Saturday, February 22, 2003
M A I N   F E A T U R E


Stay home the next Valentine’s Day

Many couples would have celebrated Valentine’s Day with a romantic vacation together. But Joanne O’Connor warns even a rock-solid relationship can be crushed by the weight of romantic expectations.

A bumper dose of undiluted ‘quality time’ with your other half can be the kiss of death for an ailing romance
A bumper dose of undiluted ‘quality time’ with your other half can be the kiss of death for an ailing romance.

IF you have had no one to whisk you away for a Valentine’s break, take heart. A comprehensive survey of three colleagues conducted at lunchtime revealed that these romantic escapes are more likely to end in black looks over the luggage carousel than tango dancing in the rain along the banks of the Seine.

And the longer the holiday, the greater the opportunity for relationship meltdown. One colleague grows pale as she remembers a holiday for two in an Indian Ocean hideaway, the kind of place where they make your sheets into swans. Unfortunately it all proved a bit too much for her poor beau who lost the plot as soon as the plane hit the tarmac. If there’s a gaping void at the heart of your relationship, there’s nothing like being forced to take a bath sprinkled with rose petals every night to bring it all bubbling to the surface.

 


Things came to a head on the last evening when he accused her of flirting with the diving instructor, walked off into the night saying he was going to drown himself in the sea, failed spectacularly, and spent the flight home next day with his jumper over his head so he didn’t have to look at her.

Concerned that my survey sample might not be representative of the nation as a whole, I called Relate, the British counselling agency for couples, which confirmed what I had long suspected. The waiting list for counselling grows by 20 per cent immediately after the main summer holiday period of August.

Seen in this context, it’s perhaps no surprise that Sadie Frost and Jude Law’s marital troubles hit the headlines shortly after a three-week holiday in Thailand to ‘sort things out’. A bumper dose of undiluted ‘quality time’ with your other half can be the kiss of death for an ailing romance.

According to relationship counsellor Paula Hall, unrealistic expectations are the problem. ‘There are so many expectations of how things should be when you go on holiday that it makes people less tolerant. Spending time with someone out of your usual context can also show up personality differences that might go unnoticed in everyday life.’ Even a rock-solid relationship can be crushed by the weight of romantic expectation. A lover’s tiff that would have passed unnoticed in the supermarket the week before takes on momentous significance when it’s held against the backdrop of a sunset.

Which is why the ‘Valentine’s Packages’ hotels churn out at this time of year are so hopelessly wide of the mark. They work on the assumption that romance is a commodity you can package and pre-book. Take one bottle of champagne, a box of chocolates and some petals on the pillow and hey presto! If you really want to give your relationship a fighting chance, steer clear of this contrived nonsense. Unless your romance is watertight, stay home the next Valentine’s and grout the kitchen, or you could find yourself having to book a holiday to ‘sort things out’ — and we all know where that road leads. (Guardian)