Tell your partner you love them – not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day | Susanna Abse

Years as a therapist have taught me that silence ruins relationships. So forget the cards and the roses and celebrate each other

I popped into my local newsagent last week to pick up a copy of the Guardian newspaper and, as I stood in the queue, I realised I was standing next to a rack of Valentine's Day cards.

I began to browse and was struck by how many of the cards were humorous. Some were just silly - dim sum-body say it's Valentine's Day?", or there was one with a couple in the bathroom - Roses are red, violets are blue, you shave your legs while I do a poo!" But to my surprise, there were also a lot of cards that were very explicit - Roses are red, I'm shit at poems. Fancy a shag?" These cards had a laddish, rather adolescent quality.

Susanna Abse is a couple psychotherapist and author of Tell Me the Truth About Love