I want to debunk 13 common myths about relationships. Some that I also thought were for real, but they’re not. I think I’m talking about this because of something that happened to me recently.
I used to write a lot. I had these diaries where I would document my day-to-day activities, what was going on in my life. I just poured my heart, and I discovered these diaries yesterday. As I was going through them, I just thought, Wow! My gosh. The young me had so many expectations and hope and love in her heart. I mean, she still does! But just to be wiser, you know.
Probably that feeling came from those cheesy, romantic movies we used to watch or, you know, the lovey-dovey novels, mules and bones and stuff like that that we used to read. I think I’ve learned so far that if you want to make your relationship to be, I wouldn’t say good, but if you want a good relationship, pretty much you need to work at it. I mean, both parties need to work to make that a reality. So, what are some common myths about relationships?
Myth #1: Relationships Are Always Easy
A great relationship or a good relationship should be easy! It’s not difficult. Well, nothing is easy! Nothing at all is easy, even relationships. And this misconception, as I am reading my diary, I think that was what I thought. I thought when you are a relationship, you find someone you want to be with. You find the one! THE one! If you find them, it will feel effortless and it would just be so easy. Nothing can be further from the truth. It’s not easy! It takes a lot of work. A lot! Not just from one person, but from both parties. Because this is not a fairy tale. This is not a book or a fiction. This is reality. Inevitably, you will go through a tough period or difficult phase in your relationship. Only commitment and hard work can make a healthy relationship to survive in the long run.
It needs effort from both partners because we are all flawed. We come from different backgrounds with different emotional packages and emotional issues. So you’re coming together as one despite all of this wahala and issues. So, of course, nothing’s going to come easy. That point, you just you know, it’s not going to be effortless, but it’s possible to make it sustainable, to make it work.
Myth #2: Passion Never Fades
Another misconception is that the passion never fades if true love prevails. When you’re in love with someone, you will always feel the fluttering hearts and butterflies in your stomach. But that’s not true. We all go through stages. I’ve talked about the stages in the relationship. We’ve got the honeymoon stage. We’ve got the commitment stage. And so forth. Just because you’re no longer feeling the butterflies and the fluttering hearts, it doesn’t mean that the relationship is over or that there’s no true love anymore or the relationship is not working. It just means that you’re moving to the next stage. And what we often fail to realize is that as we grow stronger, as we get closer, we get to see the person for what they are, for who they are.
Yeah, the spark is still there. It might not really be as intense as when you first met the person, but there are ways you can reignite that spark. There’re ways you can bring in fresh vibes and fresh energy. There’re ways you can make it exciting. You both can make it exciting. If you just focus on the butterflies in your stomach, that first passion you felt, you miss out on experiencing the best parts of a true, committed, and romantic relationship.
Myth #3: Sex Provides Happiness
Another misconception that a lot of people have is when you are frequently intimate with your partner, you give your partner what they want sexually, and that will determine how good your relationship would be. This one is quite personal because I would tell you this, this misconception has led, it’s quite concerning, because it has led a lot of people to think that if I become intimate with this person, then it means my relationship will last longer and they would stay with me.
It means that I have a good relationship or a healthy relationship. I mean, yes, sex is good. Is essential to any healthy romantic relationship. But to tag a relationship as good or to use that as a yardstick to measure if your relationship will last or if it’s good, it’s not true. I mean, you cannot call the relationship good based just on sexual activities or the fact that you are active sexually all the time.
We all have our sexual needs, and sometimes your libido might not match the other person’s. The standard of defining your sexual activities with how long lasting your relationship would be or how good your relationship is, is not very realistic.
Myth #4: Your Partner Completes You
Another misconception is that being in a relationship with your partner would complete you as a person. I need to talk about this on its own. But just to summarize this, your partner cannot complete you. Your partner cannot fix you. If you’re going through something personally, whatever it is, they cannot cure you. That expectation of wanting a partner to solve or to complete us to make things better for us is a wrong conception.
Because at the end of the day, you’re the only person that can influence your healing. They might be there for you, they might be supportive, and loving. They might be committed to make sure to make you feel like you’re not alone. Pretty much they’re there to compliment you and not to complete you. You have the job personally to accept yourself as who you are. You have the power to discover yourself as a person. No one else can do that except you.
Myth #5: They Make Me Feel Better
Another misconception is people believe in that the relationship they’re going to would make them feel better, which is almost the same thing as what I just said. If they’re in a bad mood, they expect their partners to make the lousy mood much better.
Putting that pressure on your partner to make you happy, to make you feel better is not very healthy. I mean, we all have our moods and they do swing. It’s okay to share how you’re feeling with your partner. It’s okay to let them know what you’re going through. But you need to accept that it’s okay to feel sad is part of life.
It’s just how it is. You cannot expect that your partner will be the one to make you happy. It’s their job to make you feel better. It’s your job to pull you out of a lousy mood. A lesson I learned the hard way because there was a time where I kind of felt like they should be the ones to make my life a whole better.
But life is beyond the feelings, is beyond relationships, is beyond the feeling of love. You know, we can help each other improve our moods, but it’s not their responsibility to make you feel better.
Myth #6: You Can Read Your Partner’s Mind
Another misconception is that if you’re in a good relationship, you can read your partner’s mind. I wish! I wish we had that psychic powers to read the other person’s mind. But it’s not possible. And I think this is another thing that I had to learn the hard way. You cannot expect your partner to read your mind if you don’t communicate how you feel. I think it’s unfair to base your feeling on them, knowing how you feel without you telling them. If you want a healthy relationship, it takes you committing and working hard together.
If you want a healthy relationship, you need to communicate how you feel. You need to talk about issues together, hopefully work together to resolve whatever is going on in your relationship.
Myth #7: No Fighting In A Healthy Relationship
The misconception that if you are in a good relationship fighting never happens. You know what, by fighting, I don’t mean physical fights. I mean disagreements, arguments, quarrels.
Now, if you’re not fighting, I feel like then there’s something wrong. If you’re not fighting, it’s all dandy then I feel like this. Either one person or both partners are not communicating. Not expressing how they feel. They are hiding how they feel. They’re avoiding. They’re probably trying to avoid wahala or disagreements. So they’re keeping whatever is going on within themselves because I mean, it’s inevitable.
You’re two people come from two backgrounds with two different personalities, unique, you pretty much different, and you’re coming together as one. So it’s only natural that there will be issues. There will be things that you will disagree about. And it’s fine. It’s okay to disagree. I mean, disagreements are quite healthy as long as you’re able to sort out the issues, as long as you’re able to talk about it.
With disagreements, with fights, it makes the relationship stronger as long as you’re able to come to a compromise and sort it out. Okay. So that’s one of those conception. If you’re in a good relationship, fighting never happens. That’s a life.
Myth #8: You Won’t Go To Bed Angry
Another misconception is that you don’t go to bed angry. It’s something that has always been a thing. People would say all couples should not go to bed angry.
They should always resolve their wahala their fights, their arguments before they go to bed. It’s relative because sometimes you actually need to go to bed first. Personally, I want to go to bed to chillax. Just think about what’s just happened. Sometimes I don’t want to talk about it immediately. Okay? Because talking about it might lead to arguments and then you start arguing, get tense, that just causes more conflict.
Get some rest, wake up rested and then you can approach it differently. And you’ve probably thought about it. You’ll calm, your head to clear, and you can think straight. You’re more constructive, or you can give more constructive solutions to whatever problem you had the previous night or the previous day. So sometimes it’s okay to go to bed angry.
I mean, you can think about the fights you’ve had and focus on making it much better. The conception that you just must solve the problem that night before you go to bed. That’s a misconception.
Myth #9: Getting Married Automatically Improves Your Relationship
Another misconception is if you’re going through a problem in your relationship, getting married to the person or having babies would solve the problem.
Okay, I cannot stress this enough. Getting married or having children will not save a relationship. And some people do this that make this mistake. So you’re having a tough time already and instantly you think, maybe if I get married to this person, everything will just go smoothly? No, actually, it becomes the opposite. So what you think you’re trying to save you are actually not saving it. I will become worse because you put too much strain in an already strained relationship. I mean, having children, it’s not easy. You might want to think that, okay, if I have a baby for him, it will make him love me more. No. You need to be very careful when you consider making that big decision of having a baby or getting married.
Using either just puts undue stress on your relationship. It’s new responsibilities and you don’t need that strain in an already strained relationship. Allright.
Myth #10: Jealousy Is Healthy
The next is that if you have a partner who is jealous or possessive, it means that the partner or person loves you. Wrong! I’ve had so, I would say so many, but I’ve had some talk to me about their relationships and this seems to be a serious misconception. The idea of being jealous is I don’t want to say this. Yeah, I think it’s okay to say there’s healthy jealousy and non-healthy jealousy and… but jealousy is jealousy, right? So jealousy to me is a red flag. It comes with being possessive. So if you see your partner with someone with the opposite sex and you get really angry and jealous and you have that possessive tendency, I feel like that’s not healthy at all.
And that does not quantify or qualify the feeling of love for the person. True love is based or built on mutual respect, mutual trust. And if you don’t have these, if you see your partner with someone in you instantly jealous means that you don’t really trust them. I mean, that’s why I say healthy jealousy and non healthy jealousy, because it’s human instinct.
It’s fine to be feel a little bit, you know, but then you will not instantly just get angry that you partner is with the other person. Jealousy does not mean that they love you just because your partner’s jealous possessive doesn’t mean that they love you. That’s another misconception. Allright. Moving on.
Myth #11: There Should Be No Secrets
Another misconception is that there are no secrets in a relationship. I grew up with the teachings of, “tell your partner everything. Don’t keep secrets. If you do, you know, it means that you are not in a trustworthy relationship!” I get that. I mean, it’s important to not be deceitful, to not lie. You know, the truth is important in a relationship, but I feel like there are some things that should just be you.
All your thoughts. I mean, you don’t have to share every single information and things. I feel like your partner doesn’t need to learn all that information. A few harmless secrets are fine to keep to yourself. It’s okay. Yeah, it’s okay.
Myth #12: You Should Always Be Together
Okay. Another misconception about relationship is you should always be together wherever you go. You are twins. You’re pretty much joined together. You’re going to the grocery shop together. You’re going to the toilet together. I mean, it’s nice to do things together. It’s quite charming, isn’t it? But you can still enjoy your time alone as a person away from your partner. I mean, you have your own thing, you have your hobbies, you have, you know, you have your friends, you have your personal goals, you have your own personality.
You were you before you got into that relationship. So you can keep being you. You don’t have to lose yourself in a relationship by doing everything together or doing everything your partner wants you to do or everything your partner likes to do. You can be your own person by doing your own thing what makes you happy. You don’t have to be together all the time to have a wonderful relationship.
Myth #13: Your Partner Must Meet All Your Needs
A misconception as well is that your partner should or must meet all your needs. I think this is unfair. And truthfully, I don’t think it’s something that should be debunked because you can meet the needs for each other, but there will be different needs that you have to take of yourself. It could be through other friends or family or through your job or through your favourite pastime.
It’s not fair to put so much pressure and burden on the other person. You know, when we do that, we end up overtasking and putting so many expectations on the partner. It is important to not add more strain to an already healthy relationship. Identify the need. Your partner can support, can understand, but they must not meet all your needs.
I hope this helps. Thank you for reading!
Meet you again at another episode of Thy Truth.
Finding your truth with Efemena