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Is there an ideal partner in the world? Research shows that a romantic halo created around a single lover who needs to be found or waited for can play a trick on us.
If you believe in the idea that there is one (at least several) people with whom you can be truly intimate and effortlessly create a magical space of complete understanding, then you are not alone. According to the Marist poll, 73% of Americans – 71% of women and 74% of men – also believe that only one lover can make them truly happy. These romantic ideas are more often shared by younger respondents – 79% of those under 45 and 69% of those older1. However, research does not support our fantasy, which we so much want to believe. In 1998, psychologist Raymond Knee conducted a test designed to show how belief in a single partner affects relationships. During the experiment, he compared those who believed in fate, and those who rather relied on the development of relationships, believing that they take time and depend on the efforts of both partners.2.
The ideal partner
These people sincerely believed that they would feel at the first meeting that in front of them was the person they had been waiting for all their lives. Thus, they were unconsciously set up to fully accept the partner. “In the beginning, these couples showed intensity of feelings, openness, and quickly moved towards rapprochement,” says psychologist Jeremy Nicholson. – However, the belief that truly close people do not work on relationships and that they will always find understanding with “their person”, destroyed the union already at the first inevitable difficulties. After parting, such couples began a new search – it seemed to them that the relationship failed because they made a mistake in choosing a partner. As a result, the union of those who believed in a predetermined meeting turned out to be passionate, but, as a rule, short-lived.
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Relationship building
The second group of subjects relied less on the power of a magical meeting and believed, rather, that true intimacy takes time, and relationships require work and attention. These people were not afraid of conflict situations and believed that difficulties would make their couple stronger. “At the beginning of the relationship, such couples showed less passion and looked at the partner quite critically,” says Jeremy Nicholson. – Many of them did not experience euphoria, but at the same time they were ready for a constructive conversation and mutual compromises. Thus, they were in no hurry to part with a partner at the first sign of disagreement. In addition, those who believed in working on relationships were more willing to forgive their partner in situations where romance lovers immediately backed off.
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Magic of feelings or mental work?
Representatives of the first group, of course, experienced strong feelings that everyone dreams of. “However, over time, the idealization of the beloved begins to play against us,” says Jeremy Nicholson. – We are not ready to accept a real person, with all his imperfections and the limits of what is acceptable. We are not ready to agree that the strength of relationships lies in our differences, and in moments of disagreement we are tormented by suspicions: is this really a person close to us? Thus, we are deprived of someone with whom we could be happy if we did not deny the partner the right to be ourselves, and our union the right to contradictions and conflict angles. Those who believed that relationships require mental effort, and people become closer to each other over time, kept the union, but sometimes lost their bright feelings. “Perhaps a healthy balance could be called a situation where we do not give up on finding a lover with whom we experience passion at the beginning of a relationship, but at the same time we reserve the right for imperfections and weaknesses,” says Jeremy Nicholson. – We must be prepared for the fact that our union will not always develop on its own, compromises and the ability to forgive will be required. And the understanding that we are different people, and by no means halves of a single whole.
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We are truly comfortable living and developing in relationships where we can realize all the components of our personality. I am a Child who releases feelings, I am a Parent who comes to help a partner, who knows how to listen, and I am an Adult who is ready to face conflict situations, able to accept differences in a partner and giving him the freedom to go his own way. It is in such relationships that we are able to grow, understand and support each other, experiencing the joy and pleasure of life together.
1 Marist Poll, February 2011.
2 С. Knee «Implicit theories of relationships: Assessment and prediction of romantic relationship initiation, coping, and longevity». Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1998, vol. 2.