Still Couple After All These Years

Q: Valentine’s Day is around the corner. How can we celebrate our connection without falling for all the faux romantic gestures that are marketed to us?

A: “We recently celebrated the 49th anniversary of our first date…” said Peter Sheras.

“And we wanted it to be romantic,” chimed in his wife of 47 years, Phyllis Koch-Sheras. “We’d been reading the part in the CCC Guidebook about sex and sensuality, went through all the protocols and decided, let’s give it a try.”

After talking about it, they decided on a trip from their Charlottesville, Va., home to Washington, D.C. to stay at a hotel, visit museums, and have dinner with friends. Peter made the room reservation; Phyllis called the friends. They had a great time.

“We also spent a lot of time in our room,” Phyllis said with a laugh.

Co-authors of Lifelong Love and co-founders of CCC, Peter and Phyllis agreed that making a commitment to keep romance alive in their relationship was the first step. Then cooperating to fulfill that commitment was the next step. Great communication was the key to understanding what they both thought would be romantic.

“Maybe give ourselves a couple gift,” said Phyllis. “What would your couple like to do, or see, or share, or be together? What can you generate that would be a shared expression of your love for and commitment to each other?”

“Romance is generated through generosity,” Peter pointed out. “If Phyllis wants to do something, like visit an art museum, why would I not want to make her happy by doing that? Any time we have an opportunity to celebrate Couple, we do it out of generosity, not a sense of obligation.”

“And if you’re wondering when you will get payback, you’re missing the point,” he said. “I want us to be happy together.”

The key is finding out what makes each member of the couple truly happy and giving it to each other as a gift.

“When it comes to Valentine’s Day,” Peter continued, “it’s like a test: are you going to remember it’s dark chocolate only, not milk chocolate? When it’s set up as a test, it’s going to be acted out like a test. You either pass or you fail.

“What we would say is you should celebrate Valentine’s Day and plan it a little bit. Have a talk the week before and say, “well, what do we want? What do we want to do on Valentine’s Day?”

“One year, we bought a wooden box that had yin and yang on the front,” Phyllis said, “and after that we started collecting what we called ‘couple art.’

“This includes paintings that have couples in them, sculptures of two people together, two eagles together, or two giraffes together.

“For us, romance is when we are feeling a sense of connectedness, when Couple is present” Phyllis said.

“Start identifying when something occurs to you as romantic,” Peter advised. “If you’re looking at the moon together or walking along a beach, identify it as romantic and remember it.”

“Connecting with one another is the most romantic gift of all,” Peter said.