How do you think about your relationship? Are the two of you on a journey with ups and downs,
or
are you soul mates, bound by perfect unity?
The authors of a brand new study suggest that we tend to think of relationships in one of these ways, and that framing love as perfect unity can hurt relationship satisfaction when conflicts arise, although not during peaceful times and celebrations.
Thinking of your relationship as a perfect union is troublesome when there are conflicts, and there are bound to be conflicts, because it hurts more deeply if you have imagined a soul mate. You are unprepared. You are fine in togetherness but not ready for the solitariness that comes with disagreements. Wanting unity, you will judge the situation differently from someone who thinks about love as a journey where some difficulties are expected.
I like this study because it gives us a way to think about love in realistic ways (expecting that 2 people will differ and can figure it out) without negative evaluations and harsh judgments.
source: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, V 54 Sept 2014 Spike Lee and Norbert Schwarz
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