Intimate relationships can be a source of the greatest joy or pain. Valentine’s Day was established by papal decree in 496AD as a day to celebrate our intimate relationships with those we love most deeply. At that time it wasn’t connected with romantic love. Geoffrey Chaucer changed that in the high Middle Ages during the time of development of courtly love as a tradition. Since that time we see Valentine’s Day as a shorthand for what intimate relationships or marriage should look like. Starry-eyed, blissful, sweet, easy, sexual, and everloving might describe our expectations of intimate relationships. But like most things in life, when we truly take a look, we see much more complexity…