5 Myths About Love That I Hate
There is so much noise on the internet when it comes to love and romance and I see a lot of bad information out there. As a therapist and coach specializing in the full life-cycle of love from dating to relationships to breakups, here are my Top 5 Myths About Love that I Hate:
True Love shouldn’t take work
*Face palm emoji* Making relationships work, even the dreamiest, most epic love stories, takes effort and skill. I love to use that word skill in place of work because skills can be learned (it also sounds like less of a drag than “work”). If we can learn relationship skills that means we can create great relationships. This idea that love should come easily is the stuff of fairytales and only keeps us further stuck in cycles of comparison and shame. It takes SKILL to resolve conflict, to effectively get your needs met, to be a good lover, and to work through unresolved issues. Most of us don’t come to the planet knowing how to do any of those! So it’s going to require some effort on our part to aqcuire those skills, whether it be through working with a therapist or coach like me, reading a book, attending a retreat, etc., Great relationships are made not born.
2. New Couples don’t need to go to couples counseling or “shouldn’t it be easy in the beginning?”
Did you know that according to research, couples wait on average 6 years of being unhappy before seeking help for their issues? That’s 6 years of building resentment just chipping away at or eroding the love and connection between you. I think earlier on in a committed relationship can be a really great time for counseling or coaching because the relationship is more malleable. There’s still a lot of good will and generosity between the couple during that precious beginning. You’re not set or stuck in your ways yet. You’re not ticked at the other person for leaving their laundry on the floor all the time or taking too long to get ready. As I mentioned above, building a great relationship takes SKILL and skills need to be learned. So, yes I think it is OK that new couples go to counseling or therapy and I suggest it to my clients all the time. I don’t think it’s a sign that things are bad or not going to work out between you. So get into counseling and coaching early! Think about it as going to a gym for your relationship! And there’s no time like the present!
3. When it comes to breakups, ‘time heals all wounds.’
NOPE! It’s not time that heals all wounds, but what you DO with that time. Studies by Buell et al show that there is no association between the amount of time since your breakup and the amount of pain you can be in. That means you can still be in significant pain a year after a breakup and in fact 46% of people report that they are. This also works in the inverse: there is no avoiding the pain of a breakup, but you can dramatically reduce if not eliminate the amount of time it takes to get over a breakup if you apply certain tools that are rooted in neuroscience or work with a breakup coach or therapist who specializes in that like me. Breakups are painful but you don’t have to SUFFER through them. They don’t have to derail your life and it doesn’t have to just take TIME! There are very specific things you can do to recover rapidly.
4. Compatible or happy couples don’t argue/fight or if we fight/argue it must not be real love:
Healthy couples absolutely fight, but they fight SKILLFULLY. It is perfectly normal and acceptable to disagree and argue with your partner. If you never have an argument, then one or both of you probably isn’t being real about how you feel about certain things. You’re human. You’re going feel some kinda way about things and it is OKAY for that to show up in your relationship. Happy and healthy couples fight, but they do it skillfully. That means they use emotion-regulation tools, they practice empathetic communication, they know that some problems are just unsolvable and they that for what it is. They’re able to tolerate that emotionally and physiologically and they know how to repair their connection after a rupture has occurred. I say every fight is an opportunity for deeper intimacy with your partner, an opportunity to learn more about them and to get closer with one another. So remember, the question is not, do happy/compatible coupes fight, but HOW do they fight? With skill and lots of good will.
5. ‘I need closure to move on after a breakup.’
Okay this one is a trick - this one is a HALF MYTH. It is actually true that you DO need closure after a breakup in order to be able to really move on, BUT you do NOT need closure from your ex. Closure does not and probably shouldn’t mean a convo with your ex. You need to look at the lifespan of your relationship and come to your own conclusion about why you’re not together anymore. And then you need to stick to that conclusion despite your brain’s best efforts to get you to ruminate, analyze and obsess. A third party like a therapist, coach, or friend who’s objective can really help with this process. There is nothing your ex can say to you that is going to make it better - for one, they have a biased view of things and two: you already know. Deep down, you already know why it ended. The work now is just to stick with that explanation and repeat it like a mantra or a spell over and over as many times as it takes.
