Thomas Moore writes:

Romantic love is one of the most powerful means for pulling us out of literal life into play. In the trance of love of love, we may neglect life duties and obligations, we may make heroic efforts to be with our beloved..To be in love is to be in play, to be taken by it’s illusions….From the point of the view of the soul, romantic love is trustworthy because the literal concerns of life are set aside. The soul has room to go into action, and its action is always in the nature of play...and…in our childish attachment to romance we are championing the way of the soul, its thirst for pleasure, and its inescapable need for experiences that may or may not be conducive to productive lives...and…no matter how unrealistic in relation to the structures of life, no matter how illusory and dangerous, romantic love is as important to the soul as any other kind of love….

For most of my adult life I never thought of romance as something “powerful”, “trustworthy”, magical, and certainly not as “important to my relationships as some of the other aspects of love, like sacrificial giving or providing economic security…and……Like many men my age I was socialized to think of romance as a prelude to sex and something we are expected to never forget on Valentines Day, Birthday’s and Anniversaries. While romance was something I enjoyed most of the time it was quite frankly somewhat of a burden because it was often communicated to me that it was something I was expected to “initiate”…in other words…it was part of “my” job description and thus I subconsciously resented romance, particularly during the Valentine Day season which to this day I feel is more about profits for greeting card companies and the flower industry…but…I have learned, the hard way, to keep that cynical perspective to myself.

It is often said that you often don’t miss something until it is gone and I confess I probably miss romance more than just about anything about being married except for the special family times during the holidays and vacations. It can be brutal being single during the holiday season and going on vacations alone gets old after a while….It has been ten years since I shared a romantic evening within the context of marriage. That is not to say I have not had any romance for ten years because I have experienced many romantic moments since I have been single and the potential for romance excursions is probably the thing I now enjoy most about being single and thus now feel that “romantic love is as important to the soul as any other kind of love”…and…if I ever remarry I intend give more attention to this aspect of my relationship than I did before because I can’t imagine a relationship with frequent romance…but…I also believe romance works best when there is reciprocation. I mention this because “some” partners choose for a variety of reasons to defer this all important aspect of the relationship to the other partner…but…as you know, it takes two to tango….