Why do so many people expect love relationships to be perfect?

We’ve seen too many movies, that’s why.

Ideas about “soul mates”, “perfect partners”, rose-colored glasses. There are almost as many reasons for this nonsense as there are couples.

I don’t think there is a perfect match anywhere. But if you don’t like someone well…

I am seeing someone who really couldn’t be any different from me, but I like who he is. I don’t want him to be someone else. Perfect, no. Makes me happy, yes.

Because they are perfect?

Because love is romanticized. It is mythical.

Many people are taught to want their life to be special and perfect.

They will be sadly disappointed. Just like Sandra Bullock was.

Heck if you are going to invest time, money and effort into anything you want it to be just right No? But in relationships there are the unknowns and that rascally Father Time who changes things on you. So how can something so fluid in it’s nature be absolutely perfect more than a brief moment in time?? For the record I do think you do find that one person who is as close to being perfect for you. ;)

Indeed. I often wonder this myself. Many seem to think that real life relationships are as they’re defined in books and movies.
I got this theory that pairing up is no more significant than the reason animals do, which is to procreate the human race, but nobody wants to hear about that so I’ll stfu. Still, ever wonder why so many relationships end up in ruin, why marriage is more defined by divorce than the years of happiness we account it to, and why does child support exist so much haha.

Maybe it’s because my standards are too low or I’m too cynical, but the few relationships I’ve had were great and are worth remembering. Mostly because I didn’t know how it would end up, and while I may have percieved certain elements of it for things other than what they were, it’s all experience, knowing someone and growing and all that sappy crap.

Sure sometimes it’s bad, some people end up with abusive partners and it just shouldn’t happen, but I’m thinking that if the Titanic love story wasn’t the only tragedy one may envision, people may perhaps be better prepared…of course, I’m of the mind that you can’t know what it’s like until you go through it…which is kinda the point.

Good or bad, it’s never perfect.

Maybe my mentality sucks, but I’m one of the few people I know who broke up with her boyfriend but somehow, we didn’t end up hating one another’s guts.

I don’t expect perfection. Fidelity, commitment, respect, mutual sharing and affection, yes. Perfection, not at all.

love doesn’t exist.

@Jayy You make your own world

they’re idiots?

My parents never had a good relationship and so I think I expect it to be perfect because I think every little thing means we’re turning into my parents. It’s a combination of my personality and that, so I tend to be hyper-sensitive to mistakes.

I think your perfect match may be different when you are 20 and when your are 50. When you are older you have so much life experience that you no longer would be perfect with someone with much less. I think people can find a person with whom they connect and work out all of the minutia of their pasts and grow together from that point. There’s little perfect in the world, but happening upon a person with whom you want to share your life comes close, whether you are 18 or 70.

I think people expect their “true love”, and the one person they finally settle down with, to be bigger and better than all the other people that they already put up with. Just like we expect our family to be better than good friends, even though that isn’t always the case. Our true love is put up on a pedestal, and we’re waiting for someone worthy of such praise.

Love is supposed to be perfect because it’s this mythical mantle that supposedly has a mind of its own and will magically unite us with someone perfect.

It’s often cited that love is about compromise, and it often is. Love is about caring for someone through thick and through thin, not avoiding thick and thin and all the other tests life can put on a relationship. If you’re not in it for the long haul, you’re not in it at all.

With a relationship comes its drama, big and small. Sometimes people get in huge arguments over stupid, trivial little things, and sometimes it’s over some of life’s most important decisions. Part of being in love is knowing that after the dust settles on the battlefield that you still care for that person and you’re there for them, no matter what the outcome is.

And none of this can exist alongside “perfection”.

they expect it because they want it that badly.
who wouldnt?

I’m going with what @Trillian wrote.

False hopes.

@thriftymaid maybe not so much different as you’d think. When I was 20 I wanted a 20-year-old partner. Now that I’m in my 50s… I still want a 20-year-old.

I’m a dog; what can I say? An honest dog, anyway.

That was a great article. I was going to recommend it to you before I read the descriptive part of your question :). I think there are two reasons for the inflated expectations:

1. In American culture, people tend to focus all their energy on that one romantic relationship, often to the exclusion of friendships that they actively participated in prior to the relationship. Expecting one person to meet all of one’s emotional needs is a recipe for disappointment.

2. Americans have a consumer mindset. As a result, they approach mate selection in the same way that they approach buying and owning a car. If they’re unhappy with their current model, they just trade up for a “better one”. This process becomes an endless cycle, because in this world, there’s no such thing as perfection, whether the thing in question is a car or a spouse.

@CyanoticWasp You said enough. I suppose people define partner in different ways.

Because they have this imperfect expectation.