The most romantic thing I've heard

I'm not typically a Valentine's person, but this year I want to share one of the most romantic things I've heard.

My high school French class was small — about a dozen of us, mainly girls. I have a distinct memory of a day that our teacher, Mr. Bevan, had us practicing vocabulary relating to culture and customs. It was summer in 2001, and we were looking at photos of French weddings in a textbook. The pictures of brides and grooms prompted comments from the girls, who started comparing which cakes and dresses they liked and didn’t, what they envisaged for their own future weddings. Mr. Bevan often encouraged spontaneous discussions, but I couldn’t stand this one. “Ugh!” I blurted. “I'm never getting married!”

Mr. Bevan looked at me with a sad expression I’ve never forgotten. “Why not?” he asked. His face surprised me.

I don’t remember what I answered, but I remember how I felt about the subject. I had come to learn that men saw their wives as a “ball and chain.” Many men spoke about their wives that way. In the nineties, Al Bundy from the sitcom Married with Children was the ultimate ‘relatable’ caricature of a husband perpetually ‘downtrodden’ by his wife, Peggy. Peggy was both sexualised and resented. That is what I thought marriage was. I could not fathom opting into it. Some of the boys at school had already starting talking about their first girlfriends this way. They would exaggerate the inconvenience of being unable to simply play sport on the school field at lunch time, because they would have to ask “permission” from their “missus” first.

Mr. Bevan lived in an alternate reality. He frequently spoke about his wife in class, about having coffee with her before coming to school, or what they did in the weekend. He had a buoyancy about him when he spoke about her — and on that day of practicing wedding vocabulary I truly understood that “ball and chain” was not part of his marital lexicon. He loved his wife unreservedly and experienced marriage as a boon. It made him feel bright and lucky. That blew my mind.

Today, I do not wear rose-tinted glasses. I don’t romanticise marriage. I know that one in three women are raped in their lifetime, mostly by husbands, partners and men in their families. Many more women are trapped in marriages that are abusive or negligent. Violence expert Gavin de Becker, author of The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence (1997) laments that we don’t prepare girls better for the reality of sexual relations. “Looking for Mr. Right has taken on far greater significance than getting rid of Mr. Wrong,” he says, explaining that this is a problem within a culture that perpetuates sexism and violence. The frantic search for ‘Mr. Right’ often involves “choosing not to see faults.” This facilitates the pattern of women getting stuck in relationships with men who abuse or mistreat them. And, de Becker adds, they “are not taught how to get out of relationships.”

In this context, Valentine's Day seems like a con. A culture-wide and commercial exercise in delusion, myth-making and denial. It paints a false picture of sexual relations.

Still: I've never forgotten the image of Mr. Bevan’s face, and the way he spoke about his wife. I recently had another, similar experience, while reading — of all things — Chris Hedges’ War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002). Hedges is a veteran war correspondent who has witnessed the worst of mankind. As it says on the book’s blurb, he has “survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police” — among countless other horrors. In the final chapter of War is a Force, Hedges shares that while living in war zones, he often sought the company of couples. He explains:

There are few sanctuaries in war. But one is provided by couples in love … it was with them, seated around a wood stove, usually over a simple meal, that I found sanity and was reminded of what it means to be human. Love kept them grounded. It was to such couples I retreated during the wars in Central America, the Middle East, and the Balkans. Love, when it is deep and sustained by two individuals …recognises both the fragility and sanctity of the individual. It recognises itself in the other. It alone can save us.

I did not sleep well in war. I could rarely recall my dreams, waking only to know they had been harsh and violent. When I left the war zones, the nightmares descended on me like furies. I had horrible visions of war. I would dream of being in combat with my father or young son and unable to protect them. But I could sleep in the homes of such couples. Their love spread a protective blanket over us.

Imagine that — imagine creating a sanctuary, with another person, so loving it could free a third person from nightmares. It could soothe a friend in need, bring sleep to a troubled guest.

This possibility reminds me of that quote attributed to twentieth century author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “Love is not looking at each other but out in the same direction.” Hedges’ tribute to couples in love is not to those who are fixated on one another’s perfection or imperfection. It’s not about couples who idealise each other, or oscillate between exchanging saccharine Valentine’s cards and bemoaning each other’s faults. It’s about couples who cultivate an atmosphere around them that outsiders experience as healing.

I love this possibility.

I love thinking about what Valentine’s Day would become — what the world would become! — if visions like that shaped our romantic aspirations.

So in that spirit, happy Valentine’s. May you never become preoccupied with the desperate search for Mr. or Mrs. ‘Right’. But may your life be filled with love, of all kinds, that buoys you and that ripples widely.