On this day dedicated to romantic love, do you find yourself looking at your marriage and asking, “What was I thinking?”
It may be a good question but in a different way than you imagined.
It’s true, romantic comedies often end with a wedding. But what does your experience tell you about whether long-term commitment equates with happily, and romantically, ever after?
Despite marriage statistics, personal experiences, and adages like “marriage is the tomb of love,” we first-world folks continue to place astounding expectations upon our marriages. We often even place our own happiness into the hands of these mere mortals we wed.
To quote Elizabeth Gilbert:
“Modern Americans bring to their marriages the most overstuffed bundle of expectations the institution has ever seen. We expect that our partner will not merely be a decent person, but will also be our soul mate, our best friend, our intellectual companion, our greatest sexual partner and our life’s complete inspiration. Nobody in human history has ever asked this much of a companion.”
To read more, check out Committed, a cross-cultural investigation of marriage in which Gilbert finds the reason marriage is such hard work for Americans: unlike other cultures, we expect bliss.
When I was a young person, if I were single on Valentine’s Day I wore black in protest of the universe continuing to deny me what was undeniably my birthright: my one true love. A day for all couples; a bitter, sad day for me (Dramatic much?) . . . I never thought for a single moment that this day might also feel sad, or even bitter, for people who had found their person and were decades or more into a committed monogamous relationship.
Today, I am thinking of you, and I have an idea: How about we let our relationships off the hook?
Romance ebbs and flows like waves. (And happiness.) It isn’t something to obtain as a permanent characteristic of our long-term relationships. That it hasn’t been permanent in our marriages does not suggest inadequacy in that domain of our lives.
Instead of playing the comparison game with relationships of which– in all likelihood– we have little awareness, let’s quietly investigate the secrets of our own relationships– beyond the reels of our vast Hollywood educations –secrets locked within the confines of our own marriages. Think of it – let it transform you: all the ways you love your partner and appreciate your bond.
“Marriage is those two thousand indistinguishable conversations, chatted over two thousand indistinguishable breakfasts, where intimacy turns like a slow wheel. How do you measure the worth of becoming that familiar to somebody—so utterly well known and so thoroughly ever-present?”
Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
“What was I thinking?” is a good question. “What was I thinking when I put all of my expectations for life fulfillment in the basket of my marriage? What was I thinking in creating stakes so astronomically high for this part of my life?” This V-day and beyond let’s let our marriages off the hook. If expectations of perpetual romance are confining you in your long-term relationship, relegating you to disappointment, embarrassment, or worry– break out. Notice your relationship: its color, its texture, its quality and comforting, precious weight in your life.
If expectations of perpetual romance are confining you in your long-term relationship, relegating you to disappointment, embarrassment, or worry– break out. Notice your relationship: its color, its texture, its quality and comforting, precious weight in your life.
And if on this Valentine’s Day you’re realizing how much more Cupid’s arrow stings when it doesn’t hit you, consider this: Saint Valentine’s day marks a celebration of courtly love. This kind of love was originally literary fiction created to entertain royalty: heroes on adventures performing various noble deeds for maidens. Courtly love, in short, was chivalry. It was a fantasy and a paradox, “a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent” (Newman, F. X., ed. The Meaning of Courtly Love). The idea was so intoxicating, by the Middle Ages we had worked it into social practice. But what is left of this exhilarating concept today? All of the luster but none of the sweat. If we unpack Newman’s paradox, we see both passion and discipline, exaltation and humiliation. This seems to be an accurate description, too, of a full, rich long-term love commitment. These unions can bring us to our knees. And yet there are ways in which they can transcend everything else– the commitments alone, their unyielding relentlessness. Maybe this V-day instead of asking “Where is the romance?!” we ask, “Where is my chivalry?” Even the Medieval authors knew actions breed love.
Actions breed love.
Here’s to you and your love! Off the hook. Swimming with possibility.
About Me
I’m Kristen Stone, a licensed clinical psychologist, behavioral sleep specialist and couple therapist with a passion to protect and grow empirically-based wellness services through training, research, and innovation. A born and bred southerner, I have found the Northeast a gracious host of my life and work for over 15 years. New England summers, falls, and– yes!– winters are magical. Then Tennessee springtime calls me home.
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Kristen Stone, PhD 
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