Valentine’s Day is the St. Patrick’s Day of Co-Dependence

Valentine’s Day is the St. Patrick’s Day of Co-Dependence

Our society teaches and reinforces the idea that if you are not in a relationship, then you are not a whole person. Churches are one of the most guilty at this (and I will be ecumenical here �" Catholics and Protestants each are just as guilty)

If you are not a whole person on your own, and if you need another person to be a whole person, then you are not in a relationship, you are manifesting an illness.

If you need another person to make you a whole person, then you are looking for something outside yourself to fix something you don’t like about yourself �" when we used substances to do this, we call it an addiction; when we use people, we call it co-dependence.

I always say that Valentine’s Day is the April 15th of relationships, but that is only true for healthy people �" it is their required day of romance and is a tax on being in a relationship. The truth is, however, that Valentine’s Day is the New Years Eve and St. Patrick’s Day of co-dependence.

Incidentally, I have nothing against romance, and I am very romantic �" just not when forced to be or required to be by Corporations looking for an easy way to sell cards, chocolates, and flowers. You do know that when you tell a dog to play dead, and it lies still, it is not really dead, don’t you? It is performing a trick, and it is probably doing it to get a treat. Being romantic on command, or buying flowers or chocolate when required is not romance, but a trick �" performed by a dog hoping to get a treat.

Flowers for no reason on March 9th, is romantic and demonstrates that someone is thinking about you and wants you to know it. Flowers on Valentine’s Day is pathetic, and only done because the man does not want to spend a week or more paying the penalty for not paying the Romance Tax that is Valentine’s Day.