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This year my husband and I will not be exchanging Valentine’s Day gifts. The decision was mostly his. He doesn’t believe in the Hallmark holiday and would prefer to save our joint income than spend it on jewelry for me. It’s not that he doesn’t love me or that he is particularly frugal. We show our affection for one another daily, and when we go shopping together, he hardly ever denies me the things that I “need.” I think it’s the idea that a token gift on a particular day of the year is supposed to mean something more than it would on any other day.
Although I understand the reason behind his decision, I can’t help but feel disappointed. I would be happy with a simple bouquet of flowers, or even a card, but sadly I don’t I’m going to receive either. Me, the lover of paper, who already has several cards picked out for him! Yes, I do tell him everyday that I love him, but I enjoy having the opportunity to really let my thoughts loose on paper. My husband has stood by me during a number of challenges this past year, and I want to thoroughly thank him for his patience and his love. It may not be reciprocated, but I’m still going to give him a card (or three!).
I suppose I should feel a bit relieved that we aren’t exchanging gifts for Valentine’s Day because surprising your significant other with a present is difficult when you are married to somebody who checks the credit card statements nearly every day. When I know I want to buy my husband a gift, I need to be sneaky. Sometimes I’ll plan ahead and take a little bit of extra cash out of the ATM for a couple of weeks before I actually need it. If I want to buy him a gift online, I’ve been forced to ask my parents if I can use their credit card and pay them back after the gift has been given. When it comes to gift giving, having a separate credit card or separate bank accounts would be ideal.
I know I covered a bunch of topics in the post, but I’m very curious to hear from you. Will you be exchanging Valentine’s Day presents with your hubby? How do you go about buying gifts without him finding out? Do you have a separate credit card for that purpose?
Twitter: @jeninthecountry
We’re going to exchange something homemade, only using supplies we already have on hand. It should be a challenging, but hopefully fun way to show our love for each other…
Also, we each have a separate credit card that we keep for present-buying (although I tend to be the credit card statement stalker in our relationship, so I’d know if he bought something for me on it!). Each of us had a credit card from when we were teenagers, so when we got together, we kept these credit cards (they’re both no-fee credit cards) because they were our longest form of credit history and would (hopefully) help our credit scores stay high. It’s kind of a pain to have 3 credit cards, but we only use our individual cards for gifts for each other – otherwise we use our joint credit card.
Twitter: @Just1Week
As a daughter of a Hallmark employee, it has been confirmed that Hallmark did not start V-day :) We have never exchanged V-day gifts. Cards and cooking a gourmet meal together have been our usual ways of celebrating. When it falls on a weekday he is often out of town and I’ve thrown parties for my girlfriends. Regarding buying gifts – we use our joint card for everything, but I only check our card on the 1st of the month (and he never checks it) so if you want to steal our identity, do it on the 2nd!! But seriously, he just tells me not to look and it has never been an issue at xmas, bdays, etc.
Happy V-day!!
.-= Erin’s most recent blog post: You Don’t Do What You Don’t Measure =-.
You don’t have separate credit cards? You didn’t have your own bank account or credit card before you got married? My husband and I not only had our own bank accounts, but own credit cards as well. In fact, while we opened a joint bank account, we still each maintain our own. The purpose being for 1) buying gifts, 2) for own personal entertainment and desires. If he wants an autographed baseball, fine, go buy it. If I want to go shopping, I don’t have to feel guilty. I have my own money to pay for it. It’s not the 1950′s.. I don’t need my husbands permission on how to spend my money. We each have jobs, so we each put a portion of our paycheck into the joint account and keep a small amount in our own account for us to do what we want. I never have to be sneaky to buy a gift.. I can do it and hide it in the house. My parents are the same way – they have joint and personal accounts and cards.
I think it’s weird if people DON’T have their own credit cards and only joint stuff. It seems like the husband is more controlling that way.
Twitter: @kellymerrill
My husband and I (this is our first married v-day) don’t really do valentine’s day either. I don’t care much about it and we are actually going out to eat with another married couple, but there is no expectation of presents or flowers. I did buy him a card, but just because it was so freaking cute! It feels less pressured this way. I’d rather get random tokens of affection than ones egged on by society.
Twitter: @pjfeinstein
Reed – Thanks for your thoughts. The purpose of us having a joint account and shared credit cards is not so one of us can be in control of our money. To clarify, I don’t need to ask his permission before I buy something! Yes, I had my own credit cards and bank account before we got married. But when we got married we thought it would be easier to share everything. Was that the wrong decision? I don’t know. I’m still a newlywed who is trying to determine what works and what doesn’t in our relationship. Perhaps one day I will go back to having my own personal card. Truthfully I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sharing or not sharing. It’s whatever works for you as a couple.
.-= PJ’s most recent blog post: ead living update =-.
It seems as though a lot of people feel the same way as your husband. If you and your husband have celebrated Valentine’s Day before then I could see why you feel disappointed. Did you express to your husband how you feel about the holiday? Or least let him know that all you wanted was flowers or a card?
My husband and I will be exchanging gifts for Valentine’s Day. We usually do small gifts though. No jewelry or anything fancy just small meaningful gifts. We both have separate personal accounts in addition to our joint account. This way, we can buy whatever we want without answering to each other. Everyone needs a little play money. I believe that it’s healthier that way.
.-= Aarika’s most recent blog post: Black History Moment =-.
My husband and I combined our accounts when we got engaged. We do however each have a credit card that the other checks. As the one who does all of the bill paying, it’s nice to be surprised when he does buy me something! It’s just sometimes tricky to make sure that his card is paid if he doesn’t give me a heads up to pay it. I like the idea of taking out the cash a few weeks in advance, I might pass that one on.
We are most definitely not exchanging gifts (cards maybe)…actually at my insistance. I’ve never been very into Vday, it seems too forced to me. We were going to have a bunch of our friends over for dinner (both singles and couples), but then I’ve had too much going on so that got shelved.
My husband listens to a sports radio station and apparently there’s been all sorts of commercials for the guys lately reminding them that it’s Vday and if they don’t get their girlfriends/wives flowers, chocolate, dinner, etc then they’re going to be in the doghouse and obviously don’t deserve the woman they’re with. He told me this this morning saying “I just want to check that this is what you meant…cuz the radio is telling me this…”
:-p
Twitter: @purelyelegant
Hubs and I are still planning on celebrating, he knows how much I enjoy presents so he likes to have the holiday as a reminder. However, that being said, we usually purposefully choose to not celebrate on the day or weekend of Valentines day merely because it is so overpriced and everyone is out so service tends to be lousy. Plus, if he waits one day he can buy me the same flowers and chocolates for 50-75% off! :) I guess we celebrate a little differently than most people, but we do like to take the chance to celebrate our love and plan nice things for each other. We just don’t take the actual day too seriously if that makes any sense…! :)
.-= Jen’s most recent blog post: Emergency Communication =-.
Twitter: @purelyelegant
oh and per the bank accounts, our’s are all joint so it can be a bit challenging to surprise one another but we each have a credit card that we “take” whenever we are buying gifts and we just ask the other person to stay out of that account for a bit. It’s always worked for us!
.-= Jen’s most recent blog post: Emergency Communication =-.
My husband and I had similar mindsets about Valentines Day as you and your husband ~ I enjoy it as a fun day to celebrate love, and I’m all about romance, so I like it to be something special. My husband is ever the practical one similar to your husband, and doesn’t like to feel forced into romance, I guess. The first year we were married I went through really similar feelings to what you’re expressing… it’s kind of hard to have that disappointment. But, I don’t want the holiday to be a chore for my husband… because that kind of defeats the whole thing. And I can’t change his personality.
So we’ve come to a compromise, where he knows that I’d like a card with some sappy stuff written in it, but that’s it as far as exchanging gifts. That way he doesn’t have to feel pressured into thinking up gift ideas, but I still get a dose of romance. We also generally celebrate by cooking at home and having a nice night in, with maybe some extra treats like breaking out the fondu pot for some chocolate strawberries. I guess after a couple years of this I’m happy with the low-key romance approach… but the key is to find a happy medium that works for both of you, if you can.. might want to have a conversation about this and see what he thinks.
as far as surprise gift purchases, we have separate credit cards but they’re all linked on mint.com to do all our financial budgeting etc – so if I buy him something, I tell him not to look too closely at the website – it’s worked ok so far!
.-= Eileen’s most recent blog post: love what you do =-.
Twitter: @cheesefiend
My birthday is the day before Valentine’s Day and I’ve forever been shafted by past boyfriends (and my husband at the beginning of our relationship)… I’m not a huge V-Day girl but I do get miffed at the merging of holidays. Our current arrangement is this: We do a big, fancy, foodie dinner on my birthday to celebrate both the birthday and V-Day (my hubs’ birthday is Feb. 2 so its kind of a triple threat since he prefers dinner at home on his actual birthday). And then we usually get each other small tokens on V-Day. Usually I have still-warm cookies delivered to his office and he has flowers delivered to mine. Slightly different MO this year since I’m out of work and V-Day is on a Sunday but still, just something small.
I too have had the letterpress card for him picked out for weeks – instead of the usual cookies, I found a great red and white checked buttondown on mega sale at Nordstrom that will be his gift this year!
.-= Kate’s most recent blog post: Favorite Things: February =-.
I think I’ll be on a super tight budget until I die!!
We exchanged cards this year and cooked a wonderful meal together – steak and lobster (with homemade garlic butter – yum!). We spent the day together and watched movies and hung out. Nothing too exciting, but it was really really nice. And neither one of us missed having presents. ;-)