A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person - Mignon McLaughlin

Valentine’s Day: Where It Came From, What It Was Meant to Honour, and Why It Still Matters

Every February, Valentine’s Day arrives with a familiar mix of flowers, cards, expectations, and discomfort.

For some, it’s a celebration of love.
For others, it highlights absence, longing, or strain.
And for many, it carries a quiet pressure to perform closeness in ways that don’t always feel authentic.

To understand why Valentine’s Day holds so much emotional weight, it helps to look at where it actually came from—and what it was originally meant to honour.

The Origins: From Ritual to Romance

Valentine’s Day didn’t begin as a celebration of romantic love.

Its earliest roots can be traced back to ancient Rome, where a mid-February festival called Lupercalia was held. This was a fertility ritual associated with renewal, health, and the transition from winter to spring. It had little to do with romance as we know it today and far more to do with survival, fertility, and community continuity.

By the late 5th century, as Christianity spread, Pope Gelasius I sought to replace pagan rituals with Christian observances. Lupercalia was officially outlawed andFebruary 14th was designated as St Valentine’s Day.

But even then, the story wasn’t straightforward.

Who Was Valentine?

There wasn’t just one Valentine.

Historical records suggest multiple figures named Valentine, most notably a priest who lived during the reign of Emperor Claudius II around the 3rd century.

According to legend, Claudius believed unmarried men made better soldiers and banned marriage for young men. Valentine is said to have secretly performed weddings in defiance of this law. When discovered, he was imprisoned and eventually executed.

While historians debate how much of this story is factual, the symbolism endured:
Valentine became associated with love that resists control, commitment that prioritises connection over authority, and relationships chosen despite risk.

Over time, this symbolism began to matter more than historical accuracy.

The Shift Toward Romantic Love

Valentine’s Day didn’t become associated with romance until the Middle Ages.

Poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer began linking February 14th with courtly love, writing about birds choosing their mates on that day. From there, Valentine’s Day slowly evolved into a cultural marker for romantic attachment.

By the 18th and 19th centuries, exchanging handwritten notes and tokens of affection became common in Europe and England.
By the 20th century, industrialisation and consumer culture transformed Valentine’s Day into the commercial event we now recognise.

Cards, chocolates, jewellery, and flowers came to symbolise love—often simplifying something that is, in reality, complex and deeply relational.

The Psychological Purpose: Why Humans Mark Love

Despite its commercialisation, Valentine’s Day persists for a reason.

From a psychological and relational perspective, humans are meaning-making beings. We use rituals and symbolic dates to:

• reaffirm bonds

• mark transitions

• pause and reflect on what matters

Relationship researcher Dr John Gottman, whose work has spanned over four decades, has shown that successful long-term relationships aren’t built on grand gestures, but on small, repeated moments of emotional attunement.

He refers to these as“turning toward bids for connection.”

“People who are emotionally intelligent about their marriages are not more intelligent in general. They just have learned specific skills for maintaining emotional connection.”
— John Gottman, PhD

In this sense, Valentine’s Day was never meant to create connection.
It was meant to draw attention to it.

The difficulty arises when the day becomes a measure of relationship worth rather than an invitation to notice how connection is actually experienced day to day.

Why Valentine’s Day Can Feel So Hard

For many women, Valentine’s Day doesn’t simply reflect romantic status—it activates deeper relational themes:

• longing to feel chosen

• fear of being unseen

• grief for what hasn’t been available

• pressure to appear “fine” when something feels missing

Relationship theorists and clinicians alike note that women are often socialised to prioritise emotional connection, while simultaneously being taught to minimise their needs to maintain harmony.

This can make Valentine’s Day particularly loaded.

Rather than simply celebrating love, it can surface questions like:

• Am I asking for too much?

• Why doesn’t this feel the way I hoped?

• Is something wrong with me for wanting more?

These aren’t failures of gratitude or appreciation.
They’re reflections of attachment, nervous system safety, and emotional needs that haven’t always had space to be acknowledged.

What Valentine’s Day Was Meant to Invite

At its core, Valentine’s Day wasn’t designed to be a performance.

It was a symbolic pause—a moment to notice love, commitment, and connection in a world that often pulls attention elsewhere.

When stripped back, its purpose was less about romance and more about relational intention:

• choosing connection deliberately

• valuing commitment

• honouring emotional bonds

And importantly, that includes the relationship we have with ourselves.

A More Grounded Way to Approach Valentine’s Day

Rather than asking Valentine’s Day to validate a relationship, a more grounded question might be:

How do I experience connection in my life—and where does it feel safe, strained, or absent?

This reframes the day from a verdict into a point of reflection.

For some, that reflection may bring gratitude.
For others, it may bring grief or clarity.
All of those responses are human.

Valentine’s Day endures not because it gets love right—but because it continues to remind us how much connection matters, and how deeply we feel its presence or absence.

And perhaps that, more than flowers or cards, is what it was always meant to do.