Debunking the Myths of Connection in Relationships: Self, Family, and Partner

Last week, we explored myths about emotions that could be keeping you stuck when it comes to regulating your emotions. This week, we’re diving into myths about connection—those hidden beliefs that might be making it harder to feel close to yourself, your family, and your partner. By understanding these myths, I hope that you’ll feel more in control of your emotions and relationships, and more connected to yourself and others.

As an attachment therapist, I like to think of “connection” as existing on three distinct planes: connection with Self, connection with a parent or child, and connection with a life partner. In this post, I’ll break down each category, explore common myths, and share practical ways to deepen those connections. If you’ve followed my TikTok series “What Even Is Family Therapy?” you’ll know that I often talk about the flow of responsibility in relationships, especially between parents and children. We’ll only scratch the surface here, but I encourage you to check out the series if you want a deeper dive!

Connection Myths I Commonly Encounter With Couples

1. If they really cared about me, they would know how this makes me feel/what I need in this moment

   
   

   The hard and sad truth of believing a myth like this one is that you likely have spent a lot of energy and time in your past working to understand someone's needs or feelings with it not being safe to directly ask them. Often, a child adapts to an emotionally unstable parent by learning to anticipate how that parent feels in any given moment, and what that parent needs to be regulated. This is done so that the child can have some sense of controlling for their own well-being and safety since this parent was unable to consistently provide for their emotional needs.

   
   

   The truth is, your partner can only know how you feel and what you need if you tell them. While your partner is responsible for meeting your emotional needs, you are also responsible for communicating them! It does not mean your partner loves you less or sees you as not special, take pride in the vulnerability that the two of you can hold by sharing feelings and needs.
   

2. Getting sexually rejected by my partner means that they do not desire me

   
   

   It makes all the sense in the world to feel undesired by your partner if they decline your bid to connect sexually, AND, 9/10 times, this actually comes from your partner having unmet needs to support them sexually connecting with you. Having open conversations about the type of sex drive you have (spontaneous vs reactive) and what you need to support that sex drive will go a very long way for you guys! At the end of the day, I want to protect couples from taking rejection personally, especially when it's typically a matter of needing to make fine tune adjustments to communication strategies around sex and intimacy.
   

3. It is not okay if my partner is upset with me and I must fix it immediately

   
   

   One of my favorite things to do with couples is to help them establish safety with anger, and safety with sadness. Fear often has us believing that if our partner is any emotion other than happy, that they will leave us or that it is our fault that they are experiencing xyz emotion. This then tends to make folks become very afraid of their partner feeling anything but happy, and they will anxiously work to try to change their partner's mood state. But the truth is, there can be relational safety with anger, and relational safety with sadness. It is a transformative act of healing to shed people pleasing tendencies and other trauma patterns that have you believing anything but happiness is a threat to the relationship.
   

4. If my partner is unhappy, it's my fault

   
   

   We basically address this myth in number 3, but I see this so often that I feel it warrants it's own category! Essentially, many folks will take responsibility where it is not there's to take. This can be a very clever strategy to make us feel like we have more control in a situation that otherwise may make us feel a bit helpless or powerless. At the end of the day, it is not your job to change your partner's mood state, and it can be scary for a partner to be going through a depressive episode, or going through a season of high stress at their job, etc. and it is typically not your fault nor your responsibility (you do have a responsibility to tend to their emotional needs, but you are not responsible for managing their mood states).
   

5. Love should be easy

   
   

   If only! If true vulnerability and growth is occurring, "easy," is typically not part of that process. Shame is an active process, and I believe love is too. Love is actively choosing to be vulnerable, choosing to risk being rejected, choosing to pour yourself into meeting someone else's emotional needs and daring to share your own... it challenges you to be the highest version of yourself, and to support another person become the highest version of their Self. Perhaps there are easy moments, like being able to laugh together or hold space together, but the whole of it is likely not going to be easy. Worth it? yes! Easy, probably not.

   
   
   
   

   Common Connection Myths I Encounter in Family Therapy

   
   

   1. It's in the past, so my child should just let it go

   
   

   Parents have the very important and specialized job of co-creating their child's identity. So an injury between a parent and a child is going to impact the child significantly differently than an injury between your child and their peers, teacher, grandparents, etc. It is to your child's benefit for you to understand how that event in the past hurt them

   
   

   2. It's in the past, there's nothing I can do now

   
   

   Yes and no. It's in the past, so no, you cannot change the past, however, the pain continues to live in them right now. In this present moment, you have the power to help release your child from the pain of that past moment. You likely didn't know you needed to step up in a specific way for your child back then, or perhaps you lacked the tools to step up in the way you knew they needed, but what will you do now that you know? Now that you have access to more tools than before? This matters.

   
   

   3. My child is an adult, why do I have to be the one to apologize when they were so hard to raise

   Parenthood is vastly an unfair experience. It is not fair that you had to raise children during the 2008 crash, that you had to raise children when you were battling cancer, that you had to raise children with special needs or high emotionality. AND, you choose to become a parent and that means for as long as they are alive, you possess a certain level of responsibility. Leading the example of what it looks like to initiate repair is one of those parental responsibilities that just sucks and doesn't feel fair, and, it is still your job. Parenthood being unfair is one of the 10,000 reasons why I am a staunch believer in that parents need support!

   
   

   4. My child should appreciate me

   
   

   Notice that this is an inherently shaming believe (re: "should"). Beliefs like this tend to come from the emotional need of reassurance that you are in fact, a good parent. The emotional need for reassurance is a wonderfully valid need! And, it should be directed towards a significant other, co-parent, your own parent, a best friend, etc. and not your child. Your child is not responsible for meeting your emotional needs, and if they are given that responsibility, that is called "parentification," and it can make them emotionally, socially and medically unwell.

   
   

   5. If my child asks to do family therapy, it's because they want to shame me

   
   

   An alarming truth is that the parent-Adult Child relationship is optional. Meaning, your adult child can survive without you, in comparison to when they were 6,7,8 years old, they needed to remain connected to you in order to stay alive. So if your adult child is asking you to join family therapy, it is because they are actively choosing to do the hard work of building a healthier relationship with you so that they can feel closer and more connected to you. This is a great thing!!

   
   
   
   

   Connection Myths in Your Relationship With Yourself

   
   

   1. I'm broken beyond repair

   
   

   It is pretty common to wonder if you have been broken to a point that is beyond healing. If you are wondering this, this is a cue that you are likely in a traumatized headspace where someone has seeded this belief in you (usually in an effort to control you, since adopting this belief makes people feel incredibly powerless). You are not "too broken." You are hurting, and you actually tend to hurt in a way that follows a predictable pattern. This is what you will target in therapy.

   
   

   2. I don't remember a particular traumatic event/my childhood, etc. thus, I won't be able to heal from it

   
   

   There are ways to promote healing without having to work with the memory, and that is because major painful events impact the way we organize our Self. This is what can then be targeted in therapy, assuming your therapist is trained to do this kind of work! If you're unsure if they are trained for this, ask them.

   
   

   3. You have to truly love your Self in order to love someone else

   
   

   Oh goodness, this one is a bit complex. What I have seen is that meeting an emotionally safe partner who you fall in love with can help you heal your relationship with your Self as you end up internalizing their love. I would say this phenomenon appears to be "dose dependent," though. For instance, if you have a moderate amount of self-loathing, this may work; however, if you are a largely self-loathing person, you may end up just shaming yourself for not internalizing their love and you two are a bit like lone islands with each other since you cannot truly take in their love, and your self-loathing blocks them from being fully connected to you. In this instance, individual therapy will go along way in conjunction with couples therapy.

   4. If I just think positively, then I will feel positively

   
   

   Maybe! Or you just end up reinforcing an emotional neglect wound by deeming your "negative," emotions as "bad." This is a good place to explore your relationship with what I prefer to call "unwanted," emotions such as anger and sadness.

   
   

   5. In order to connect to your Self, you need to do it alone

   
   

   A lot of folks with avoidant attachment feel this way. You can absolutely connect to your Self while alone, but it is not a pre-requisite! Trusted Others can act like a mirror for you to see your Self more clearly, and thus this promotes connection to Self while you are actively connected to another person. This is actually one of the beautiful hallmarks of a secure relationship!

   
   
   
   

Connection is the foundation of our emotional well-being, and it extends across three key areas: Self, family, and partnership. Myths about connection can make it harder to navigate these relationships, but understanding and debunking them opens the door to growth and healing.

If any of these myths resonated with you, I encourage you to take a small step today—whether it’s having an honest conversation with a partner, acknowledging an emotion you’ve been avoiding, or reflecting on how past experiences have shaped your relationships.

Remember, connection isn’t about perfection. It’s about showing up with courage, vulnerability, and the willingness to grow. Let’s keep the conversation going—check out my TikTok series for more insights, and join me here next week as we dive even deeper into the complexities of how your attachment styles influence the ways you respond to connection!