I've never been married, and I've never had a relationship that lasted for more than a few months. But one thing that has been consistent for me is hearing what people with successful relationships imply about relationships, which is that a good relationship doesn't look anything like our cultural narrative of relationships says it's supposed to.
You can hear this in statements like "relationships take compromise" and "relationships are work" and "the attraction wears off after two years." These statements indicate that these people's expectations were violated: they did not expect relationships to require compromise, the did not expect relationships to require work, and they expected that that the happy love chemicals would last forever.
So why do people consistently have such unrealistic expectations? Why do people continue to believe in such a romantic and idealized view of relationships in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary?
From these violated expectations, we can extract the cultural narrative of relationships: you meet someone, you "fall in love," you complete each other, and you live happily ever after without the need for compromise or work, and the happy love chemicals will last forever. You will be "together forever."
Of course, we all know that this narrative is wrong. But most people still believe it and still live their lives as if it is true. Why?
I have a hypothesis, based on my recent acquaintance with Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death. Becker speaks of the "Romantic Solution" to the problem of mortality. We fear death and yearn for immortality, and so one popular "immortality project" is to find a romantic partner in hopes of finding salvation and redemption from death through eternal love with this partner. But of course, when our mortal partner is unable to provide us with the immortality we yearn for, we become disillusioned and we decide we must have chosen the wrong partner, so we begin a new search for a romance that can save us from death.
So this persistent cultural narrative that just won't die - the narrative that we meet someone and fall in love and live happily ever after - seems to me to be an immortality project, where people hope that they can achieve immortality and salvation from death through an idyllic relationship with a god/goddess-like romantic partner.
What do you think?
And if you think that this hypothesis is wrong, how do you explain the fact that most romantic relationships fall far short of people's expectations?
You can hear this in statements like "relationships take compromise" and "relationships are work" and "the attraction wears off after two years." These statements indicate that these people's expectations were violated: they did not expect relationships to require compromise, the did not expect relationships to require work, and they expected that that the happy love chemicals would last forever.
So why do people consistently have such unrealistic expectations? Why do people continue to believe in such a romantic and idealized view of relationships in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary?
From these violated expectations, we can extract the cultural narrative of relationships: you meet someone, you "fall in love," you complete each other, and you live happily ever after without the need for compromise or work, and the happy love chemicals will last forever. You will be "together forever."
Of course, we all know that this narrative is wrong. But most people still believe it and still live their lives as if it is true. Why?
I have a hypothesis, based on my recent acquaintance with Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death. Becker speaks of the "Romantic Solution" to the problem of mortality. We fear death and yearn for immortality, and so one popular "immortality project" is to find a romantic partner in hopes of finding salvation and redemption from death through eternal love with this partner. But of course, when our mortal partner is unable to provide us with the immortality we yearn for, we become disillusioned and we decide we must have chosen the wrong partner, so we begin a new search for a romance that can save us from death.
So this persistent cultural narrative that just won't die - the narrative that we meet someone and fall in love and live happily ever after - seems to me to be an immortality project, where people hope that they can achieve immortality and salvation from death through an idyllic relationship with a god/goddess-like romantic partner.
What do you think?
And if you think that this hypothesis is wrong, how do you explain the fact that most romantic relationships fall far short of people's expectations?
