Valentine’s Day 2026: Why ‘Break Up’ Gets 3x More Searches Than ‘Propose’

Every morning, Ines and Miguel walk their two little poodles around our neighbourhood. They are always chatting animatedly, smiling warmly at each other, as if untouched by the rude awakening of adulthood. Both are nearing 80, yet they still look like high school friends. In dull supermarket queues, you can spot them flirting, despite their half-century together.

They make you believe that romantic love, the passionate kind, can last forever. That fairytales do come true. That, against all cynicism, there is a happily ever after.

And then, like Bluntschli barging into Raina’s boudoir in Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, data storms in and bursts the bubble. It tells us that searches for “when to break up” spike to three times those for “how to propose” in the weeks before 14th February, with breakup rates jumping 23–40% around the holiday.

Social media now has names for this phenomenon: January Curse, Pre-Valentine Surge. Recently, there was even a trend of naming a cockroach after your ex.

But why? Are we choosing the wrong people, or is our entire approach to relationships flawed?

Or are we asking the wrong question? What if we are mislabelling our anxiety?

It is the kind you don’t confess, not even to yourself. The kind you Google late at night, phone dimmed, lying beside someone who thinks everything is fine.

Then holiday pressure exposes cracks we have carefully managed all year. In that moment, typing when to break up feels less cruel than naming the person you want to leave.

So we outsource the decision to calendars, astrologers, therapists, and algorithms hoping something external will absolve us of authorship. Hoping the answer arrives without us having to say, “This relationship is shrinking me.”

That phrase should be the real keyword: Why is this relationship shrinking me?

When it shouldn’t.

Self-expansion is what drives relationship satisfaction. Love increases self-esteem and self-efficacy. We think more broadly, act more boldly, and feel more alive. Why? Because each partner consciously includes the other in their self-concept.

This is not soft philosophy tied with a ribbon. It is psychological research. It shows that passionate love — the breathless, urgent kind — can coexist with companionate love, the warm, familiar kind. More than that, it should.

The real question is not, Is this relationship right or wrong? It is: Are you truly friends? Do hours disappear unnoticed? Are you curious about each other’s inner worlds? Do you remember the small things? Do you feel valued, desired, alive? Does lovemaking still feel like love?

People say passion fades. They are wrong. It grows when it is tended.

Studies of long-term couples show that great sex lives are built not on manuals or medicines, but on friendship. They remain close. They stay curious. They help each other.

So maybe you didn’t fall for the wrong spark. Maybe you didn’t make the wrong choice.

So what went wrong?

Allow me to introduce the Four Horsemen of marital doom: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. When these appear, they are not always personality flaws. Often, they are system failures.

Conflict is normal. The problem is not disagreement. It is these four structural responses in relationships that no longer feel safe or fair.

And we build these systems together, through feedback loops that reward defensiveness and normalise contempt, slowly transforming curiosity into surveillance.

You see it everywhere. At dinner parties, where one partner performs charm while the other tracks tone and fallout. In text messages edited five times to avoid triggering an argument. In beds where sex still happens, but desire has hardened into obligation and score-keeping.

These are systems where one person expands and the other compensates. Where effort flows upward and resentment pools below.

Nothing is “wrong” enough to leave. Yet everything feels slightly off.

Quiet Panic
Add Valentine’s Day to this mix with its roses and rituals, which demand coherence, and the dissonance becomes intolerable. So we find ourselves, at 11:47 PM, googling for permission.

What do we do then? Stop criticising? Stop defending? Replace contempt with polite detachment? Chisel ourselves into agreeable versions designed to keep the peace?

We can try. And then meet in therapy. Or avoid it and become quietly resentful.

Or we can follow the magic ratio: five to one.

John Gottman’s research found that stable relationships maintain five positive interactions for every negative one.

You do not need to avoid arguments. Difficult conversations will happen. The solution is not silence. It is learning to speak with warmth, humour, and affection within a culture of appreciation.

And that culture is built on ordinary days.

Since their courtship, Miguel brings Ines her favourite flower every Friday. Last week, a storm battered the city with 140 km/h winds. Friday came. Ines got her flower. Even on remote holidays, she gets her flower.

It is lovely. But let’s be honest: the era of grand gestures is fading. We live in Netflix-and-chill times. Most people barely shower before dates.

So we need low-effort rituals.

And the simplest one is this: say thank you.

Thank you for tidying up.
For making my morning tea.
For taking out the trash.

These acknowledgements make people feel seen.

Thank you for welcoming my annoying brother. For attending my distant cousin’s wedding when you wanted to stay home with a book.

Mindfulness helps too, but not the coward’s version, where we merely suppress contempt. True relational mindfulness means honouring your own truth while attending to your partner’s fears and hopes. It means recognising that not every flaw is a character defect. Often, it is situational.

Just as you are not “moody” but sometimes stressed, the same grace applies both ways.

So this Valentine’s, skip the panic searches.

Whether you are preparing a proposal or contemplating an exit, take this as an invitation to ask better questions. Not just about your partner, but about the system you have built together.