Hi, I’m Savannah, and I’m a hopeless romantic. I was that kid who as a little girl watched all of the Disney princess movies, and then would sit waiting for my prince charming to come along and sweep me off of my feet. I think before the age of ten I had decided I wanted an enormous wedding with all my friends and family, and naturally what other than a ballgown wedding dress. Fast forward to when I get to high school, and I still didn’t have a boyfriend, and I had never even kissed anyone! “Where is my Prince Charming?” I wondered, feeling like all of my friends were experiencing things I wasn’t. But I told myself that it was ok, because I was just waiting for the right guy to come along, and then magically, one day he did. Everything was amazing, I was so in love and happy to be with someone who swept me off my feet. Then we had our first argument, and I was TERRIFIED. In the movies the couples don’t argue, right? There’s always some external force keeping them apart from each other that they push through to be together in the end. I think this created a perception in my brain that fighting in relationships is bad and should be avoided at all costs. While I’m no relationship expert, I feel like I’ve been through my fair share of conflicts and have learned a lot.
Let me begin by saying, there is definitely a distinction between having the occasional disagreement or argument and feeling unhappy in a relationship because it seems like all you do is fight. If you are feeling like all your interactions are negative, you’re unhappy or are constantly fighting, it might be time to take a step back and reassess the relationship. However, the flip side of that is true as well. Despite what popular culture tells us, having disagreements is actually good for your relationship, and it’s not healthy to never disagree. It is inevitable, you are your own individual people and each of you are bound to make mistakes or irritate each other. You shouldn’t have the expectation that your partner is going to be perfect and never screw up, because it’s simply unrealistic. But when your partner does do something that annoys you, upsets you, whatever the case, you need to tell them rather than just let it go. I think this is something that can be scary at the beginning of a relationship, especially when you’ve never had a disagreement. nine times out of ten, your partner is going to take it way better than you think you will.
I feel like a lot of times, and especially lately, I’ve seen this idea circulating around social media that “your relationship should be easy”. Well, ok sure in a perfect world I would never screw up, and neither would my boyfriend. Oh yea, and there would never be any external factors that would affect our relationship either (like hello, covid? we weren’t able to go to dinner and a movie for a year). Then maybe it would be easy. And again, it shouldn’t be hard all of the time. But everyone goes through difficult periods. It’s a misnomer that a relationship is something that you don’t have to work at, because it is. But don’t take my word for it. Relationship psychologists John Gottman has concluded that for every negative interaction (be that an argument, something snarky said, forgetting something, etc.) there should be five positive interactions too (bringing your partner coffee, making extra time to spend with them). But you know what this implies? There will be negative interactions. If you’re more interested in this topic, or things like being able to effectively communicate with your partner I highly recommend the book Eight Dates by John Gottman.
Being the hopeless romantic that I am, arguments in a relationship can be super scary and very intimidating. But through all of the big and little ones, my prince charming that rolled around is still here, and I feel like that should say something. It’s not always going to be easy. There will be weeks where you can see each other almost every day, and other weeks where you’re barely able to send a text in your free time. But open communication and honesty is key and can help you along the way. Oh and don’t forget about that 5-1 ratio. Try and make some of your positive interactions happen before the bad ones do. You don’t always want to be making up for your mistakes. Just assume you’ll make a mistake on accident, so try and get ahead of it. While I said earlier that my social media had been flooded with the idea that relationships are easy and you don’t have to work at them, occasionally I’ll come across a good video. I LOVE this video and her explanation on it. I feel like it puts such a perspective on how it relationships require work, and how it won’t be perfect all of the time.