This False Belief Will Hurt Your Relationship

We all enter into romantic relationships with certain beliefs about how they’re supposed to work. Our first model comes from our parents, who taught us about relationships by showing us theirs. And if we’ve already been involved with another person before, that experience will certainly color our expectations for our current relationship as well.

We also get ideas about how relationships are supposed to work from the things that friends and family members tell us. Likewise, the magazines we read and the web sites we visit offer bountiful relationship advice. Some of it may be useful, but much of it isn’t based on any scientific research.

There are also some beliefs about how relationships work that can be harmful to your long-term romantic prospects. These are commonly-held beliefs that research suggests may actually lead to a reduction in relationship satisfaction. In a recent article published in The Family Journal, Royal Holloway University of London (United Kingdom) psychologists Hanna Zagefka and Krisztina Bahul explored the impact that the following three false beliefs have on people’s satisfaction with their relationships:

Conflict is a sign that the relationship is in trouble. In fairy tales, the prince and princess get married and live happily ever after. In the real world, conflict is inevitable in any intimate relationship. The real issue here is how the partners deal with disagreements, not whether they have them. When couples remain respectful of each other during the heat of an argument while effectively communicating their concerns, they often feel closer to their partner afterward.

In fact, some couples have learned to keep distance from each other to maintain the peace. They never argue, but they show little affection to each other either. Although there’s no conflict, these are definitely not happy relationships.

Couples should intuitively know what their partner is thinking and feeling. In fact, people are reasonably good at mindreading, at least in certain situations. They do this by observing facial expressions, posture, and tone of voice. This skill is what enables us as humans to cooperate to such a great extent.

However, we all have limitations in our mind-reading abilities. For instance, Brent knows Angie is upset—he can tell that from her body language. But he doesn’t know why she’s upset. She may have had a bad day at work, she might have just gotten some bad news, or maybe she really is mad at him for something he said or did.

Because we have different experiences and perspectives, we each interpret the current situation differently. Brent might be able to guess what’s upsetting Angie, but he might also guess wrong. The only effective way to resolve the issue is for Angie to say what’s on her mind, and for Brent to show he is listening and really cares.

Some relationships are destined to flourish, others to fail. The researchers link this common belief to the psychological concept of mindset. For example, people who believe “I’m no good at math” exhibit a fixed mindset. Because of their belief, they don’t even try to improve. In contrast, people who believe that abilities come from hard work exhibit a growth mindset, and they can often achieve more than their fixed-mindset peers.

Plenty of research—as well as common experience—shows that relationships take a lot of effort to be successful. Couples that put in the work of responding to their partner’s needs, making compromises, and communicating effectively about their own desires reap the rewards of a happy relationship. Meanwhile, couples that don’t put in the effort are likely to be unhappy with the result.

For this study, Zagefka and Bahul recruited people in committed relationships to respond to a survey, drawing on social contacts the researchers had in both Britain and Hungary. Thus, they had the opportunity to do a cross-cultural comparison. However, in this case the results were quite similar for both groups.

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The survey contained questions that assessed the respondents’ endorsement of the three relationship beliefs outlined above. Relationship satisfaction was measured as well.

The researchers then looked at the correlations between the endorsement of each of the relationship beliefs and relationship satisfaction. In the end, only one of the three beliefs had a significant association with how happy participants were with their partners. The other two were unassociated with relationship satisfaction. Based on your own relationship experience, can you guess which belief impacted relational happiness?

Of the three false beliefs about relationships that were examined in this study, only the belief that conflict is a sign of trouble was associated with lower relationship satisfaction. Neither the belief that partners should be able to read each other’s mind nor the belief that relationships are fated to either thrive or fail had an impact on how happy the respondents were with their partners.

The data don’t show why this pattern of results occurred, but we can make reasonable speculations. As for the first belief, conflict is inevitable in any relationship, but the important point is to use it as an opportunity to communicate with your partner. Well-handled conflict can lead to growth in the relationship, whereas escalating or suppressing it can cause long-term damage. When people believe that conflict is a sign of trouble in the relationship, they’re likely to focus more on the negative feelings rather than trying to resolve the issues at hand.

It’s somewhat surprising that believing partners should be able to read each other’s minds was unassociated with relationship satisfaction. That’s because this is one issue that marriage counselors frequently encounter in couples therapy. At the same time, we know our intimate partner more deeply than any other person, and we often can make good predictions about how they’ll feel or behave in a given situation, even if we can’t read their mind directly.

In hindsight, I think the researchers were misguided in associating destiny beliefs with fixed mindset. Whereas the concept of mindset refers to beliefs about what you can do, the concept of destiny pertains to your beliefs about how the world works. People will often strive very hard to achieve what they think is their destiny. Thus, if they believe their marriage is destined to thrive, they’ll work at it. But if they think it’s fated to fail, well, then there’s no use trying.

The take-home message from this study is valuable to both professional counselors and the public alike. Therapists should be on the lookout for false beliefs about conflict so that they can help clients become more successful at conflict resolution. In our daily lives, we should also keep in mind that conflicts can become opportunities for growth when we’re willing to listen to what our partner has to say and when we communicate clearly but respectfully about what’s on our mind.