"A Relationship Shouldn't Be Hard Work"

The belief that true love should be effortless is contradicted by John Gottman's 40-year study, which found that 70% of marital conflicts are unsolvable and require ongoing compromise. Couples who expect no work report 33% lower relationship satisfaction than those who embrace deliberate maintenance, such as weekly check-ins. This ideal misleads partners into abandoning relationships at the first sign of difficulty, making it more harmful than the average romantic notion. As noted by #9, it ignores that happy couples invest an average of 6 hours per week in relationship maintenance, outperforming the effortless model by a 40% margin in longevity.