Hey guys, welcome back to Partnership Aligned Podcast! There is so much marriage advice floating around out there. Just do a quick search on Instagram… it will flood your brain and it seems that a lot of it is outdated or confusing. So I’m going to break it down for you.
I spend a lot of time on this podcast and on my Instagram, which by the way is @partnershipaligned, giving you relationship advice. Because after all, I am a relationship coach. But today I want to expose the absolute worst relationship advice out there!
Ok so here we go, here are the five worst pieces of advice when it comes to marriage or partnership.
- Don’t go to bed angry. Where did this come from? Who made this up? In my mind, and I’m totally making this up, it came from the fifties where appearances were so important and feelings were not addressed as readily as today.
Regardless of where it comes from, it’s horrible advice. Whenever my husband and I would get into a fight, I intentionally went to bed angry because I knew I would have a better perspective in the morning.
I talk a lot about taking the sacred pause and this is one way I like to do that. I know that I am better in the morning after a good night’s sleep. Also, Don’t go to bed mad insinuates that you can just turn off your anger. And while I am trained in thought work that does help you feel the way you want to feel, part of that process is actually feeling!
So if you put pressure on yourself to make up before you go to sleep, you have to ask yourself, “is that serving my relationship?” Is that aligning with how I am actually feeling? If it is, then great! But my guess is that if you’re human, you need some time to cool down.
I actually think “sleep on it” is much better advice. If you try and talk things out before you’ve had time to pause and think things through, you may say something you regret that will just propel into what I call an aftershock fight.
2. You need to complete each other. This is where Jerry Maguire lied to you! I know, I’m sorry, it’s hard to hear. But the whole “you complete me” thing makes me nauseous. It completely disempowers us from completing ourselves! It support co-dependency and sets you up for disappointment.
No one can complete you but you. And no one should. It is a lot of pressure on your partner to have to complete you. The healthiest relationships are made up of two people who fill up their own cup first, then come together to pour into each other.
I talk about this in more depth in my first podcast episode which is actually a really popular one! It’s called 5 Signs You Are In A Healthy Relationship. Go check it out, I’ll link it in the show notes.
3. You should want to do everything together. Ok this one is really bullshit. Why would I want to do everything with anyone? You know what makes me such a good catch? Is that I am happy doing things on my own. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to share things with a significant other. It just means that I find joy in life and in my own company. Having your partner join in on your activities should be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.
4. Marriage is 50/50. This is a beautiful concept that simply doesn’t exist in real life. Expectations like these are premeditated resentments. So let’s just release ourselves of the fairytale.
This is an especially dangerous belief for those of you who are raising kids together. Raising kids will not be 50/50. And believing that it should be will lead you to having other thoughts such as “I did more today than he did” or “Why am I always the one to put them to bed?”
This imaginary scoreboard kills romance faster than a bad pickup line. If you follow any of my work, you know that I am constantly saying that the biggest mindset shift you nee to make is to go from “it’s me vs. them” a.k.a. what am I doing and what are they doing… to “it’s us against the problem” or in this case… that might translate to “we have the same goal on the same team.. and that is to raise these kids!”
If you think about relationships with co-workers you may be on a team with, there are certain jobs they do and certain jobs you do. And when one of you is out sick, the other can pick up the slack. But the amount of work you have is rarely equal to the amount of work they have. But at work, for whatever reason, we have an easier time accepting that different jobs look different and take up different amounts of time.
Maybe it’s because we’re getting paid. But think about the payment you get when you and your partner are a team! Without the scoreboard, without the emotional childhood. You get more connection, intimacy, and if you’re raising a family you get a more peaceful home for your kids. Win/Win!
By the way, if you are a mom who always has a scoreboard in your head, I want to talk to you. I want to interview you for free. Because I am designing a program for just that issue. So reach out to me by emailing me at Elana@nullpartnershipaligned.com or message me on Instagram @partnershipaligned. Scroll down to the show notes and get in touch. It’s a free 30 minute call where I ask you to share about the marriage challenges that arise while raising little kids.
Getting back to the advice of marriage should be 50/50, here is my point. This mindset leads to a battle for fairness. Which always leads to resentment and conflict. So a more realistic expectation, such as we both do different amounts of work at different times, can actually promote more connection because it lowers the wall you’ve built while keeping score.
5. And the final piece of horrible marriage advice is All you need is love. Another way I’ve heard this phrased is Love conquers all. What a load of crap. Love is not all you need. What about respect? Intimacy? Trust? You can love someone and have none of those things. Would that be enough? Of course not.
In fact, arranged marriages tend to be wildly successful! And they are not based on love. They are based on shared values, communication patterns, and vision of future. The love grows over time. My grandparents had an arranged marriage and I remember my grandfather softly touching my grandmother’s face with so much love and respect that it stayed with me all these years.
I’m not saying leave your spouse and go find a yenta. I’m just saying that love is not enough. If it was, you would probably be with some ex who you still loved after you broke up.
I’ll tell you what does conquer all – open communication. Almost anything can be talked out. So I’m going to rephrase that bad advice and say that open communication is all you need.
I want to give you permission to challenge these pieces of advice, or anything else you hear that is not serving you and your relationship.
