Love and the Couple’s Relationship - Between Fantasy and Reality

"If he loves me, then happiness in a couple should come naturally."

How true is this belief?

We live in a world that, on the one hand, idealizes love and that promotes, on the other hand, beliefs and behaviors that are harmful to the couple's relationship.

The price paid is often high and painful and translates into more and more unhappy, resigned, and untrustworthy couples in a long-term satisfying relationship: “Good relationships end anyway. It's good at first, then everything gets boring and painful. " Sometimes it's about people living alone, living in fear of intimacy and being hurt: "I'm fine alone, at least I do what I want and no one beats my head."

Another category is that of people who adopt perfectionism as a form of defense: "No one is good enough for me." Then there are the couples who find refuge in work, in children, friends, passions, emotional and/or sexual extramarital relationships, who have lost hope that they can have the dream relationship.

And give up. Because I no longer see models that give them hope: “Show me a happy couple too. Everyone has problems, I'm just hiding them. " Or I decide that the saving solution is to change my partner: “Only he is to blame for my unhappiness. He had to change to make me happy. "

In reality, beyond fantasies and illusions, a healthy love relationship is based on strong feelings. But the couple forgets a key factor: a relationship involves a choice.

And the choice starts with knowledge - yours and your partner's - emotional maturity, and last but not least the autonomy of two adults who care and want to evolve together. But a long-term relationship is built through small, everyday gestures, involving work, attention, but also the ability to overcome crises and incompatibilities.

Passion as a couple is not a given; it must be maintained.

How fantasies about love and married life are born

We understand and learn what love is from our parents and grandparents. From the way, they lived their relationship as a couple: with affection, distance, coldness, compromises, reproaches. Our emotional maturity is, therefore, in direct relation to them and, in the alternative, to our previous relationships.

Past emotional experiences, therefore, shape our personal beliefs and perceptions about love and the couple. And the human mind is capable of building walls, pessimistic or optimistic, but just as fanciful: "True love is suffering." Or, "Marriage destroys passion and love." Or, "Happiness in a couple comes naturally, effortlessly."

Love does not solve our personal problems

One of the most common and unrealistic expectations about love and the relationship is that the partner is responsible for the happiness of the other: with him, my problems will disappear. It is often the prerogative of those who keep changing their partners, reaching the point of being disappointed.

And that's because they didn't take on the role of the couple's failure - "The partner had a problem, he had to change." They put on the other's shoulders suffering, unhappiness, and personal failure. On the other hand, "love addicts" do not understand that autonomy is essential: you cannot love if you are not able to be alone, to tolerate loneliness, with stability and emotional comfort that does not depend on your partner.

There is a lot of talk about communication and intimacy in the couple, but the proof of emotional maturity is autonomy: the ability to self-control, personal responsibility. Many of the "communication problems" arise precisely from the lack of autonomy of the partners.

Let's not forget that two-thirds of adults have a dysfunctional personality pattern (narcissistic, avoidant, aggressive, addicted) and mental health difficulties or disorders whose treatment is certainly not "love". The partner supports you, is with you, can make the changes you need to solve your problems, but no, he cannot be your therapist or healer.

How can we live happily ever after?

You need to get back to yourself, to understand your past experiences, what your areas of resilience, transformation, and evolution are. In other words: do you need more time with your partner?

Learn to be more independent, to "control" your joy and emotional comfort, and so your partner will not feel suffocated, but he will get closer to you. But it takes space. A living space that you have to provide. For the good and health of the couple.