10 Myths About Perfect Relationships

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

While I dreamed of a relationship, my knowledge of what an ideal relationship should be, I drew from my mother's idealistic stories, various wise advice in quotation marks on the Internet and popular magazines. I fantasized and was completely sure - that I would meet my man and I will have an ideal relationship with him - it will turn out by itself.

After reading superficial advice and watching movies about love, I have such an average myth about relationships. I imagined my ideal relationship like this:

1. We never fight and live happily and happily all the time

This first myth was blown to smithereens as soon as I met my future husband. There was happiness and joy, but we fought almost every day. Over time, I realized why I liked this unrealistic idea so much - I ran away from the past and the relationship of my parents, who in the last years of their life together, constantly swore. I wanted my relationship to be different from my parents.

Now, I'm sure that there is no good relationship without quarrels. And this is a very important part of a healthy and vibrant relationship. In addition, even if you met the man you dreamed of, this in no way guarantees constant joy, happiness and the absence of quarrels. This was an incredible discovery for me.

Not a single relationship in the long term can infinitely fill and make us happy, since happiness and joy are internal states, and not something that a partner should constantly provide for us.

2. We are so similar to each other, we have common interests, we think the same and we love the same thing

This is another myth that in order for the two to be interesting, you must have everything in common and similar. You love some movies, food, music, and so on. In the first stage, it is really inspiring, this similarity unites and gives wings.

How great in this world there is someone like me and he understands me and shares everything with me.

But soon it gets boring, as we get to know the partner up and down and know in advance what he will say and how he will act. This is where development ends and boredom sets in.

I think it's cool when people with similar values and goals in life, but at the same time opposite in psychotypes, enter into relationships in order to complement and strengthen each other in different functions. I like the English expression Power couple. When both reinforce, complement and activate each other.

3. We do everything together and never part. We are like halves of one whole

Oh, this is perhaps my favorite myth. The story of the halves of one whole who found each other and merged in complete ecstasy and are constantly happy. I believed in this for a very long time. Most lovers really go through this stage, and this is what in psychology is called merging, in fact, this is the desire to return to the state of an infant and merge with mother in unity and bliss.

Often, in society, this is what is considered love. Instead of two I's, something new appears - us. Finding your soul mate supposedly guarantees eternal love that does not pass. And when the stage of merging passes, people think that love has passed and it is time to leave. It's as good as it won't be before. And they begin to look for another with whom to merge again and experience this incredible feeling.

Now I am sure that long-term and energetically strong relationships can create holistic personalities who live great on their own, but choose to be together because it is much more interesting.

4. We feel so good together that we don't need anyone else, no friends, no girlfriends, no relatives. You are my whole world, my life, my happiness, my everything.

This is also temporary and after the stage of merging, which does not last so long, we begin to sober up, come to our senses and understand that it is impossible to narrow our whole life to one person and after a while we will want to communicate with friends, family and we will even like and many other people, both men and women, seem interesting.

5. My man loves me so much that he guesses all my thoughts. He guesses himself what I want and fulfills all my desires and I don't even have to talk about them.

For example, a friend of mine often took offense at her man that when they go to the supermarket for groceries, he never offers her to buy her favorite expensive Brazilian coffee. When I asked if she told him about it, she replied - of course not, well, he could have guessed himself. How, I ask?

This is a myth that a man must have some kind of sixth sense once he loves and bam the gift of clairvoyance or clairvoyance immediately opens up.

I, too, once believed in this myth and took offense for a long time. I myself invented and acted out entire scenes in my head, how a man should have acted, to guess what I want. But he took it and did not guess, and now I will be offended by him, maybe he’ll guess that better?

I remember my surprise when my husband first told me - you tell me in plain text what you want. I don't understand and can't read minds. Don't play these games with me! At first it was unusual for me to do this, I always wanted to play according to the old scheme - to be offended and guess for yourself.

But now I have already learned and I say in plain text that I want something and I will be pleased if you buy it. The question is solved very simply - sometimes you have to say out loud about your desires. And it makes life incredibly easier!

6. I always come first for him, I am a star and a queen

This myth is dispelled when you begin to see in another person not your slave, servant, but a living person with his own goals, tasks, feelings and dreams. And by and large, no one owes anything to anyone, and every person in this world lives for himself in order to live his life as he wants. I am sure that a healthy and honest position for a normal person is he himself in the first place, and his partner in second.

7. We sleep exclusively embracing each other, we have fabulous passionate sex all the time

What can I say, this is a big myth, very far from reality. Since there is no long-term relationship without problems, without fatigue, without a mismatch of desires.

8. In an ideal relationship - a real man, gives me everything I want

And I just enjoy and accept his gifts. I take everything I take, and he gives and gives and gives me everything. Not life, but a fairy tale. This is a direct violation of the give-and-take balance, but it sounds very attractive and tempting. Many people live like this or want to live, sucking everything out of their partners and not wanting to give something in return. And this is considered normal in our society.

9. He sees only my merits. And the disadvantages? I just don't have them

There is a clear isolation from reality and splitting. In a healthy position, a person recognizes and sees himself and the other as whole. This means that I have my own strengths and weaknesses, and the other has them too, and I accept it.

10. The partner must constantly take care of me

As a rule, people who fall for the bait of this myth really need the care of a father or mother, they did not receive it in childhood and are now trying to make up, expecting custody from a partner. In a normal non-scarce relationship, both partners take care of each other in different ways. And everyone is able to take care of themselves.

This is not a complete list of myths about relationships and I will say that life turned out to be my best teacher and all my ideas about ideal relationships just shattered into smithereens on real relationships.

As a result, I realized that, like many women, most of my life I was trapped in my illusions about relationships and this very much prevented me from building living relationships and not hovering in the clouds.

And recently I wondered what are my signs of a good relationship now, after years in marriage and psychology.

And that's what I did!

The first sign of a good relationship

- To be youreself!

There is nothing better when both partners can be in a relationship by themselves. They don't adjust, they don't play, they don't pretend. Accept the other as he is. They see a holistic image of a partner. It has strengths and weaknesses and pros and cons, and I accept that. He is multifaceted, holistic, like me.

Second sign

- Continuous development and self-realization, respect for the choice and path of the partner!

When both partners develop and do not stand still, then both of them are interested.

Everyone has their own self-realization or desire to unleash their potential.

Partners do not get hung up on each other, but have both common and their own individual goals.

You understand that yes you are going through life together, but each of you has your own life tasks. Some of them are common and some are completely incomprehensible to you, but you have the wisdom to accept these differences of a partner.

If one partner develops and changes, and the second remains at the same level, then such a relationship is doomed.

Third sign.

- Understanding that a relationship is not a result, but a process.

Relationships are like a grain that you plant in fertile soil, water and care for it, and it depends only on you two what will grow and what fruits will come from it. The sprout of a relationship can wither at the beginning, or it can grow into a luxurious tree with delicious fruits.

The fourth sign

- In a relationship, you give and receive.

There are no distortions in the game of mom and son in dad and daughter, when the other endlessly owes me something! It's scary when in a relationship one turns into an eternal consumer. On the contrary, it is important when what I give is equal to what I receive. There must be a balance in everything. You can give something in one area, your partner in another, but there must definitely be an exchange, otherwise the relationship will not last long. Someone gets tired of being an eternal donor.

And finally, the fifth sign

- Personal space and freedom.

This is a very important sign of a good relationship for me, when everyone has their own personal space. It is important not to live in fusion with a partner, but to have your own time and place to be alone, to do your own thing. It is important to have not only common friends, but also your friends, some hobbies, interest groups.

As for freedom, this is not permissiveness and not something that we change left and right, no. This is an inner sense of freedom, which we have by right and the partner respects and recognizes it. And we, in turn, also recognize his right to freedom to live and express how he wants.

Once I was so afraid of losing my freedom, I thought that it was impossible in marriage, but it turned out that you can be married and still feel free. And this is very important to me!

These are the five main signs of a good relationship were born from my real life experience, and not from the myths proposed by society. Over time, I think a lot more will be added to this list. Do you have your own hallmarks of a good relationship and what traps of myths about ideal relationships have you fallen into? Write in the comments.

Psychologist Irina Stetsenko