love Theme From St. Elmo’s Fire, which was on the soundtrack of a very popular 1980s movie. But on our wedding day in 1992, the band screwed up and played the wrong song 😜 No matter. In the 30+ years since then, we’ve folded it into the rotation on many a playlist. When the Love Theme From St. Elmo’s Fire comes on, we slow dance eighties style! Sometimes we catch our grown kids watching us, and not in a bad way - they seem delighted that their parents are still in love.

BENEFIT: Reminds you of the best parts of the past, and all of your plans and good intentions when you were just starting out. Shows that you can in fact spare three minutes and thirty one seconds and focus on your love. (I’m playing ours right now because I’m adding it to tomorrow’s video, and just hearing it here at my desk inside Julie’s Pod brings me to such a happy place.)

SUPPLIES: Favorite song on a mixtape, phone, record player, 8 track tape…

BONUS POINTS FOR DANCING IN FRONT OF OTHERS: Love shows, and people are lifted when they see it.

6. The Financial Advice

In personal finance, they say you should “pay yourself first.” (Don’t worry, yes yes, this is relevant.)

The premise is that when you long to buy something but you can’t afford it right now, you’ll have to save up for it over many months or years. Trouble is, there never seems to be enough money after paying your regular bills, so alas, what you want most never actually materializes.

Same goes for your love life.

The solution in both finance and in love is to “Pay yourself first.” On the financial side, this means that instead of paying your regular bills and just hoping you’ll have money left over to put away for the really nice thing, instead, the very first bill you should pay each month is some amount of savings toward the really nice thing and THEN with whatever money you have left, you pay the other bills.

(You may be asking. “How???” Because you don’t really have much extra money, which is why you haven’t been saving for the really nice thing. Exactly. And unfortunately, with that mindset, you never will.)

But when you pay yourself first, magic happens: you make a deposit toward the really nice thing and you’ll find that the discretionary dollars available to you each month will shrink in proportion to how much you’ve saved for the really nice thing. There’ll be some sacrifice–you’ll end up eating out or getting takeout less often, having fewer lattes, etc., but unless you’re living paycheck to paycheck (and if that’s you I’m sorry that you’re in that circumstance) you’ll find that in a few years or even a few months (depending on the cost of the really nice thing), you’ll be well on your way to being able to buy it.

Okay. So the point is, it’s the exact same with your love life, where:

The really nice thing = More intimacy.

Paying yourself first = Making time to be together before work, kids, relatives, and LIFE are yammering for your time.

I recommend an hour before you usually wake up. Set an alarm. Roll over and look at each other. If you’re both game, or even willing to rally, the time is yours. Then get on with your day infused with the deep satisfaction that comes with knowing how you started the morning.

BENEFIT: Get your endorphins from the best source on earth.

SUPPLIES: Just y’all. And make sure it’s mutually pleasurable.

BONUS POINTS FOR SETTING ASIDE ENOUGH TIME TO FALL BACK ASLEEP BEFORE THE REGULAR ALARM RINGS: Nuff said.

_____

So, y’all.

Mad love isn’t about an effort you make one day a year, such as on Valentines Day. It’s about how you show up in the small ways on the daily, which is mostly about setting an intention to connect and delivering on that intention.

It’s worth it.

I’m rooting for you!

Comment below with YOUR advice for how to say in love over time!

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