Seven things we've learnt about love and relationships

Whether you’re categorically coupled up or sublimely single this Valentine’s, you’ll no doubt agree that when Shakespeare clocked that "the course of true love never did run smooth" he was definitely on to something.

Luckily it’s not just our own mistakes we get to learn from, but those of the wisest of Woman’s Hour guests. From Kim Cattrall to Nora Ephron, Mary Portas to Jilly Cooper, here are some of the most valuable lessons we've been taught about love, marriage and relationships…

It’s not just an election defeat Hillary Clinton has had to deal with in the public eye. Years earlier, while her husband was US President, there was the Monica Lewinsky affair. So what did she learn?

“When you love someone, there is no perfect person, I’m aware of at least,” Hillary revealed on Woman’s Hour back in 2003.

“Love and marriage is between two imperfect people, and they have strengths and weaknesses.”

Sleepless in Seattle writer Nora Ephron felt the reason Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks worked so well on screen was because “they look like they’re from the same food group.”

“When you look at the world people often look just a little bit like they go with their spouse, people tend to be salt and pepper shakers in some way,” she said in 2012.

“The number of roly-poly people who marry one another, or the very skinny people or the tall people. I always feel it’s so tragic when I see a really tall man with a really short woman, because it seems as if they each could have made someone just like themselves very happy.”

“I always go back to sex,” admitted bonk-buster author Jilly Cooper when asked her relationship advice – which won’t surprise anyone who’s ever laid their hands on one of her novels.

“But women are very bad at asking for what they want. They think men ought to know and bumble along and find out. If I was coming back in another life, I would be more assertive, and I would ask people things - very nicely.”

She added that using the ‘headache’ excuse doesn’t do anyone any good either: “I think sex… is so lovely and it does cheer people up. So to go on saying no all the time is a bit depressing.”

After 48 years with her partner, Miriam Margolyes is convinced their longevity owes plenty to the fact they don’t live under the same roof.

“It’s probably very significant because we’d get sick of each other. She has her own professional world and I have my own professional world - they’ve very different worlds because she’s an academic.

“But I long for her presence all the time. And I think as we get older we will spend a lot more time together. We’ve built two houses together, and I love and respect her and she keeps me steady. She grounds me because I’m chaotic and a bit silly and she stops me being trivial.”

It’s not just frogs needing to be kissed standing in the way of a happy and fulfilling relationship - we also have to learn to master ‘me time’ first, according to novelist and poet Erica Jong.

“You don’t find the good men until you’ve learned to be alone. Yes, there are good men to be had, but you won’t find them if you go after them with this desperate need.

“I think you find the good men when you are centred enough and you have enough self-esteem, and like digging your garden and puttering around your house - and you’d rather be alone than with a dirty rotten rat.”

“I’ve been single now for almost 7 years and for the longest time I was only sleeping on one side of the bed,” revealed Kim Cattrall.

“And I thought, ‘Wait a minute! I don’t have to do that anymore!’ I can sleep right in the middle of my king-sized bed. I can snore, I can fart. I can do all of these things without thinking ‘oh god!’. This amazing freedom you have with that - and then the thought of someone invading your space!

“I bought a new apartment when my second marriage ended and I remember thinking, ‘my whole life I’ve wanted a pink bedroom and I’m goddamn gonna have it’. And I did. And one of my girlfriends came over and said ‘I guess you are going to remain single for quite a long time’.”

Mary Portas told Woman’s Hour she was completely blown away when she fell in love with a woman.

“But I was blown away by the fact that I’d fallen in love,” she added. “And it was actually just wonderful. And I thought ‘This is the journey I need to go on. This is the person I’m going to be with – and I’m going to make that happen.’

“We loved and that was simply it… and it didn’t reprieve my past. My past was built on love and I was in love with a woman today. You have to express that… it’s not in boxes. Love is free and should be free.”

For more top love and relationship wisdom watch our video A Realist's Guide to Love with Alain De Botton.