February and Valentine’s Day often bring lots of pressure to show love in certain ways. Overpriced roses, heart-shaped chocolates lining the grocery store shelves, and endless social media posts of candlelit dinners all set an unspoken expectation of effortless romance. But if you’re navigating infertility or IVF, those expectations can feel overwhelming and out of reach. When fertility treatment takes up so much space in your life, love may not disappear, but it can become harder to reach, harder to show, and easier to misunderstand.

IVF is more than just a medical process. It’s a journey filled with ongoing stress that can change how couples talk to each other, connect, and share intimacy. Understanding how stress impacts your relationships and how the ways we give and receive love can shift during this time can help you and your partner stay close, even when life feels anything but romantic.

When stress sticks around for a long time, it can make it hard to connect with each other like you used to. Partners may react more quickly, pull away, or stick to their own ways of coping. Conversations that once felt natural can become tense. Small misunderstandings might feel much bigger than they really are.

Desire and intimacy are important components of communication, too. Sex can start to feel more like something you have to do. It may even become a source of pressure and grief, instead of a way to connect and enjoy each other.

These changes don’t mean you or your partner are doing anything wrong. Even though these changes can be hard to deal with, they’re common for many couples going through fertility treatment. You are not alone.

Many couples come into fertility treatment relying on the ways they normally show love, like through physical touch, quality time, gift-giving, acts of service, or kind words. These are known as the five core “love languages.” But when stress runs high,........

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