http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21410275
Our idealised notion of romantic love is actually the biggest enemy of long-lasting relationships, says Mark Vernon.
The myth is that there is someone out there with whom your life will be complete, and conversely, without whom your life would be a half-life. A major task of modern life is, therefore, to find this person and, falling in love, to cease to be two and become one.
Romantic love is socially corrosive because it idealises love, rather than understanding that love is made not found. Love is made in the gritty ups and downs of being with someone who is as flawed as you.
There are signs that individuals are rejecting the romantic myth. The number of people living on their own has risen by 50% since the mid-1990s. Many report that singleness means they enjoy more freedom and have time for other relationships, like friendship.
The true art of loving is to navigate the shift from falling in love to standing in love, to borrow the psychologist Erich Fromm's phrases.
Falling in love, the stuff of romance, is the intoxicating sense of possessing someone and/or being possessed. And it just can't last, because possessiveness crushes liveliness.
The risk is that you then feel that love has died because, following the romantic myth, you measure love by its felt intensity.
Standing in love, though, is the capacity to be with someone and be free with someone. It too feels good, though for different reasons. It can allow more subtle qualities to come to the fore, such as commitment and generosity, honesty and openness. It welcomes life.
Standing in love is, perhaps, a healing notion as we face the romantic onslaught of another Valentine's Day.