CATEGORY: Relationships

Why Have Relationships Become So Difficult?

It’s a question I hear often. I hear it in my office, during sessions, but also in conversations with friends. Sometimes it’s phrased exactly like that, and other times a little differently: “Why is it so hard to meet someone these days?”, “Why don’t relationships last?”, “Why does everyone want a relationship, yet no one seems willing to truly be in one?”

And every time, that question gets me thinking.

So today, I decided to give my own answer. Not as an absolute truth — I don’t think there is one single answer. These are simply thoughts that have taken shape through personal experience, through what I’ve heard over the years in my sessions, through my reading of the literature, and through my own way of observing people and relationships.

And the more I think about it, the more I wonder: maybe relationships aren’t the only thing that has changed. Maybe we’ve also changed the way we enter them.

Perhaps we approach relationships a little differently today. We want to love and be loved — I don’t think that has changed. We want someone to share our life with, someone to laugh with, travel with, someone we can come home to at the end of the day and say, “You won’t believe what happened today.” We want intimacy, companionship, romance. We want to feel that we matter to someone.

And yet, at the same time, we seem to have become far more cautious about everything that intimacy requires.

We want to get close, but we’re afraid of getting hurt. We want to let go, but not so much that we lose control. We want to trust, but we also keep a small, safe distance. We want someone in our life, but we want to be certain that if they leave tomorrow, we’ll still be okay.

And I don’t say this critically. I understand it. As we grow older, we carry our experiences with us. A breakup that hurt us, a betrayal, a rejection, a relationship in which we gave more than we received. Even things we’ve watched happen to people around us. Somewhere along the way, we learn to be careful.

But there’s a contradiction here that keeps coming back to me: how can you truly get close to someone if part of you is constantly on guard, trying not to get hurt?

And perhaps this is where part of the difficulty begins. A relationship cannot promise us from the start that we won’t get hurt. It cannot guarantee that it will last, that the other person won’t change, that we won’t change, or that everything will unfold the way we imagined.

And today, I sometimes feel that we really like guarantees.

But people don’t come with guarantees.

One of the first things that comes to mind is how much the way we meet people has changed. Never before have we had so many opportunities to meet someone. We’re no longer limited to the person we might meet through work, a group of friends, a night out, or someone we both know. Within minutes, we can see dozens of people who, theoretically at least, could become our next partner.

And this is where I start to wonder. Have all these choices actually made us freer, or have they made choosing more difficult?

Because when you know there might be someone else behind the next screen, and then someone else after that, it’s easy to start wondering whether it’s worth staying a little longer with the person already in front of you. If something doesn’t appeal to you, if the first date wasn’t exciting, if they didn’t reply the way you expected, if some small incompatibility appears, there is always the thought that perhaps the next person will be better.

I don’t believe that having many choices is necessarily a bad thing. It has given us possibilities that previous generations didn’t have and allowed us to meet people we might otherwise never have encountered. But I do wonder whether, along with that freedom, a new difficulty has emerged: choosing one person without constantly wondering who else might be out there.

Because at some point, if you really want to get to know someone, you have to stop looking around for a while and look at the person in front of you.

And perhaps there has been another change too. We’ve become very quick to assess people. One first meeting, a few messages, a coffee, and we’re already trying to decide: Are they right for me or not? Is this going somewhere or not? Is there chemistry or not?

Of course, there are things we can see from the beginning, and it’s important that we do. There are behaviours that bother us, values that don’t align with ours, ways of relating that don’t make us feel good. I’m not suggesting that we ignore what we see or persist with a connection we don’t want.

But I do wonder whether sometimes we don’t give the other person enough time to unfold.

Because a person is not the first impression they made on us. Maybe they were nervous on the first date. Maybe they didn’t come up with the cleverest line. Maybe there were those awkward silences when neither person knows what to do with their hands and suddenly the glass of water becomes incredibly interesting. Maybe two people simply need a little time before they can feel comfortable with each other.

And I find it strange: on the one hand, we say we want something meaningful, and on the other, we often expect to recognise it almost immediately.

But intimacy isn’t instant. It is built. It takes meetings, conversations, small revelations, time. It takes seeing the other person when they’re happy, when they’re tired, when something isn’t going well, when they disagree with you. And allowing them to know you beyond the best version of yourself that, more or less, we all present at the beginning.

So perhaps, in a world that has taught us to decide quickly, one of the greatest difficulties in relationships is something very simple: people still need time.

And then there’s something else. Do we perhaps expect relationships — and people — to be a little more perfect than they can possibly be?

We want someone who is tender, but not overly sensitive. Confident, but not controlling. Independent, but available when we need them. We want them to have a life of their own, but also to make time for us. To communicate, to express themselves, to listen, to have a sense of humour, to attract us, to understand us. And, of course, there has to be chemistry.

All of that is perfectly reasonable. No one needs to choose someone who isn’t right for them. But sometimes I wonder where what we genuinely need from a relationship ends and where the expectation of finding someone who will never make things difficult for us begins.

Because the person who comes close to us will also have things we don’t like. Habits that annoy us. Opinions we disagree with. Days when they’re not particularly pleasant to be around. They may forget something that mattered to us, fail to pick up on a hint, need more space when we want more closeness. And, of course, we will do exactly the same to them.

Somewhere along the way, I think we sometimes confuse two very different things: “This isn’t good for me” and “This person doesn’t always do what I would like them to do.”

And that difference matters. A relationship that hurts us, belittles us, or violates our boundaries is one thing. A relationship in which two different people are trying to find a way to live and grow together is another. Disagreement doesn’t necessarily mean incompatibility. Disappointment doesn’t always mean we chose the wrong person. And a difficult conversation doesn’t mean the relationship is wrong.

Perhaps real intimacy begins precisely when the image of the “perfect” person starts to fade and a real human being appears in front of us. With their beautiful qualities, their difficult ones, their contradictions and their imperfections.

And then the real question becomes not “Are they perfect for me?” but “Can we be good together as we truly are?”

I also think about how much the language we use to talk about relationships has changed. Red flags, green flags, ghosting, situationships, attachment styles, toxic, narcissist. Words and concepts that, only a few years ago, most people didn’t even use have now become part of our everyday conversations.

And to a large extent, that’s a good thing. We’ve learned to recognise behaviours that hurt us, to talk more openly about our boundaries, to understand that we don’t have to tolerate everything in the name of a relationship. We’ve found words for experiences we may once have felt but didn’t know how to describe.

But I wonder whether, somewhere along the way, we also started using those words a little too quickly.

Someone didn’t respond the way we expected? Red flag. They pulled away? Avoidant. They talked too much about themselves? Narcissist. A relationship was difficult? Toxic. Someone asked for more space? “Commitment issues.”

And just like that, one word can become someone’s entire identity.

I’m not saying that abusive behaviours, serious dysfunction, or people we genuinely need to distance ourselves from don’t exist. Of course they do. Nor am I saying we should ignore signs that concern us. But I do think there is an important difference between noticing a behaviour and deciding, based on that behaviour alone, who the person in front of us is.

Perhaps we’ve become very good at recognising red flags, but I’m not sure we’ve become equally good at staying a little longer, asking questions, listening, and trying to understand what is actually happening between two people.

Because sometimes what we quickly label a “red flag” really is a serious warning sign. But other times, there may simply be a person who is different from us.

And learning to tell the difference may be far more important than finding the right label.

There’s something else I often think about too: how difficult it has become to show that we care.

Because for a real relationship to develop, at some point you have to make yourself vulnerable. You have to say, “I miss you,” “What happened hurt me,” “I want to see you,” “I need you,” “I’m afraid I might lose you.” You have to admit that this person has started to matter to you.

And that’s where things become difficult. Because the more someone matters to us, the more power they have — without even intending to — to hurt us. What if I say “I miss you” and they don’t miss me? What if I say “I want to be with you” and they don’t want the same thing? What if I show how much I care and, in the end, they leave?

So quite often, we choose the safer option. We wait before replying to a message so it doesn’t look as though we were waiting for it. We don’t call, even though we want to. We don’t say that we were jealous, afraid, or hurt. We try to appear more indifferent than we really are.

And here I find myself wondering: how can two people get closer when each of them is waiting for the other to make the first move?

Perhaps we’ve come to associate vulnerability with weakness. As though the person who says “I want you in my life” first somehow loses a little of their power. And yet, I don’t know whether genuine intimacy can exist without that small moment of vulnerability. At some point, someone has to lower their guard and show what they really feel.

Of course, there’s a risk in that. We may not get the answer we hoped for. We may be disappointed. We may even get hurt.

But I also think about the opposite: how many relationships never had the chance to become relationships because two people were so busy protecting themselves that neither dared to show the other how much they really wanted them?

And then another question comes to mind. Maybe relationships haven’t simply become more difficult. Maybe we also expect much more from them.

In the past, for many people, a relationship or marriage had a much more clearly defined role. To start a family, have children, build a home, share the responsibilities of life. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t love or passion. But perhaps there wasn’t the expectation that one person should fulfil so many different roles in our lives.

Today, we want much more. We want a partner, a lover, a friend. We want to be able to talk for hours but also enjoy being together in silence. We want passion and security, stability without routine, closeness and personal space. We want someone to support us without restricting us, to understand us without needing everything explained every time, to grow alongside us while somehow remaining the person we originally fell in love with.

And as I write all of that, I think: that’s quite a lot.

I don’t think it’s wrong to expect more from our relationships. Quite the opposite. Many of these things are worth having in a loving relationship. But perhaps we also need to recognise that the more needs and expectations we place within one relationship, the more demanding it becomes to sustain it.

Because the person beside us is still just one person. They won’t always be able to understand us. They won’t be available every moment. They won’t meet every need we have, and they won’t always grow at exactly the same pace as we do. Just as we won’t be able to be all of those things for them.

So perhaps part of the difficulty lies here too: we ask relationships to give us more than ever before, while at the same time finding it increasingly difficult to accept that no relationship can give us everything.

And that doesn’t mean we should ask for less.

Perhaps it means learning to distinguish more clearly between what truly matters to us, what we can build together with another person, and what it isn’t fair to expect to find entirely within them.

And somewhere here, I return to the question I started with. Why have relationships become so difficult?

Perhaps because today we have more choices, yet find it harder to choose. We know more clearly what we don’t want, but sometimes we’re not equally sure about what we do want. We’ve learned to recognise behaviours, to set boundaries, to protect ourselves. And rightly so. But along with all of that, perhaps we need to remember something else: a relationship isn’t built only by knowing when to leave. It is also built by knowing when it is worth staying.

Staying a little longer in a difficult conversation. Asking instead of assuming. Saying “that hurt me” instead of pulling away. Accepting that the other person won’t always react the way we would. Allowing someone not to be perfect, without, of course, allowing them to hurt us. And perhaps the hardest thing of all, allowing ourselves to be seen as we truly are.

Because no matter how much times change, how we meet changes, or the words we use change, something very basic about relationships remains the same: two people are trying to move closer to one another without knowing in advance where it will lead them.

And perhaps that is where both their beauty and their difficulty lie.

Maybe, then, the problem isn’t that we’ve stopped wanting love. We still want it. We search for it, talk about it, dream about it. We want someone to truly know us and stay. But alongside that desire, we also carry all the ways we’ve learned to protect ourselves from getting hurt.

We hold a little of ourselves back. We observe, assess, look for signs, try to work out early on whether something might go wrong. And perhaps sometimes, in our attempt to protect ourselves from possible disappointment, we end up protecting ourselves from the very intimacy we want so much.

And that leaves me with one final thought.

Have we, perhaps, learned more about protecting ourselves than about loving?