A couple of weeks ago Linda and I were having lunch with my ex-partner (and one of my older—in several ways— friends) and his wife. Between us we had something over 100 years of married life and we had all gone through almost all of the marriage vows—better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health. And we’re well on our way to the “until death do you part” one.

I thought about this as I was watching yet another Valentine’s movie the other night. They all have essentially the same plot: the lead hates Valentine’s Day because of a failed romance. He or she runs into someone who through thoughtfulness, good looks, and active hormones changes his or her mind about it, and after a couple of bumps in the road, they go off to happy-everafterness. Valentine’s wins again.

But if that’s the sort of thing Valentine’s is intended to celebrate, it’s not a lot more meaningful than the Valentines cards that we got in the second grade. You know the deal, everybody brought a Valentine for everybody else. Sort of like a trophy for participation.

I think that’s great for seven year olds, but for adults, I think there should be some requirements for Valentining. Sort of like the requirements for a Purple Heart. For people who don't meet these requirements, there could be various levels of apprentive Valentineship leading up to full-fledged Valentine.

The first requirement that I would propose is tenure. Nobody should ask anybody to commit to being his or her Valentine until they’ve been together for at least 10 years. That period could be reduced if the number of resulting children exceeds 2. But it should be increased if one or both parties spends a lot of time on the road or apart for any other reason (such as voluntary separation). I suppose an argument could be made for five years, but I've known people who could be blissfully ignorant longer than that.

The second criterion should be experience. I’m not sure that you can tell whether anybody’s really your Valentine unless you have been through one or more serious illnesses (something more life-threatening than snoring). It’s these times, when one of you is down and essentially helpless, that tears any veneer from the surface of a relationship and gets down to its core. I think it’s essential that we can accept the other’s weakness as well as their strength, their helplessness as well as their helpfulness.

An alternate to the really sick thing might be going through difficult financial straits. Hard financial times really clarify a relationship. You learn whether you or the other person is more interested in things such as status and keeping up with whomever than in the relationship. You also learn how the other deals with disappointment.  (I suppose one of the advantages to getting married when you’re young, don’t have anything, and don’t know whether you’ll ever have anything is that it keeps the expectations low. I have always been grateful for low expectations.)

I think that anyone who has lived through these things and still wants to get up and give the other one a good morning kiss qualifies as a Valentine, more or less worthy of the saint for which the day was named. (For those of you without Google, St. Valentine was a Roman priest who encouraged Romans to marry within the Christian church. This was counter to the edicts of Claudius II, and for that he was jailed, beaten, and eventually executed. I’m not sure how that got to a frilly card and a box of chocolates, but Hallmark could probably tell us.)

 To those who meet the criteria, a very happy Valentine’s Day and another year of togetherness, love, and forbearance.  To those who don’t, continue to aspire. As my mother always said, if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.

And to my Valentine, may our years keep getting better until, as we vowed, death do us part.