TOUGH LOVE

Kate gets to the heart of real romance

Imust be getting old. I have noticed a shift in the way I view love. When you’re young, it’s easy to confuse love with infatuation; it’s easy to say you’ll love ’til death do you part because you may not have faced deathly situations – or have any comprehension of them.

It’s easy to think love will never be hard. But marriages can be hard work. Likewise, it’s easy to say you’ll love your kids unconditionally forever, but loving kids who grow up into things that sometimes resemble monsters can be hard work. Yes, you keep loving them, but it’s not always easy to like them.

So the shifting sands of time chip away at the ideals of love. But there’s real beauty in making it through challenges together, in learning and growing and loving each other in different ways. Love is something you have to work at, and that in itself is rewarding. Loving babies is easy … loving teenagers – well, that can be a different story.

My daughter said to me the other day that she wanted to marry someone who made her laugh, but who was also her best friend. “Like you and Mike,” she said.

I was so chuffed. No, we’re not by any means perfect, but it’s awesome if you can maintain a relationship your kids want to emulate.

My parents were always laughing (at and with each other) and still are! They were also (and still are) the best of friends. Their happiness with each other was infectious. It set the bar for how we wanted to be loved and cherished.

But it does take effort.

I see with the new me-mentality, a lot of young people are all about what’s in a relationship for them. It’s all about what they can get out of it, instead of thinking about what they can put in.

It’s become a modern calling card of “self-love” that if it gets tough, get going. It’s role-modelled for us in many celebrity relationships – break-ups are more often the news than make-ups. Not just marital relationships either, family relationships too. Even royals can cut and run if they don’t like the way the relationship may feel for them … hello Meghan and Harry.

So in this lovey-dovey Valentine’s issue of romance and roses, I think it’s also good to remember that it’s not all hearts and flowers and chocolates. Sometimes love is late nights changing dirty nappies and long talks about hard subjects.

Sometimes it’s swallowing your pride and biting your tongue. Sometimes it’s about saying sorry, or saying nothing at all. Yes, it can be a bed of roses for many people, but it’s disingenuous for young people to believe that that’s how it will always be – to set an unrealistic expectation of perfect fairytale happy-ever-afters.

No, I’m not poo-pooing love! I’m just saying that like all rewards in life, it’s nothing without effort from both sides.