Let’s Get Real About Relationships
What is a healthy relationship?
Whether we admit it or not, many of us crave ‘perfection’.
We want to believe in soul mates, true love and that life partner who will stand by our side no matter what. When our expectations don’t match our reality, it’s easy to take that relationship for granted. But the reality is committed relationships don’t happen overnight. Healthy relationships take much time and care to protect.
“Real relationships aren’t perfect, and perfect relationships aren’t real.”
Why is the idea of a ‘perfect’ relationship a bad thing?
Lots of couples are truly in love…why can’t I have that too?
One of the reasons why “perfect” is a harmful idea is because, as a word that describes something ultimate, everything other than “perfect” is dumped into a category of “imperfect.” There is no room for nuance. Grey area of all shades becomes lumped into a single category of lack, failure, broken expectations and “not enough.” If we are searching for a “perfect” relationship with our partner, how much more room, then, do we give ourselves for landing in what we see as an “imperfect” relationship?
When we need to make a decision, it can be easy to get caught up in wondering what the “right” decision is. The fact of the matter, however, is that there is no such thing as a “right” decision. There only exists the “best” decision for the moment, taking into account the information we have at the time. In a similar way, there is no such thing as the “perfect” relationship, much as we may yearn for it due to expectations given to us by our media or our own general perfectionism. Rather, there exist many grey shades of “good” relationships.
A good relationship can have its ups and downs, its times of butterflies and times of boredom. It can be a mess. It is okay to have a goal of “leveling up” your relationship one grey shade at a time, so long as you recognize what makes it grey: the nuances of the good and the bad, the holding space for the pain and the recognition of what you appreciate, all together. Indeed, sometimes it is the very act of accepting all the nuances of the grey that gives you what you need to grow even further. Here, there is not a story of “we have an imperfect relationship but we wanted a perfect one,” but a story of “we have a complex relationship of good and bad and we want to honour the good and work on the bad.”
When ‘crazy in love’ turns into ‘you’ve lost that loving feeling’.
It may feel sad to perceive that you’re losing the person who gave you feelings of being crazy in love. It may feel worrying to lose those feelings. Your partner stands there, but the feelings have disappeared. Is something wrong? In our culture, and many others around the world, there is an expectation that our partners will be our everything. They should be our lovers, our comforters, our friends, our housemates, our co-parents, our co-workers, our business partners and more. What impossible standards! If you became especially used to your partner in one role, a shift of roles can feel strange. Perhaps their primary role to you used to be as a lover, passionate, alluring and thrilling. When they shift into a role of a housemate one day, the loss of the lover may be painful. You may crave the lover and resent the housemate. In couples therapy, some work may focus on the dual tasks of learning to appreciate the housemate, as well as creating collaborative strategies and helpful mindsets to reawaken the lover again.
No relationship stays exactly the same over time.
Just like our bodies grow, so do our human connections. Nature outside the window goes through the same seasonal cycles, but no one springtime will be like the next. If you’re mourning a lost part of your relationship, it is okay to acknowledge that and see how you can fully mourn the past as well as create a present that continues its good legacy. You may find that, while you can return to “springtime,” it will remain different and unique from last year’s. The work of therapy has the potential to help you and your partner embrace the new stage you find yourselves within and feel at peace with the current season of your relationship.
All couples go through their ups and downs.
We can emphatically say that it is almost certainly not just you. You may be surprised at how repeatedly the same themes are brought to couples therapy by so many different, unique people. The wounds, lacks, concerns and struggles that you have with your partner are likely shared by many couples around you, private and intimate as they may be. In the same way, the hopes, goals, progress and appreciations that you have in your relationship are likely shared as well. Whether you want to visit therapy to maintain the best parts of your relationship, prevent possible worsening, heal past wounds, sort out difficulties or find solutions and answers, you are not alone.
