We’re All Guilty Of Over-Romanticizing Relationships, Here’s Why It’s Bad

Many people grow up with this idea of what a relationship is and how it should be. Since childhood, many of us pull from a myriad of different sources to try and create an idea of the “ideal” relationship. Sometimes, we get little tidbits from our parents or other adults who were in our lives growing up. Yet more often than not, our idea of a relationship is far from reality. As a result, we end up guilty of over-romanticizing relationships.

Our world is rapidly becoming technologically-centric, which means we’ve had access to all types of media growing up. In most cases, this world has followed through our most vulnerable years.

Various media such a T.V. shows, movies, and video games paint a different picture of life.  One than fails to mirror what really exists in the world. This is most notable when that picture involves romantic relationships.

Although we understand theoretically, it’s hard to change what we’ve been taught, which makes it difficult to alter our habits.

By comparing the way relationships are always portrayed in the media as opposed to real-life relationships, there is invariably a lot left to be desired. As we grow older, we begin to understand that relationships aren’t some perfect fairy tale. Yet that doesn’t stop the illusions of love that we have integrated through various media. Because of this,we might fail to realize how much we really are romanticizing relationships and love. This makes it all the more difficult for us to recognize that what we’re wanting isn’t really something we can (or even need to) obtain.

It can be helpful to step back and analyze your perception of what a healthy, loving relationship really is.

We strive for perfection that doesn’t really exist.

We become obsessed with the idea of love, and we’re almost desperate to find it like we’ve seen it in media no matter the costs. Unfortunately, that can be hard seeing as it rarely exists in the real world. Because we see all these perfectly happy, in-love couples in the media at every turn, we’re going to look for that portrayal of love in our own lives. What that means is we often look for the impossibly grand gestures and expect too much out of a significant other. We’ve started to desire a fabricated version of a relationship (even if we don’t realize it at the time).

Take time to honestly ask yourself what you really want.  Are you envisioning your relationship? or a few highly-paid and staged Hollywood actors in front of a fanciful background?

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We’re left wondering if we can love at all because nothing feels right.

It can cause someone a lot of genuine anxiety to get in a relationship and question whether they’re in love or if they can even love at all. This comes from a sense of things not feeling right. For instance if you are not getting the same feelings out of your relationship as you do when you watch a movie about someone else’s “perfect” relationship. Sometimes everything else in a relationship can feel really good, but you don’t know why the love hasn’t fallen into place yet. Don’t blame yourself.

You might be wondering if you have the capacity to love someone romantically. The answer is definitely YES! Try forgetting everything you think you know about how love looks and feels. Take time to re-evaluate your relationship. If you still aren’t happy, then it might be best to take a break. It’ll allow you to focus on your own needs.

Over-Romanticizing relationships can be utterly detrimental to our love lives.

We don’t always recognize it, which is why we should be vigilant for the sake of ourselves and our romantic partners. Many of us are guilty of over-romanticizing relationships. That’s completely okay because it’s incredibly hard to recognize when it has happened until way after the fact. Don’t be too harsh on yourself if you realize you’ve been unfair to yourself or someone else while in a romantic relationship.

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