As a couples therapist, one of the main sources of pain in relationships is rooted in people believing relationship myths to be true. Myths they were told at home, upheld by culture, etc. These myths create anxiety, disappointment, and resentment. They often lead people to play games, instead of being direct and transparent about what they are seeking. It hurts me to see partners who love each other suffering because of said myths, so I am sharing with you the top seven myths about relationships that I've encounter in my work. 

1. Sharing Everything on Social Media is Important

Absolutely not! Your relationship belongs to you and your partner, not the world. You both need to agree on how much you share and with who. Not everyone needs to know what you are up to. Privacy in a relationship is important, I wrote an IG post about this. Also, you don't have to keep up with other couples on social media. It's not a competition. Every relationship is different and moves through milestones at its own pace. If you constantly compare your relationship to the relationships of those who you follow on IG, your relationship will never satisfy you. 

2. You Should Like All the Same Things

People overemphasize the importance of common interest. Yes, it's important that you can enjoy certain things together. It's unrealistic to expect that the other person will enjoy every hobby or activity you like. It's also not necessary for a healthy and fulfilling relationship. No one should feel forced to engage in activities they hate for the sake of the relationship. This can create a lot of stress within the relationship. Common values and life goals are what is important for a long-lasting relationship.

3. Relationships Should Be Like A Fairytale

No relationship is perfect and all relationships require work in some capacity. Not all couples tackle conflict in the same way and every season of a relationship comes with its own challenges. Couples have to navigate family, careers, health issues, finances, sex, politics, and much more. Navigating these obstacles that are part of life, isn't always neat. However, through these obstacles, we can learn and grow both as individuals and as partners. 

4. Fights Ruin Relationships

Fights are essential to all relationships. It's impossible that two people are in agreement about everything all the time. Through fights, you have the opportunity to express your wants and needs. Your partner then has the opportunity to meet those, if they can and choose to. What ruins relationships is not addressing or resolving conflict. Pushing issues under the rug will kill your relationship eventually. Fighting dirty will corrode your relationship, too. Learning to fight fairly is key to a satisfying relationship, where both partners feel seen and heard. 

5. Possessiveness and Jealousy Are a Sign of Love

No, they aren't. Possieveness comes from believing you have ownership over something or someone. Ownership is not correlated with love. Someone may act in a possessive way and not love you. They may just believe that you "belong" to them. As far as jealousy, we've all felt it at some point. With jealousy, it all depends on the context.

Has your partner given you reasons to feel jealous? Have you addressed those reasons? 

Partners can work through jealousy and rebuild trust, that's not impossible. Yet, jealousy itself doesn't equate to love. We can feel jealousy towards anyone about almost anything. Jealousy is the fear that I'll lose something or someone I don't want to lose or that I will not have someone or something I want to have. 

6. Love is All You Need

I believed this most of my life. I thought that if two people felt genuine love for each other there was nothing that could tear them apart. Love conquers all was my belief. This could not be further from the truth and it's a very dangerous belief. It actually keeps people in unhealthy and even unsafe relationships for far too long. Love is essential to a romantic relationship, there's no arguing that. Love alone, however, does not make for a fulfilling long-term relationship. Love is very much like blueberry cake. You need blueberries to make a blueberry cake and with blueberries alone, there's no cake.

7.  If They Love Me They Will Change

This myth is quite problematic because we are measuring someone's love for us by their willingness to change something we don't like about them. We can sometimes see our partner as a project or challenge we need to resolve.  We are attracted to them and there are things we really like about them, but there are other things we have a hard time tolerating and believe we can convince them to change. People change if they want and can change, not because we demand they do. Change is hard, humans are not too good about breaking habits. Someone's willingness to change is not necessarily the ultimate test that they love us. In part, love is rooted in acceptance. If we cannot accept certain attributes of our partner, we might not be able to move forward with the relationship. Also, when we demand that our partner changes, we give them an ultimatum, we are communicating that they aren't good enough for us.