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A psychological turning point
These findings suggest that Valentine’s Day functions less like a wrecking ball and more like a spotlight.
For couples who have been struggling for months, Valentine’s Day can bring those feelings into sharper focus, forcing people to confront questions they may have been postponing: Are we happy? Are we moving forward? Is this relationship something I want to celebrate?
Psychologists refer to moments like Valentine’s Day as temporal landmarks : points that divide time into a psychological before and after. They prompt people to take stock of their lives and make decisions they have been postponing. Romantic relationships are no exception.
Rather than creating doubt, these dates tend to accelerate decisions that were already unfolding, turning private uncertainty into a sense that change is overdue.
Valentine’s Day makes other people’s relationships unusually visible, often in idealized form, encouraging social comparisons that add fuel to the fire.
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The pressure to perform
Not all temporal landmarks carry the same emotional weight, however. Valentine’s Day is an unusually ritualized and commercialised landmark. Consumer research shows that the holiday tends to evoke polarized reactions — people are far more likely to either love or loathe Valentine’s Day than to feel neutral about it.
In the weeks leading up to the holiday, advertising, store displays and social media amplify expectations about what counts as love: gifts, effort, public displays and visible commitment. Taking part in the ritual signals commitment and investment in a shared future; opting out can invite questions or disappointment.
In this sense, Valentine’s Day does not just invite reflection — it demands a performance.
This helps explain why breakups often happen before Valentine’s Day rather than after. Ending a relationship afterward can feel deceptive, especially if gifts were exchanged or plans were made. Many people would rather leave than perform romance they no longer feel, or accept gestures that imply a level of commitment they are unsure they can sustain.
That timing reflects a broader tendency to delay difficult decisions around holidays. Ending a relationship is emotionally uncomfortable at the best of times, and research shows people sometimes delay breakups to spare their partner pain. Holidays can intensify that hesitation.
In a nationally representative survey , 22 per cent of American adults said they ended relationships before Valentine’s Day because they did not want their partner to buy them gifts or spend money when they already knew the relationship was ending.
Uncertainty becomes impossible to ignore
The sense of being torn — wanting to avoid hurting a partner while also feeling unable to keep pretending — reflects a state psychologists call ambivalence .
Ambivalence is not indifference; it is the uncomfortable experience of holding competing motivations and emotions at the same time. Many people feel ambivalent long before a relationship ends, even in relationships that look stable from the outside. Research shows that this kind of internal conflict predicts lower satisfaction and greater instability over time.
Valentine’s Day intensifies ambivalence because it transforms private uncertainty into public signalling. Participating in the holiday sends a message that a relationship is intact and future-oriented. Dinner reservations, office flower deliveries and social media posts all carry symbolic weight.
Social comparison can add fuel to the fire. Valentine’s Day makes other people’s relationships unusually visible, often in idealised form. Couples appear everywhere — online and offline — celebrating love with carefully curated gestures. Decades of relationship research show that commitment is shaped not only by how satisfying a relationship is, but by how it compares to expectations and perceived alternatives.
When Valentine’s Day raises the bar for what love is supposed to look like, a relationship already marked by ambivalence can suddenly feel inadequate by contrast.
Not everyone experiences this pressure in the same way. Research shows that people who are uncomfortable with emotional closeness or public displays of romance often find Valentine’s Day especially stressful, which can amplify dissatisfaction and make withdrawal more likely.
Valentine’s Day rarely ends relationships on its own, of course. But it can make months of uncertainty suddenly very real, turning private doubts into decisions that feel urgent and unavoidable.
Emily Impett is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto.
