Valentine's Day Cards: when you're told [by Hallmark] that you need to say "I'm Sorry."

The process of buying Valentine's Day cards is one of the most frustrating experiences of the year for me. I find the writing in these cards terrible. It could be that, as it so happens, I'm a pretty decent writer myself, so I always feel like I could just buy a blank card (if it were possible to find these) and write something as well-written as any of these cards and far more personalized. This year, as I was searching for a card that didn't make me sick, I finally put my finger on the problem. Cards in the "For My Wife" section come in two basic genres:

1) Comical cards that make sex jokes, which for some reason, I find incredibly tacky, and

2) Cards couched in the language of apology. Every card I pull off the shelf contains phrases like "maybe I don't say it often enough. . ." This is a relatively explicit apology, but even those that aren't this direct contain this common trope. There are references to expressing love "just because it's Valentine's Day. . ." and other such suggestions that Valentine's Day is a day in which we husbands make up for a year's worth of neglecting to express love for our wives.

It's incredibly difficult to find cards that don't make such references. This is, I suspect, a product of an essentialist view of male behavior which assumes that we are all reticent to tell our wives that we love them and will therefore need to apologize for this. But what about those of us who happen to be decent husbands? Whose wives do know that we love them?

I might be tempted to say that we don't need Valentine's Day, because we do this stuff every day. My wife would not agree with this. We don't do elaborate Valentine's Day stuff. This year, we're going to have a picnic with our boys. Later, we'll eat expensive chocolate and cheap champagne, and that's about it. It is, however, still important that we buy each other cards. So, can someone just make blank cards that aren't covered in pictures of kittens?*

*Charissa tells me that she has this same problem. Cards for husbands also come in two genres: "you're a jerk but I love you anyway," and, of course, sex jokes.