Is Marriage in the Cards?

“I’ll pretend to give a crap about Super Bowl if you pretend to give a crap about Valentine’s Day.” Unknown

In romantic movies, the woman is overwhelmed with gifts, flowers, cards, and amorous adventures. They come home from a hard day of work to see a trail of rose petals that lead to a bathtub filled with bubbles, candles burning, and a chilled glass of champagne. Rarely is life like this, especially beyond the dating stage. Once the vows have been said, so too often does the effort the dating period required.

While flowers or cards may not seem important to some, others see these as external evidence of love. That you mean enough to go out and pick out a card or a some flowers or even a brownie from the bakery. The media has fed us a steady diet of ‘if you are loved, you will receive these things’.

I see statistics that suggest of 37-64% of men buy flowers for Valentines day. I question this figure, but suspect these are guys buying for girlfriends, because I rarely see it happening for the wives I know. Women, on the other hand, buy more cards. I can’t tell you what buying flowers mean for a relationship, but it turns out that cards can be used to look at commitment and interplay in a relationship.

Run and fetch any cards you have received from your beloved. Is your name spelled right? You laugh, but I received cards from my husband with my name spelled wrong. That should have been a clue we would end up divorced. Joanne Richard researched and wrote an interesting article in the Calgary Sun newspaper (2012) on the topic of what cards reveal.

“When it comes to Valentine’s Day cards, if your name is on the envelope and it’s large and neat, that’s the write stuff. And if your name is inside the card too, love is in the air.” If your name does not appear at all, he may not be that into you.

Have they signed the card? It may sound funny, but I have received completely blank cards. He didn’t know what to say. He missed that class in life, apparently. If they don’t sign or just use initials, they don’t “...want to be associated with writing the card,” Richards states.

Is the gifter’s name larger then the recipient’s? You can guess this isn’t a good sign as well. A larger signature, according to Forensic Graphologist Andrea McNichol, indicates that “...he’s stroking his own ego and considers himself more important than you.” No relationship is healthy and can have balance where one person considers them self better than or you don't matter as much as themselves.

Is their signature far from the sweet sentiment in the card? Take that and the distance between words as a sign of the distance they want to put from you and this whole romantic loving scene.

Did they make mistakes in their writing or make a card on the computer with spelling errors? It happens, of course, but if it’s a pattern, then I am with Freud: this is probably a sign they don’t value you as much as you deserve.

Jane Paterson wrote a guide to handwriting analysis for Readers Digest that outlines a guide to personality assessment based on writing alone. It turns out we reveal our personalities not just in what we say when we hand write, but the way we put pen to paper. Writing “...bears the indelible stamp of his personality.” Experts look at size, pressure, slant, spacing, and so much more to know if we are a good person or someone to give a wide berth. Companies even hire graphologists when they are hiring for a top level job. Want to know if someone has a cold nature? “Left-slanted writing, narrow, sharp stroke. Angular letter connections and words far apart.”

While this is helpful information if you are headed into a relationship, it can also be a yardstick to see how things are going later in the relationship. Do you still get cards? Do the cards indicate that you still have a balanced, loving connection? Paying attention to red flags that things are headed in the wrong direction can help you get pointed towards happy ever after again.

Too bad we now do most of our communication by text or email. Maybe your first date should involve an essay question, completely hand written.