Valentine’s Day just passed.
The flowers have already started to droop in their vases.
The chocolate is half eaten.
The restaurant bills have cleared.
And quietly, in living rooms across the country, people are back to the same distance they were sitting in before February 14th.
I had a couple in my office last year on February 16th.
Two days after the roses.
She looked beautiful. Always did. Composed. Hair done. Nails clean. That kind of woman who holds herself together in public.
He looked proud. Slightly irritated. Like he was here to prove something.
They told me about their Valentine’s dinner.
Reservations weeks in advance.
A bottle of wine.
A hotel room.
He thought it went well.
She cried in my office.
Not loud crying. Not dramatic.
Just tears sliding down a face that was tired of pretending.
“I said yes,” she told me. “But I didn’t mean yes.”
He shifted in his chair.
“I bought the dress. I booked the room. I did everything right.”
That word. Right.
That is the problem.
We have turned intimacy into a checklist.
• Make reservation
• Buy flowers
• Have sex
• Post photo
• Prove love
And we wonder why it feels thin.
She told me later that the sex that night felt like obligation wrapped in silk sheets.
She had shaved. Perfumed. Prepared.
She had smiled. Drank the wine. Leaned in.
But her body was not with her.
Her body was exhausted.
Exhausted from carrying the invisible emotional weight of their house.
Exhausted from managing schedules.
Exhausted from swallowing small resentments.
Valentine’s Day amplified the lie.
Because on that day we are supposed to feel close.
We are supposed to feel chosen.
We are supposed to feel desire.
So when we don’t, we fake it harder.
And then something dangerous happens.
We use sex to cover distance.
Sex becomes the proof instead of the result.
This is what I mean by numbing.
Not drugs.
Not alcohol.
Numbing with performance.
Numbing with effort.
Numbing with intensity.
He thought he was leading romance.
She felt like she was auditioning for connection.
After they left, I sat in the quiet of my office and thought about how many couples will climb into bed on that holiday and hope chemistry will solve what communication never did.
It won’t.
Chemistry can light a fire.
It cannot build a foundation.
The truth is, Valentine’s Day exposes relationships more than it heals them.
If the depth is there, it amplifies it.
If the depth is missing, it spotlights it.
And most people feel the spotlight and panic.
So they perform.
And the morning after, there is a hangover.
Not from wine.
From disconnection.
The kind that whispers,
“Why did that feel empty?”
You don’t fix that with another reservation.
You fix that with sobriety.
Emotional sobriety.
Sexual sobriety.
The kind that asks,
Am I present?
Am I honest?
Am I using this moment to avoid something deeper?
That couple did not need better lingerie.
They needed repair.
They needed to sit in the discomfort of what was not working.
They needed to stop proving and start revealing.
Most people will not do that.
It is easier to buy roses.
It is harder to say,
“I feel unseen.”
“I feel pressured.”
“I feel alone even when we touch.”
This is why I wrote Sober Sex.
Not to shame desire.
But to rescue it.
Because desire cannot survive in performance.
It needs truth.
And truth is rarely candlelit.
It is awkward.
It is raw.
It sometimes kills the mood before it saves the relationship.
But if you have ever woken up the morning after a “romantic” night and felt strangely hollow, you know exactly what I am talking about.
We are not starving for sex.
We are starving for presence.
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Go sit with it.
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It is not fluffy.
It is not performative.
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Grab the discounted copy on Amazon before the price climbs.
As always loving and praying for you and our world,
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Rene’ Schooler(Author)
