Love is the most personal human experience — and one that films, poems and romantic comedies highlight for their audiences.
That focus alone should give us pause. What is lived privately is performed publicly. What is felt deeply is displayed symbolically. And nowhere is this paradox more visible than on Valentine’s Day, a holiday that asks the human heart to present evidence.
I was reminded of this recently while standing in front of a display of Valentine’s cards. Each one spoke confidently about love — devotion, gratitude and permanence. Yet the words felt oddly interchangeable, as if affection had been reduced to a template. The experience was familiar and disappointing: choosing a symbolic expression meant to carry a meaning deeper than any clever phrase could hold.
This tension is not new. Valentine’s Day card exchanges originated with medieval romantic poems, which evolved into 18th century handwritten notes and later became mass produced in the 1840s. Esther Howland, who is known as the Mother of the American Valentine, popularized cards in the United states. Today, over 145,000,000 cards are sent annually making it the second largest sending holiday.
The First Valentine: Love as Defiance
The popular historical narrative of Valentine’s Day begins not with romance but with resistance. During the third century, Roman Emperor Claudius II is said to have prohibited marriage among soldiers, believing unmarried men fought more effectively. According to tradition, a priest named Valentine defied the decree and secretly performed marriage ceremonies. He was arrested, imprisoned and eventually executed.
Although some of what happened to the priest Valentine may be an urban legend, whether every detail is historically verifiable is less important than what the story represents psychologically. Love was not originally sentimental. It was consequential. It involved commitment strong enough to challenge authority. The earliest symbolic expression of romantic attachment was not a card or a rose. It was risk.
This origin story frames love not as emotion alone but as a declaration of allegiance — to another person, to a shared future, to meaning itself. In this sense, love has always required public acknowledgment. Humans do not merely feel attachment; they signal it.
As Maya Angelou observed, love “recognizes no barriers.”
History quietly adds a psychological corollary: recognition itself is a barrier we are always trying to cross.
From Vows to Visibility: The Psychology of “Likes”
In contemporary life, the public expression of connection has shifted from ritual commitment to digital affirmation. The modern equivalent of visible attachment may not be a wedding ceremony but a notification.
Although not the first to use “likes” when Facebook introduced the “Like” button, emotional expression became quantifiable. Soon after, Instagram refined visual validation, and TikTok transformed attention into a performative currency. Approval became countable. Visibility became validation. A private sentiment acquired public metrics.
Psychologically, this shift to a “like” symbol reflects a fundamental human need: social recognition personifies emotional security. Attachment research demonstrates that responsiveness from others helps to stabilize our internal experience. Historically, responsiveness was conveyed through presence, behavior and shared experience. Today, it is often conveyed through visibility.
Generational psychology, the study of how shared historical, cultural and technological experiences during one’s formative years shape a person’s values, behaviors and personalities of their specific age cohorts (e.g., Boomers, Millennials, Gen. Z etc.) illustrates this adaptation.
The Silent Generation, Boomers, etc., internalized commitment as endurance. The more recent digital generations have matured within an online existence, i.e., virtual systems that equate visibility with significance. For them, affirmation is not decorative — it is relational currency.
Yet visibility is not intimacy. Metrics measure attention, not understanding.
As Audrey Hepburn once noted, the most meaningful human experience is not being admired but being held.
Algorithms can amplify attention. They cannot reciprocate.
Rituals of Affection and the Problem of Exclusion
The modern Valentine’s card industry emerged in the nineteenth century as printing technology allowed mass production of symbolic affection. What began as personal correspondence became standardized emotional communication. The ritual now functions as a cultural expectation.
Rituals serve psychological purposes.
– They organize emotion.
– Reduce uncertainty.
– Provide a shared language for internal experience.
But rituals also establish norms. And norms inevitably define absence. Rituals don’t just show what love is — they quietly define what love is supposed to look like.
Once a behavior becomes “the normal way,” anything outside it can feel like something is missing, even when nothing is actually wrong.
When a couple develops patterns — saying “I love you” before bed, celebrating anniversaries, texting during the day, giving Valentine’s gifts — those behaviors become emotional landmarks. They signal care, stability, belonging.
Over time, the ritual stops being just an action and becomes a standard.
The mind naturally compares the present to what is expected. So, the ritual doesn’t just exist — it becomes a measuring stick.
Examples:
– “We always talk about our day at dinner.”
– “He always calls when he travels.”
– “We always spend holidays together.”
These are norms now, not just habits.
Here’s the subtle psychological move:
Once something is established as “what we do,” the absence of it takes on meaning.
Not calling → feels like distance
Not celebrating → feels like indifference
Not noticing → feels like rejection.
Even if the behavior stopped for neutral reasons, the emotional brain interprets absence through the lens the ritual created.
The ritual created the possibility of perceived loss.
As humans we don’t respond only to what happens — we respond to deviations from expectation.
So, when a ritual is not practiced, it goes against the established norm. And norms inevitably define absence. The very behaviors that create connection also create the emotional architecture through which disconnection is felt.
For widowed individuals, Valentine’s Day may highlight loss. For those without partners, it may emphasize non-membership in a relational category. The same ritual that affirms belonging for some can amplify invisibility for others.
This is not a failure of ritual but a property of it. Symbols unify communities by distinguishing insiders from outsiders. Human beings require belonging, yet belonging always implies boundaries.
As Robin Williams poignantly observed, loneliness is not the absence of people but the absence of connection.
Understanding relationships, therefore, requires examining not only how love succeeds but how it fails.
The Architecture of Healthy Relationships
Across decades of psychological observation, several patterns consistently characterize resilient partnerships. These are not rules but structural supports — the architecture of connection.
We have come to understand that relationships contain various combinations of human interactions. Those most relevant for interpersonal success include:
Psychological Safety — the felt assurance that vulnerability will not be punished.
Emotional Responsiveness — timely recognition and acknowledgment of another’s internal state.
Shared Meaning — a jointly constructed narrative about life’s purpose and direction.
Mutual Influence — the capacity to be changed by the other without losing identity.
Repair After Conflict — the ability to restore connection following rupture.
Respectful Differentiation — maintaining individuality within connection.
Commitment to Growth — viewing the relationship as dynamic rather than fixed.
These pillars reflect decades of empirical work by John Gottman and colleagues, whose longitudinal research demonstrated that relationship success is less about compatibility and more about regulation — emotional, behavioral and interpersonal.
Generational psychology as mentioned earlier appears as variation in emphasis. Earlier generations often privileged endurance. Contemporary relationships frequently prioritize emotional attunement. Both represent adaptive responses to social context.
Stability in medieval times (way before the Boomer generation) was survival and now, in its most crass sense, expression is now identity. As it were, there has been a massive shift from “Does this relationship sustain life?” to “Does this relationship express who I am?”
Why Relationships Fail: The Four Horsemen
Research by John Gottman and his significant other and research partner, Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman, have identified four interactional patterns strongly associated with relational breakdown:
Criticism — global character attacks rather than specific superiority or disgust.
Contempt — expressions of superiority or disgust.
Defensiveness — self-protection that prevents accountability.
Stonewalling — emotional withdrawal and disengagement.
These patterns erode connection not because conflict exists but because repair becomes difficult if not impossible. Relationships do not fail from disagreement. They fail from disconnection.
Generational patterns reveal adaptive differences. Earlier generations often suppressed conflict to preserve structure. Younger generations may engage in conflict but struggle with repair. The rhythm changes; the underlying psychological need does not.
As Oprah Winfrey observed, communication does not eliminate conflict — it renders it survivable.
The Forensic Perspective: When Love Distorts
From a forensic perspective, when a relationship destabilizes at its extreme, the outcome can be catastrophic.
Unfortunately, a minor disagreement can erupt into a domestic violence charge when the basis for the disagreement can be a deeply rooted issue for one or both partners. Possibly mental illness, possibly unabashed hostility or even substance abuse can be some of the underlying issues involved.
An all-too-common power grab in dysfunctional relationships is a criminal charge involving battered significant other syndrome — a trauma-based condition sometimes characterized by learned helplessness following repeated abuse, often compounded by substance use or mental illness. The perpetrator, depending on the assault, may be charged with murder, manslaughter or aggravated assault against their abuser.
Over the course of my career, I have conducted evaluations or provided testimony in homicide matters involving intimate partners and patricide — defined as a parent killing a child. The death of child or spouse represent the total collapse of relational regulation at its ultimate and unfortunate end.
Contemporary cases in the news illustrate how relational narratives can intersect with violence, control, and identity collapse. The convictions of Alex Murdaugh and Chris Watts, along with the prosecution of Bryan Kohberger, differ in circumstance but share psychological themes: entitlement, emotional dysregulation and distorted ownership of another person’s existence.
From a forensic perspective, the transition from attachment to control occurs when recognition is replaced by possession. Love becomes dangerous when the other person is experienced not as separate but as necessary for psychological survival.
Thankfully, most relationships exist far from forensic extremes. The question of ordinary life is not how relationships collapse, but how they remain viable.
Improving Relationships Without Instruction
Improvement in relationships rarely occurs through dramatic transformation. It occurs through small, repeated regulatory behaviors.
Consider three illustrative scenarios.
A partner shares a minor disappointment from the day. The response can be advisory (“You should handle it differently”), minimizing (“That’s not a big deal”) or responsive (“That sounds frustrating”). Only the third regulates emotion. Regulation, not resolution, sustains connection. A clue, ask before giving advice.
– Can I offer a hug?
– Would you be helped by my advice?
– Do you just want me to listen?
A disagreement emerges about scheduling. One person insists on correctness. The other withdraws. A simple repair attempt — humor, acknowledgment, or pause — interrupts escalation. Repair restores safety without requiring agreement.
Research consistently demonstrates that perceived responsiveness — the sense that one is seen, heard and valued — predicts relational satisfaction more reliably than compatibility, shared interests or frequency of conflict.
Attention is the primary currency of love. Not dramatic attention, but sustained attention.
Generational Rhythms of Attachment
Across generations, the expression of love changes form while preserving function. Each orientation responds to prevailing conditions of uncertainty.
Some generations emphasized duty and endurance. Other generations have had a focus on expression and authenticity.
What appears as difference is often adaptation. Human beings do not simply inherit relational norms. They recalibrate them according to perceived risk.
Across history, relationships have always served the same quiet psychological purpose: they help keep the self-intact. What changes is the mechanism. In eras shaped by uncertainty, identity is steadied by commitment — the knowledge that someone remains, that bonds endure even when emotions fluctuate.
In more chaotic times, identity is steadied by expression — the experience of being seen, known and affirmed for who you are and how you are cared for in the relationship. The form shifts from endurance to recognition, but the function does not change.
Human beings maintain psychological coherence through connection. When we are reliably held in another’s regard — whether through loyalty or understanding — the story we tell ourselves about who we are remains continuous, stable and livable.
Returning to the Ritual
The Valentine’s card remains what it has always been — a symbolic attempt to make inner experience visible. Its limitations are not failures but reminders. Love cannot be fully represented. It can only be indicated.
The disappointment one may feel when a card misses the mark is instructive. It reveals the distance between symbol and experience. But it also reveals expectation — the desire to be understood without translation.
Relationships persist not because humans master expression, but because they continue attempting it.
Closing Reflection
Love has traveled a long historical path: from defiant marriage ceremonies in ancient Rome, to printed cards, to digital affirmation, to forensic tragedy, to quiet daily repair.
Its forms change. Its psychological function does not.
Human beings require recognition to remain psychologically organized. We require responsiveness to regulate emotion. We require shared meaning to sustain identity.
Love endures not because it is easy, but because it is necessary.
The card may be imperfect. The words may be insufficient. The gesture may be small.
But the attempt itself — the effort to make another person feel seen — remains one of the most stabilizing forces in human life.
And perhaps that is the most enduring lesson of Valentine’s Day: not that love must be declared perfectly, but that it must be declared at all.
Love is the most personal human experience — and one that films, poems and rom coms highlight for their audience. Yet outside the glow of cinematic lighting, love unfolds in ordinary kitchens, courtrooms, therapy offices and quiet living rooms where someone wonders if they are cherished or merely tolerated.
Psychology does not diminish love’s mystery. It clarifies its patterns.
Although we may try with the use of cards, candy and flowers, love cannot be quantified. It can only be practiced.
Thanks for reading this column, part of my forthcoming book “Forensic Tales.”
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Questions or suggestions? Email manges@drmanges.com.
Be well. See you here next month.
