In love, some stereotypes are hard to break. In a couple, each person comes with their often unconscious illusions. These beliefs, which do not correspond to reality, can have a negative impact on the love life. We suggest discovering 5 misconceptions that weaken your relationship.
"There is someone made for me somewhere."
If you are waiting for the one person who would be able to make you happy throughout your life, maybe you have read or seen too many fairy tales in your childhood!
The quest for the soul mate is, by definition, doomed to fail since the perfect spouse does not exist... Even if the myth of Prince Charming encourages you to seek love, it has the disadvantage of making you believe that your partner must meet all your criteria of perfection.
In real life, nobody ticks all the boxes. That's why the stereotype "One day my prince will come" is one of the 5 misconceptions that weaken your relationship. It could lead you to leave the other at the slightest difficulty and push you to run after a chimera all your life...
2- Passion is the essence of true love.
Maybe you believe that there is no love without passion, without those butterflies in your stomach and that feeling so strong that you become irrational and fused with the other...
However, passionate love is more of a myth than a reality! While it is true that at the beginning of a relationship the fusion is very strong, this phase only lasts for a while. It is when this first passionate and fused phase has passed that you really get to know the other person as they are, with their qualities and flaws, their strengths and weaknesses.
The stereotype of passion that lasts forever, perpetuated by literature and stories like Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Isolde, is another of the 5 misconceptions that weaken your relationship.
It could, for example, lead you to leave your partner if you feel a passionate attraction to a new person. But desire and emotions should not be the sole rulers of your life, especially when your choices can have consequences for those close to you.
3- The life of a couple is a long peaceful river.
Love stories as they are told in novels and movies can also make us believe that a happy couple never argues. But that's completely false!
The ideal of a conflict-free life together is unattainable. Spouses being two different people with their own flaws, disagreements are inevitable. This doesn't mean that arguments are fatal to the relationship. On the contrary, it's the failure to express what one really feels that could jeopardize the relationship.
The stereotype of peace in households is one of the 5 misconceptions that weaken your relationship. If you prefer to remain silent because you're afraid of conflict, you'll lock yourself into a dominant/submissive relationship and likely end up exploding from sacrifices and submission.
In summary, arguments, even if they don't solve all problems, are good for the couple. They serve as a "safety valve" by offering each person the opportunity to assert themselves.
4- In love, opposites attract.
Perhaps you are one of those people who are systematically attracted to partners who are very different from themselves in terms of character or values.
You admire your partner for certain character traits and unconsciously seek to acquire the qualities you see in them. Unfortunately, the fairly common idea that "opposites attract" is not an absolute truth or a guarantee of happiness in love.
In fact, it is one of the 5 misconceptions that weaken your relationship because you rely on the other person to achieve your own personal development and your differences, if they are too great, can eventually divide you. Don't we also say "birds of a feather flock together"?
These two contradictory sayings each contain a grain of truth. In love as in friendship, it is important to have things in common to develop a strong bond and to complement each other, in order to be enriched by each other's differences.
5- With me, he or she will change.
The last of the 5 misconceptions that weaken your relationship is also one of the most persistent of all... It's the idea that love can change people. While it's true that you can possibly change yourself and thus modify the dynamics of the relationship, it's not possible to decide on changes in the other person. Hoping that your partner will change because of you or for the sake of love can lead to many disappointments and frustrations!
This false belief is particularly toxic for the relationship and can lead to a breakup. If your partner doesn't change as you desire, you'll think that they don't love you enough to change... You'll resent them, feel unloved and betrayed for the wrong reasons.
It's better to know from the start that in a relationship, each partner will remain themselves. A lasting relationship rather relies on a fair balance of each person's roles. The relationship is a shared space, a stage on which each person acts according to their own role to write a common story.