Many individuals and couples come into therapy with a similar relationship complaint: being married isn’t what they expected. More specifically, the reality of marriage is not aligned with their fantasies of marriage.

It’s nice to have fantasies. They give us goals, the drive to achieve, hope, desire, and more. However, when we expect that reality is going to match our fantasies, disappointment results when the picture we painted in our minds doesn’t come true. If our fantasies are unrealistic, even good, positively-functioning relationships can be experienced as bad, negative, and disappointing.

How many times have we heard the cliche, “The grass is always greener on the other side?” While the overuse of this phrase has mostly dulled its impact, people who experience the “grass is greener syndrome” endure a significant struggle with commitment.

What causes this issue?

The hallmark of the “grass is greener syndrome” is the idea that there is always something better that we are missing. So rather than experiencing stability, security, and satisfaction in the present environment, the feeling is there is more and better elsewhere, and anything less than ideal won’t do. Whether it’s with relationships, careers, or where you live, there is always one foot out the door.

Once upon a time, there was this decade known as the 1950′s. In this time, women were mostly viewed as housewives. Husbands went to work, and wives stayed at home, raised the children, and kept the house up — laundry, cleaning, cooking, running the necessary errands, etc.

The clear gender roles were that the man works at a paying job and provides financially for the family, and the woman stays at home and makes sure everything in the home and with the children is taken care of. This was the “societal norm” at the time. However this setup tended to devalue the capabilities of women, and empower men, which set up a power hierarchy in the family (based on income).

Fast-forward to the present, and we have a world where a one-income family is rare, both parents generally work, the children are commonly cared for by nannies or other forms of child care, and the home is kept whenever there is time to make it happen, or by hiring outside help.

Everybody in a relationship has moments of feeling frustrated, aggravated, or angry at their partner. While this is common, unleashing emotions towards our partners is not a healthy behavior, and repeated arguments can be corrosive for a relationship.

When you feel angry at your partner, here are some ways to calm yourself before it gets out of hand:

Over the years, there’s become increasing awareness about how movies impact the expectations people have for their relationships. While our real life experiences as children set the stage psychologically (subconsciously) for future relationships, movies have a way of portraying and reinforcing society’s “standards” for what a relationship “should” look like. Unfortunately, movies generally paint a picture of relationships that is viewed as consciously ideal and is mostly unrealistic, leaving people frustrated that they’re not in a relationship like the ones they see on the big screen.

Here are some differences between relationships in the movies, and real life relationships:

Stress is rarely something experienced as enjoyable, even if some people thrive on it. Unfortunately, stress is nearly inevitable, especially in today’s world. What people often don’t realize is that we have all the resources we need to be able to reduce stress. The challenge is to learn how to identify and use these resources.

Before being able to implement stress reduction techniques, we have to be able to recognize signs of stress. Some symptoms are more obvious than others. The more specifically we can understand our triggers — for example, not just knowing that work causes stress, but knowing what specifically in our work causes stress — the more we can do to prepare for stress, and ultimately reduce or prevent it altogether.

Rebound relationships can be quite intense. It’s often the case that the longer the previous relationship, the more intense the rebound. Why does this happen?

Rebounds have a lot to do with our attachment makeup (based on early life development). To create a visual, imagine for a second that you have a bunch of strings coming out of you — each string representing a type of need based on our attachment type. When in a relationship, most or all of these strings are attached to our significant others (like a plug into an outlet). When we make this connection, our partner essentially soothes our attachment needs by being the recipient of these strings.

When going through a breakup, it’s a form of emotional crisis. Even if we weren’t happy in our relationship, there’s an overarching feeling of being grounded in the sense that our attachment needs are being soothed. The longer the relationship, the stronger the “strings” become, and the more unconsciously dependent they become on this other “object” (our partner) to maintain this connection. So, when the strings are suddenly pulled away from our mate, we suddenly end up with these emotional strings aimlessly flying around in the wind waiting to attach to someone. It can feel similar to breaking a long-term addiction all at once — there’s generally no weaning process in a breakup. (It has been said that love is a form of addiction).

Sex in relationships is not always easy to maintain. Many things get in the way, from creating time for intimacy, to our own emotional issues that block intimacy, to issues in the relationship. It would take an entire book to discuss all the possible obstacles that could come between a couple and a healthy sex life, so rather than do this, let’s go right to some possible solutions.

There are many things couples can do to improve the state of their sexual relationship. The suggestions I’m presenting here are intended to cover a range of possible obstacles couples run into.

Here are seven suggestions to help get your sex life back on track:

It depends.

People respond to a partner’s affair in different ways, depending on personal values. Some may respond by immediately leaving the relationship without looking back. Some may believe in the concept of working through adversity together and seeing if they can make it through as a stronger couple. Some may believe that the family is paramount (especially when children are involved) and want to work things out for the sake of the family staying together. And so on.

No matter the personal value systems at play, a relationship can survive an affair only if both partners actively want it to. If only one partner is interested in fighting for the relationship, it will be a frustrating uphill battle that can have compounding negative effects (e.g. lowered self-esteem and self-worth).

Money can be a touchy topic in relationships, whether you have a little bit or a whole lot. How we handle money is usually related to a deeper emotional issue, rather than strictly a financial issue. Our personal relationship with money creates the foundation for how we handle finances in our significant relationships. And when our partners don’t share the same type of relationship with money as we do, money-handling can cause tension and disagreements, possibly leading to resentment and even breakups, if the issues persist.

It’s common that both partners may not agree about money-handling, but it’s possible to compromise. The trouble generally starts either when financial guidelines in the relationship haven’t been established — so there are no boundaries for handling money; or when guidelines are established, but the boundaries are crossed without discussion or agreement.

One of the biggest areas of conflict I hear in couples therapy is the idea that one wants to put money away for the future, while the other wants to live in the present and stop saving so much. While there may be validity to both points of view, these desires are opposite, and therefore will need compromise in order to keep conflict from continuously arising.