Facing Valentine’s Day As A Widow! - What We Can Do To Make The Day A Little More Bearable!

Today is Valentine’s Day, 2023. It’s one of those days, those milestone days, those holidays that we have to face as widows. For some of you this is your first Valentine’s Day without your spouse. I am thinking of you because I know how hard this can be, especially if this is one of those occasions that you really got into. If your spouse really went all out for Valentine’s Day, this is a hard reminder of what’s missing now. And I’m truly sorry.

My intent for this blog post was to come up with some helpful tips on ways that we can make Valentine’s Day a little more bearable, a little less hurtful.

So I hope this helps in some way. Although I know that this is not ideal and it still stings, right?

The only thing that we truly want is to be with our partner.

The following is a short, but sweet list of strategies to help you get through this Valentine’s Day.

Focus Your Holiday on the Kids

1.       Make the focus on the kids. So, of course, this applies if you still have little ones at home. You can make this day a day of LOVE, which it is. We don’t have to focus on romantic love today. We can focus on LOVE in general. The love we have for other people in our lives, other family, our friends.

Making the focus on the kiddos could be something easy like Valentine gift bags that you can make up. You could get them involved and bake Valentine heart-shaped cookies and decorate them. And then maybe bring them to the neighbor or over to grandmaw’s house if they live near you.

You can do other Valentine’s Day crafts. Now, I’m not a super crafty person but you can sure get on Pinterest and go down that rabbit hole together and pick some really fun things to make!

There are so many cute things you can do with the kids! And they would LOVE that time with you. That’s something that they will always remember.

Ignoring The Holiday

 

2.      This year Valentine’s Day falls on a Tuesday, which honestly is very helpful. I know I’ve told ya’ll this before but when it comes to holidays and milestone days, I’m in the camp of “I don’t even want to know that today is Valentine’s Day”. I just want to keep my head down and get through this day like it’s any other Tuesday and not be slapped in the face with it.

So, here’s a helpful tip that I know I used to do.

Don’t go to the store unless you absolutely have to.

Don’t go to the grocery store. There are too many balloons and flowers and cards being shoved in your face this week. Wait a few days until they take those displays down. I know how hard this is, especially when you go into the store and you see all these other men buying flowers and gifts for their wives or girlfriends.

You then react in one of two ways.

You either get jealous and angry about your crappy situation.

Or you fall headfirst into a pit of despair and heartache. Just don’t do it. Don’t go to Michael’s or Hobby Lobby or Walgreens or anywhere, for that matter!  Stay away from those triggering situations because you know that’s what you’re going to see when you go in there!

This year, for me, Valentine’s Day is just like any other Tuesday. The kids still have school. I’ll still be working. The kids still have after school practice, then it’s dinner, then homework, then bath, then bed. It’s just like any other day. Which is good if you’re like me and you just want to get through it.

 Do Something Special for Yourself on This Holiday

3.       The third strategy you can take this year is to do the complete opposite of #2 and not avoid it at all! Instead treat yourself like a freakin queen!

Schedule a massage or better yet a full day at the spa. Go and get a mani/pedi. This does, of course require a little pre-planning because you can’t always just walk into your favorite spa and get a massage immediately, on-demand, unfortunately.

If you can’t do it on the actual day of Valentine’s Day, maybe you do it next weekend.

Maybe you want to buy yourself some fresh flowers, I for one, love to have fresh flowers in the house. And I just heard a recent statistic that says 15% of women buy flowers for themselves on Valentine’s Day! So go for it!

Buy yourself your favorite dessert or order takeout from your favorite place! Treat yourself kindly. No, better than just kindly. Treat yourself like a queen, my friend.

Have fun. Plan something with friends and go out. Or plan something with friends and have dinner at your house. Whatever it is that makes you happy, do it!

Maybe you take this day to try something completely new to you! If you want to tackle this day with your adventurous side, and really grab life, try something you’ve never done before! Something you would be really proud of yourself for accomplishing. Something that will boost your confidence and your self-esteem on this day that might otherwise make you feel pretty low.

The point of all of these is to take back control of your day! We can’t stop the day from coming. It’s happening whether we like it or not.

But you can have control over your day.

And do this day YOUR way, whatever that looks like! You are not completely powerless here. And this is your reminder that you have that control.

Always.

Ok, I hope you found this to be helpful. These are just a few suggestions on what you can do to get through Valentine’s Day. I would love to hear from you! What did you do today? How was it? How did you spend your Valentine’s day? Let me know. Email me at jen@widow180.com

Did you know Widow 180 has an awesome QUIZ tailored just for you if you are on the fence about dating again? Check this out…It’s the Are You Ready to Date? QUIZ Here’s the link to the QUIZ: widow180.ck.page/datingquiz