Who cares about Valentine’s Day? Women.
Who feels pressure about Valentine’s Day? Men.

Come on, admit it. We women know it’s true. If our man forgets Valentine’s Day (how could he with all the cultural reminders, but some of them do), we’re upset. Half of the women surveyed by Match.com said receiving nothing for the holiday could be grounds for a breakup.

Eighty five percent of the one billion Valentine cards sold each year are bought by women. But it’s men who feel the pressure to spend ‘serious’ money, sometimes lots of it, because their wife or girlfriend takes this day very seriously.

One of the myths of marriage is that husbands want romance as much as their wife does. No one understands this better than the diamond industry.

By itself, a diamond is a rock with no intrinsic value. The industry’s genius is in controlling the supply, keeping the price up and making the pretty rock an inseparable part of courtship and married life. Who can ignore Tiffany ads showing diamonds with a simple caption that reads ‘This is what love looks like’.

Men ‘do’ romance because it fulfills womens' need, not his. He's being strategic. He doesn’t want you to cry; he doesn’t want to hear that he doesn’t care about your feelings and that he always forgets the days that are important to you. He uses romance to set the stage for what he really wants – sex, closeness, intimacy. We women are once again reassured that romance can survive the daily realities of marriage.

The ultimate test of intimacy these days is shared financial disclosure.That's trust, that's love, that's intimacy.