Ester Perel’s Top Five Myths About Marriage

For many decades author and therapist Ester Perel has been helping couples navigate relationship challenges and improve their communication. Often Ester emphasizes that marriage today is burdened by a range of both unhealthy and unrealistic expectations, and couples are much quicker to give up on their relationships when faced with difficulty: “Every day in my office I meet consumers of the modern ideology of marriage. They bought the product, got it home, and found that it was missing a few pieces. So they come to the repair shop to fix it so it looks like what’s on the box. They take their relational aspirations as a given－both what they want and what they deserve to have－and are upset when the romantic ideal doesn’t jibe with the unromantic reality.”

Ester’s lessons on relationships debunk these top five myths about marriage.

Myth 1: Your spouse must meet all of your needs.

It is impossible for your spouse to be your therapist, your spiritual mentor, your personal trainer and your community. You need a support system made up of both friends and mentors that functions independently from your marriage.

As Ester writes: “Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?”

Expect your spouse to be your partner, not the person responsible to meet your every need.

Myth 2: It takes two people to change a relationship.

You may want to improve your marriage, but you believe your spouse isn’t working hard enough to make changes. And perhaps you think that in order to change a relationship, you need both spouses to change. But after decades of treating couples, Ester disagrees: “It takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to change it.”

If you find that minor arguments have escalated into constant bickering and your spouse refuses to work on it, you can still break the pattern by changing just your role in it. Sometimes it only takes one person to change a relationship.

Myth 3: Intimacy should feel effortless.

If you have been married for a while, you may have forgotten how much effort you once put into dating. You may have forgotten all the time and thought you invested in choosing what to wear on your dates and what to do to create the opportunity for connection. Perhaps you think that intimacy in marriage should be effortless but in fact, it requires just as much investment of time and energy as when you were dating.

Many married couples feel like they are too busy to invest time in building and creating intimacy. But as Ester points out. “If you’re too busy for intimacy, you are too busy.”

Myth 4: A relationship shouldn’t change.

At the beginning of your marriage you may have thought that your relationship would basically remain the same. Perhaps you believed that a good marriage shouldn’t change. But if you are fortunate enough to be married to the same person for many years, your relationship will go through several iterations and as you both grow, the needs of the relationship will inevitably grow and change as well.

A healthy relationship will always change over time just as a healthy person changes and adapts to different life stages. Esther explains: “Most of us will have two or three marriages in this life. And if we’re lucky, they’re with the same person.”

Myth 5: A good marriage doesn’t have conflict.

If you grew up learning that all conflict is negative or threatening, you may believe that your marriage should be free of conflict. But in fact, all healthy relationships experience some degree of conflict. You don’t need to remove conflict from your relationship, but you can learn how to turn the power of conflict into an opportunity for connection.

Ester teaches: “Instead of listening for flaws or counter-arguments, listen to understand. Instead of focusing on being right, focus on what may be right about what the other person is saying. ‍‍Conflict is intrinsic to all relationships. The presence of bickering or disagreements doesn’t mean the relationship isn’t good, or that it isn’t worth it.”

Besides debunking these common myths about marriage, Ester also warns couples not to treat marriage like a commodity. “In our consumer culture, we always want the next best thing: the latest, the newest, the youngest. Failing that, we at least want more: more intensity, more variety, more stimulation. We seek instant gratification and are increasingly intolerant of any frustration. Nowhere are we encouraged to be satisfied with what we have, to think, this is good. This is enough.”

That is perhaps the most important lesson you can learn to strengthen your marriage – to reframe your relationship as a gift and as an opportunity for growth. To counter the cultural pressure for more with: This is good. This is enough. You can want what you have.

The post Ester Perel’s Top Five Myths About Marriage appeared first on Aish.com.