- Don’t Be Fooled,
Flowers Aren’t Enough
- By Barrington H.
Brennen (c) February 6, 2002, 2017
If you think that giving
flowers on Valentine’s Day is all you need to do to keep the love hot between
you and your spouse, then you are totally misguided. Flowers aren’t enough.
Your spouse wants all of you–your time, mind, and body.
Flowers are a
wonderful way of expressing love and appreciation to your lover. However, the
giving of flowers is not the acid test for warm loving relationships. It is how
you honor and cherish your spouse through the time spent together, and then
appreciative words you utter other times of the year. It is also listening to,
and valuing your spouse’s opinions and ideas. It is being there for your
spouse, especially when the chips are down. It is placing the relationship with
your spouse above all other relationships–career, friends, relatives, church.
Flowers are often used to
hide or whitewash adulterous behaviors. It would be stupid for a woman to accept
flowers from her unfaithful husband as a peace offering and not require a change
of his adulterous behavior. Some men spend hundreds of dollars on Valentine’s
Day sending flowers to their wives and "sweethearts" at the same time.
The old Valentine’s adage is "Say it With Flowers." What are these
men saying with flowers? The truth is that you cannot truly say "I love
you" with flowers if you never said it without flowers. Flowers are
worthless when on-going discontentment is in the marriage. On many Valentines, I
have been unable to afford floral arrangements for my wife. However, she
appreciated greatly my romantic letters, hand-picked yard flowers, hand-make
cards, breakfast in bed, etc.
Some women foolishly
accept the dozens of roses during Valentine simply because they know it cost
lots of money. It makes them feel good to know that their lovers are spending so
much money on them. They ignore the pain simply because of the price on the tag.
With their eyes open, they are being led to the slaughter where their hearts are
systematically being tortured by their partner’s unfaithfulness and
dishonesty. Their body is being subjected sexually transmitted diseases, at
times life threatening, simply because of the price of the flowers. If flowers
alone keep you in a sexual relationship with an unfaithful man, then you are
cheap, cheap.
Many spouses are angry
when they receive flowers from their partners on Valentine’s Day. This is
because they know their spouses are just trying to whitewash the problems
between them and refuse to change their behavior. We need more husbands and
wives who can say it with words before they say it with flowers. On this
Valentine’s Day, be there for your spouse. Say it with words, not just
flowers.
Barrington H. Brennen, MA, NCP, BCCP, a marriage and family
therapist and board certified clinical psychotherapist,
USA. Send your questions or comments to
barringtonbrennen@gmail.com or write to P.O. Box
CB-13019, Nassau, The Bahamas, or visit
www.soencouragement.org or call 242-327-1980.
Photos are from The Morguefile.com professional photo site
with open license.