relationship advice

How Do I Make Valentine’s Day A Happy Occasion?

Valentine’s Day, oh, Valentine’s Day.  We love you.  We hate you.  All the potential… all the pressure.  Especially in a long-term relationship… very few of which get through 5 or 10 or 20 Februaries without some “Ghosts of Valentines Past” haunting them and making both partners gunshy for the next.

How Do I Get My Partner To Open Up?

I used to ask him, “how was your day?”
“Good.”
Not that helpful.
When he seemed grumpy or withdrawn, I’d ask him, “What’s going on?”
He’d feel interrogated…. No matter how gentle I’d thought I had sounded.