Why You Need to Change How You Think About Your Relationship

by Steven Stosny

Psychologytoday.com when falling in love, we ride powerful waves of affection and intimacy. The waves occasionally drive us into the sand of self-doubt and apprehension. Yet we rise again, stronger than ever.
But riding the waves of love is the easy part.

Lots of research shows that love is more effective at bringing us together than keeping us together. You may have heard the saying, “Love is easy; relationships are hard.” The truth is relationships are hard because love is easy.

What makes it so easy is the illusion of certainty.

Strong feelings and sensations of any kind carry an illusion of certainty, i.e., they are self-validating:

If I’m angry, you must be doing something wrong.
If I’m ashamed, you must be rejecting.
… If I’m in love, you must be all that I ever wanted.
With the exception of anger and resentment, no emotional experience has more illusion of certainty than love. Why else would we take on the risk of heartbreak, i.e., disillusionment? The need to feel certain is at least part of the reason that the people we end up resenting the most are those we’ve loved the most.