Valentine's Day 2015

Yesterday was my first Valentine's Day as a single person in over 25 years and it was the greatest Valentine's Day every!! It was the first one in 21 years that I didn't cry myself to sleep. Wait, cry you said, but Valentine's is from Romance and I am a huge romantic so why crying. Therein lies a sad tale.

For the last 21 years I have been married - to the same man. He is the father of my children, he provided a decent home but he was not romantic. No, that is not correct. We dated for four years before we got married and each and every Valentine's Day before our wedding he remembered it, and he bought be a pair of gold earring, with a heart on them. Every year, I thought I had found the perfect man. Then we got married, and the first Valentines Day after the wedding came and nothing. No card, no flowers, no earrings. I was confused, well maybe he just forget and so I made a big deal and gave him my Valentine's gift to him, telling him Happy Valentine's Day over and over. Thank you he replied and went on about his game. That night I cried in my sleep, what happened to the man I dated, where was the romance? Little did I know I would be asking that question for a long time.

Flash forward to last year, 21 years of marriage, our 21st Valentines together, but by this time I am only going through the motions. Years of life with this man, of the things he has done and said to me have killed any love I have left for me long ago, but I keep holding on because I have children, it's better for them right. The need to see both parents together. Its Valentine's Day, and I know that there will be no gift from him, there hasn't been one since before we were married, I know that in my head, but yet it is so hard to keep my heart from hoping that this will be the year he changes. I'm always praying for that change, but I know it won't come. Again I curl up in my bed to sleep, crying in my bed alone as yet another Valentine's Day has come and gone without recognition.

Without warning my son comes into the room, sits on the bed beside me, snuggles his head down against mine. I can feel his tears mingle with mine and he softly says to me "Why do you let him treat you this way?" "You need to leave him." He hugs me tightly for a while longer and tells me that he loves me before he leaves. As I lay there I stop crying and I wonder am I really doing the right thing staying, letting him treat me like trash and walk all over me, just so the kids have two parents. Or is my son right and I need to take a stand and move on.

One year later, I celebrated Valentine's Day in my own place, with my kids by my side. Happier than I have ever been. I may not have gotten a pair of gold earrings, but I got so much more this year!! Thank you son, you will alway be my rock!