Relationship myths you should discard

Most people get into relationships with a sense of how they’d like it to be. The expectations may be based on their environment, movies or books, and so on. These ideals could however turn out to be myths that cause more harm than good to the relationship or marriage.  

Endless Love

You will not love your partner all the time. Also, love and feelings alone are not enough to sustain a relationship. According to Dr. John Gottman, the author of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work feelings and endearment to your partner aren’t enough to run a relationship or marriage. “In most cases, couples will stop courting one another or doing the things they used to do together when they first met,” he says. “In turn, the relationship evolves into an endless to-do list where the main theme is on which errands need to be catered for.” Additionally, Abby Rodman, the author of Without This Ring, says love will not always heal everything. “It can play a key role in healing wounds from one’s past, but it can’t solve an individual’s problems.

Wedding Night

This is the night when sex is expected to produce sparks. However, the wedding night hardly lives up to the hype. In fact, quite often, sex on the wedding night can turn out to be an awfully tiresome and boring activity. In other instances, sex doesn’t happen on the wedding night as popularly assumed because the couple is too tired at the end of their wedding to feel as sensual as they would want. According to Sharol Josephson, the author of The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, women who have awful sex on their wedding night and women who have great sex on the same night don’t think it determines how their future intimacy will turn out. “Don’t be too anxious over how your wedding night will be,” says family therapist Susan Gacheru. It’s mythical to imagine that a stable and good relationship guarantees daily, pleasurable sex. There’s more to physical intimacy than just sex.  “Focus on your attitude towards long-term physical intimacy and the level of your willingness to improve on your sex life in the years to come.”

Fifty Fifty

Whereas it is commendable to treat each other as equals, taking it to the extreme can be detrimental. For example, doing your share in the relationship and waiting on your partner to do theirs or measuring whether your partner is honouring their 50 per cent bargain will sabotage your bond. You will discover that your partner does not measure up, especially because you have unrealistic expectations of each other based on your own strengths and targets rather than theirs. According to Linda Bloom the co-author of Secrets of Great Marriages, the 50/50 equality basis is a transactional gauge that should be relegated to a lower level of significance at the onset of a relationship.

Ending conflicts

While you may believe that you can solve and end all conflicts in your relationship, Dr. Gottman observes that this belief is far-fetched. According to research on conflicts in relationships conducted by the Gottman Institute, 69 per cent of relationship conflicts are never fully solved and will likely recur throughout the relationship’s lifetime.

Your relationship is affair-proof

The possibility of one partner having an affair perpetually hangs over all relationships. This is according to Ashley bush, the author of Transcending Loss. She notes that while it might be unintentional, a spouse may be pushed to seek intimacy outside their relationship. This could either be physical, emotional or intellectual. “It is easy to think of each other as devoted, moral or loyal but gradually, spouses may begin to take each other’s fidelity for granted and wither the motivation to tend to your relationship,” she says.