Unless you’ve been fully hibernating recently, it will have been hard to miss the fact that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. There are camps that throw everything at the day and others that stubbornly ignore it, claiming it’s nothing but a Hallmark money making scam. Husbandy and I sit somewhere in the middle usually. We’ll take any excuse to celebrate our relationship but not in an over-the-top way. So we’ll happily use it as a guilt free reason to have a takeaway and there’ll probably be a card thrown in for fun! If we’re really pushing the boat out, a bunch of discounted roses (don’t worry, they’re my favourite kind!) will be presented to me and a bar of Galaxy* to him.

What you probably don’t know is that it is also World Marriage Day tomorrow. World Marriage Day occurs on the second Sunday of February so it is just a happy coincidence this year that it falls on the same day as V-Day this year. I was only alerted to this fact, a few days ago, by the following screenshot that appeared in my faithful on this day reminder:

What struck me about this was the image choice. I don’t think this representation could be further from the truth of what marriage is. Though there are elements of this in our marriage – well something like this at least but more realistic (!) – this is not the be all and end all. But thinking back 15 years ago or more, I think I thought it was. Despite having great examples of long lasting relationships and having witnessed or heard of the highs and lows of those, I think this was what I thought I was looking for. I was looking for the person that would make me look and feel like this all the time. Isn’t that what you want from a life partner? Someone you’re so passionate about that you can’t keep your hands off each other? If you’ve got that you can face anything together can’t you?! Erm… nope!

It was that kind of twisted thinking that landed me in some very wrong relationships many years ago! And then it was quite the opposite that landed me in the right relationship – for me – almost 11 years ago.

We’ve been married ten years this year and if I was to illustrate marriage, I think it would be a big empty box. And around that box would be words like honesty, commitment, side-by-side, intimacy, best friend. What that box ends up looking like is your business to be guided by you as a couple. Ours would have the image used for this Infinite Affinity category – the one of us wearing matching trainers! That shows our we love being a ‘cheesy’ couple and don’t care what others think about that attitude. It would also have an adapted red triangle with “couple at work” written inside it. In fact that would probably be the sign stamped all over our box. Because that’s what makes a great relationship – one that is consciously worked at all the time.

And I wish that was the message we gave to young people. That great relationships take great effort but it’s worth it! That all relationships are different and the best bit of a great relationship is spending a life time with one other person working out what yours looks like and that it will change over time. There will be times when you’ll look (almost) like the above picture but other times where you’ll have to pull an all-nighter to resolve a painful issue. Nobody’s perfect, no couple are perfect but you can have a great relationship, like no other.

Let’s be honest, when the tough life moments come, you don’t want somebody to just offer to ‘kiss it better’ – you want them to ride it out with you!

Anyway, this year we’re going big so I need to get on with making chocolate hearts… but I will leave you with one other thought that is this: if you’re still waiting/looking for your Mr or Mrs right then look for the person who encourages you to be you, knowing ALL the good and the bad, the light and the dark parts of you, no matter how hard that level of honesty can be sometimes. Look for the person that will stand by your side, through everything, but who also gives you a shove forward when they see you have something to show the World and who pushes you behind them when they recognise you need protecting and some time to revive. If you find that person, I can pretty much guarantee the passion, in all its forms, will be there too. I can’t guarantee it works the other way round though.

And if you’ve already found your person but it’s not as great as you’d like it to be then why not take some time together to go back to your box and look at what you’d like it to be filled with. We review ours as regularly as we can!

P.S. Do a search for World Marriage Day and you’ll find other images, many of perfect, shiny, gold rings entwined. That’s not realistic either. I love my scratched, slightly-duller-than-they-once-were rings, they remind me of our perfectly imperfect marriage that we work hard to shine, every day.

*Other chocolate brands are available!