3 Relationship Myths That Stubbornly Persists in the Personal Development World

As a personal growth and relationships addict, I often find myself curious and learning from different sources. Books, Youtube videos, Medium articles, you name it. Anything that fascinates me, I’d spend hours and hours digging into it.

However, I’ve discovered how certain ideas, when being propagated over and over again to the extreme, can actually be damaging for those who want to have a more fulfilling life and relationships.

Ideas and teachings, as well as their interpretation, can actually be very subjective. It depends on each person’s cultural background and experiences, that sometimes one thing might work for someone but not work for another. This is why it’s important to use our own discernment and to see what really resonates with our inner truth and is worth adhering to.

Personally, I’ve noticed that there are some ideas that while there is some truth in them, didn’t quite resonate especially when taken to the extreme.

If you’re in the world of personal development and spirituality long enough, you might probably be familiar with expressions such as toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing. These often describe how certain positive ideas that are supposed to empower us are actually expecting us to be happy without accepting our less positive sides or honoring our own pace and experiences.

While the following myths are not as bad as the typical toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing ideas, they can affect us in the way that we invalidate certain needs and experiences, which does hinder the our growth.

Myth #1 — If we want to fix a relationship, we have to fix ourselves first

It’s true that by improving ourselves, we can improve the dynamics of our relationships. When we heal the inner wounds that sabotage the relationship, we contribute less and less to the unhealthy dynamics even if it just means being less reactive to any potential conflict. After all, it’s hard to sustain any conflict if the other person reaches a monk or nun-level of nonreactivity and serenity.

However, relationships always require both sides to properly grow and be sustained. When only one person is continuously working on himself or herself, it can become increasingly frustrating for them and the couple can eventually grow apart.

Besides, it’d be crazy to expect any of us to reach huge self-improvement only on our part to have significant improvement in our relationships. Doing so is only being too hard on ourselves, yet many of us who are into personal development often do this. Whenever things might not go right, we ask ourselves what we can do to change and fix things. But in relationships, we really are a team and everyone is required to co-create a beautiful, sustainable relationship.

While this myth is well-intended, and probably the base idea of the self-help world, if we take it too far then not only will we remain in an unfair relationship which we might come to resent, but we also become too harsh on ourselves.

Sometimes, the most empowering thing we can learn is to have boundaries and not stay in a relationship where we feel we are the only one doing the work. To acknowledge that to be heard and to be cared for by the other person, enough to commit themselves to the relationship and to us as well, are very valid needs.

Personally, I’ve also realized how important it is to have a partner who is also dedicated to their own growth. Only with someone who is also committed to themselves, that we can grow together and bring more to our relationship.

Myth #2 — We have to be completely fine without anyone

This one has been so hard for me to grasp, as I’ve always desired both independence and intimacy in my life.

In the world of spirituality, being completely fine alone and unattached to anything is often celebrated as the ideal goal of enlightenment. However, when we try to ignore what we really need and desire from within us, we are just trying hard to bypass our own growth and spiritual experience.

We all have different needs and what we desire to experience. In different lifetimes, or even in different moments of our current lives, our souls seek out different experiences as transition paths even if all paths eventually lead to the same. To deny ourselves what our hearts really desire is to deny the potential growth we can experience through these.

To me, the perfect scenario is the one in which I can experience deep connection and intimacy that only certain types of relationships can bring, as well as deep connection and intimacy with who I really am.

I have a passionate love for my life and for myself. That is not something anyone can take it away from me, nor would I want to be with someone who would ever do so.

However, I do want it all and unapologetically say so.

I love my time alone and my own independence, but I also yearn to experience the depths of love and real intimacy with someone who is courageous enough to dive deeper and deeper together.

Someone once said that it’s similar to a child growing up. When she experiences the security and love of her caregiver, she is then ready to experience the adventure of exploring the world around her. But if she has unfulfilled needs, her growth is stunted as she seeks out other ways to experience the security that she needs in that phase of her growth.

Different experiences in different moments of our journeys provide unique enrichment and growth to our souls.

Myth #3 — We have to be completely independent in relationships

In relationships, there are three types of dependencies we can form with others: codependency, interdependency, and hyperindependency.

Somehow, the first one is often romanticized by stories and movies, while the last one is often propagated as a healthy way to keep our own sense of identity, especially alongside myth #2.

However, overemphasizing our independence in relationships is often a sign of being afraid of vulnerability. In Attachment Theory, Avoidants tend to be very independent as they are afraid of losing control and being disappointed if they ever trust themselves to someone else.

Trusting someone else by saying that we need them at any moment of our lives can be scary. It can feel weak. But it is actually something really courageous to do, as we finally unapologetically own up to our real needs and desire for connection, and let go of our walls around our hearts.

We all depend on someone else in different moments in our lives, whether in romantic relationships or not. Because as human beings, we often desire connection and need to be heard and cared for by our loved ones.

Codependency is when we stay in relationships that don’t acknowledge our needs for being afraid of being alone. Hyperdependency is not acknowledging our needs for being afraid of getting hurt. Interdependency is when we acknowledge and honor each other’s need while having healthy boundaries.

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Previously Published on medium

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