Many of us grew up with the idea of happily ever after, where the movie ends with two soulmates getting their fairytale ending. Then came social media and an over-index on insta-perfect couples effortlessly adulting, doing self-care together, and offering up relationship tips like its candy. These perceptions set an unattainable standard for how relationships work by setting up the excitement of the beginning as sustainable and staged moments as the norm. These standards present an idea that if your relationship isn’t easy, you don’t always like your partner, or your partner doesn’t fulfill all your needs, you’re doing something wrong.
In our culture of comparison and judgment, this mindset makes it easy to think that you are the problem. The narratives we are constantly exposed to leave out the messy middle, the ups and downs that come along with building healthy, long-lasting relationships that work through challenges and grow as individuals grow.

Most importantly, they minimize the idea that everyone’s experience as and in a relationship is uniquely valid. Recognizing that is the first step toward genuine healing and establishing a healthy relationship dynamic that works for you and your partner and perhaps no one else, which is perfectly okay. Relationship therapy can help you get to that place, especially if you see it as maintenance rather than emergency care.
Shifting this perspective can be hard, but changing expectations around staying in bad marriages, prioritizing the emotional and physical well-being of adult partners and their children, and a growing push for emotional intelligence and relationship skills are paving the way to make it a bit easier (Lebow & Snyder, 2022).
Society needs this change because relationship therapy should be viewed as a tool to help people turn towards rather than turn away from relationships in times of calm and distress. To support this shift, let’s debunk five myths that keep people from seeking relationship support.
Myth #1: If we were meant to be together, we should be able to work through challenges alone.
Truth: Relationships and desire are living, breathing entities that need planning and care. They can also easily become the easiest part of our lives to deprioritize. The idea that it should “just work” stems from idealistic standards perpetuated by the media and leads to magical thinking that drives disconnection, even if you and your partner(s) really do make a great team.
Relationship therapy can help build or strengthen skills related to communication, navigating conflict, reflective listening, and more to empower you with the right tools and intentions to manage conflict your way. By leaning into your collective potential to grow, you can work toward building something rather than relying on destiny to fuel growth (Perel and Miller, 2022).
Myth #2: My partner is the problem, not the relationship.
Truth: Every relationship requires at least two people, even if one party is the storyteller and one is the silent participant. Relationship dynamics are not binary, and taking accountability for the part that you play in creating these dynamics is essential to turning towards your partner(s).
Guided by relationship therapy, you learn to recognize how you are shaping your relationship dynamic and uncover how people who care about each other can still act in uncaring ways (Perel and Miller, 2024).

Myth #3: Couples therapy is only for married couples.
Truth: Any type of relationship or partnership can benefit from doing relationship therapy. Some partners may come in because they are high conflict, others know they want to divorce and want to focus on how to be the best coparents, and still others may need specific help navigating a life transition.
Every partnership is different, which means every partnership’s therapeutic needs and benefits are different. The goal of a relationship therapist is to help you gain insight into yourself and your relationship to help you determine what is the right path forward, and then to empower you with the right skills to get there. Afterall, the best intervention for healthy relationships is prevention. (Baratz, 2024)
Myth #4: Bringing up a problem will only make it worse.
Truth: People are not taught how to fight right even though these topics are usually the ones most worth discussing. Conflict exists to improve our understanding of our partner(s) and avoiding it can often make an issue worse. Normalizing that conflict is an inevitable, and sometimes consistent, yet healthy part of relationships is a key component of a good relationship therapy. That happens by helping folks in the relationship understand their conflict style and expectations of each other to strengthen their ability to cope and communicate, learn to be more compassionate, become comfortable with arguing, and believe that being “right” is not always necessary (Gottman, 2024).
Myth #5: It would be too costly and timely to fix our relationship.
Truth: Change can take a long time, but the goal of relationship therapy is not to look solely at the beginning and the end; it is to focus on the messy middle. Staying present in that space requires acknowledging the incremental steps you or your partner(s) are taking to create healthier relationship dynamics. It is about celebrating those little wins so you can focus on the good, and not just the challenging times in your relationship. Relationship counseling can help you do just this, whether you are working on a short term or more long-term goal. It shows how we can step away from idealistic perceptions of relationships to realistic expectations of what it means to be in a relationship today (Baratz, 2024).
Ultimately, relationship counseling is a resource to empower partners to embrace their relational dynamics and create a path forward to navigate real problems, letting go of the unrealistic standards fed to us by pop culture and social media. If you sense some disconnection in your relationship, feel free to reach out to one of our providers to start your journey toward a better relationship.
References:
- Baratz, T. (2024). How to love someone without losing your mind: Forget the fairy tale and get real. Rodale.
- Gottman, John. “Debunking 12 Myths about Relationships.” The Gottman Institute, 7 June 2024, www.gottman.com/blog/debunking-12-myths-about-relationships/.
- Lebow, Jay, and Douglas K Snyder. “Couple Therapy in the 2020s: Current Status and Emerging Developments.” Family Process, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2022, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10087549/.
- Perel, Esther, and Mary Alice Miller. “Owning Your Part: Self-Accountability in Relationships.” Esther Perel’s Blog, www.estherperel.com/blog/owning-your-part-self-accountability-in-relationships. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.
- Perel, Esther, and Mary Alice Miller. “5 Myths We Tell Ourselves When We’re Dating.” Esther Perel’s Blog, www.estherperel.com/blog/5-myths-we-tell-ourselves-when-were-dating. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.
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