What goals have you set for your partnership? If it's up to couples therapist Kira Asatryan, you can in any case drop her right away – and her arguments are quite convincing …
Whether at work, in relation to our fitness and health or in a partnership, we set ourselves some goals in almost everything we do. After all, they give us a direction and the necessary motivation to make an effort.
In relationships we have tons of "couple goals" to choose from: Communicate better and more with one another, laugh together more often, just work on keeping the partnership as passionate as it was at the beginning, form a team and pull together, be best friends for each other , "Instagramable" are alive and something is missing? Guaranteed! The list of relationship goals that give us ultimate love happiness – if we achieve them – is a never-ending story.
According to couples therapist and author Kira Asatryan ("The Art of Closeness"), however, we should throw them all overboard. Because relationship goals, as she writes in "Psychologytoday", really do not lead us anywhere. And the reasons she gives for her advice seem at least worth considering.
3 reasons to give up on your relationship goals right away
1. The Analysis Paralysis Problem
As already stated: there are so many relationship goals. And almost every couple actually has several construction sites or at least a need for optimization in different areas. According to the expert, this leads most to wanting to plow everything at the same time, to lose themselves with all the goals and good intentions, and then at some point to feel so overwhelmed that they are ultimately paralyzed and can no longer make any progress. "This phenomenon is often called 'analytical paralysis', I call it 'target fatigue' and it is definitely not a positive experience that you would like to associate with your relationship," says the therapist.
So it means: If we want to change something in our relationship, it's best to do one thing at a time.
2. Relationship goals are often too vague
Most of the resolutions we make to improve our partnership are too vague and abstract, according to Kira. Something like Strengthen bond or Learn to trust or communicate better. None of this is measurable or clearly defined, there is never a fixed arrival point at which we can declare our goal achieved and tick it off. In some cases, this lack of clarity also leads to contradictions and confusion: Does better communication mean, for example, being honest or staying friendly? In a dispute, both can mutually exclude each other and so this goal would leave us disoriented rather than indicating a direction.
So it means: When we set out to do something in our relationship, it should be concrete and measurable. For example "once a day my partner and I talk about how we are feeling".
3. When are we finally there?
According to the therapist, the last and probably biggest problem with relationship goals is that we can never really or objectively achieve them. In contrast to professional goals, which are rewarded with a credit to our account at the end of the month in the event of success, no one gives us a reward in a partnership if, instead of giving our darling the cold shoulder, instead of giving them the cold shoulder, we explain to them why we're angry right now. "Relationship goals are unattainable because the type of reward that comes with them is not quantifiable, not terminable, and not measurable," says Kira, "to call something a goal, there has to be an end point at which the goal is achieved. Relationships, however, are dynamic processes that never end (except in the event of a breakup). "
So it means: Whenever we set a relationship goal, we should define an endpoint for ourselves where we will reward ourselves once we have achieved it. For example, after talking to our darling about our feelings every day for a month, we go to Florence for a weekend together.
Ooo, or instead of specifying and adapting them, we really just throw our relationship goals completely overboard and try the advice that the couple therapist gives us at the end: Appreciate the conflicting, often exhausting back and forth in a relationship and Learning to love – as a balancing act that will hopefully never end.