Why Romanticism is Disastrous

Nov 2024

Falling in love can be one of the most spontaneous yet insulting experiences people go through. It feels natural, driven by a pure internal power to care for someone and be cared for. For this reason, it might feel counterintuitive to attribute some of that force to a historical movement. It’s unsettling to think that society has been shaping how we love and how we are loved. Yet, throughout history, the ways people formed relationships varied immensely.
People married for different reasons and in different ways. A marriage could be arranged over a piece of land. A conflict between two tribes could be resolved, forging an alliance through marriage. A family bloodline could be preserved through in-family unions. Or, in some cultures, men got—and still get—married through arrangements made by their mothers, who search for suitable options locally. Marriage was often a logical, pragmatic decision, yet these rational choices led to many relationship struggles—loneliness, infidelity, and emotional detachment.
In the 18th century, a movement emerged to spare us from such hardships. The Romanticism movement took shape through poetry and literature, as poets sought to rescue love from the cold, transactional nature of marriage. However, this shift also created problematic expectations within relationships. The idea that instinctual feelings should be the primary driving force behind our choice of a partner has placed immense pressure on both us and our relationships.
No two relationships follow an identical template, yet Romanticism introduced broad assumptions that still influence modern love:

• Romanticism is very hopeful about marriage. It assumes that the love that begins with passion will always endure. It fused love with marriage, giving rise to the idea of a lifelong, passionate union.
• Romanticism united love and sex. It elevated sex as the supreme expression of love, making exceptional intimacy a key indicator of a healthy relationship. As a result, relationships that lack constant sexual fulfillment are seen as fundamentally flawed.
• Romanticism promised that love cures loneliness and that our partner should understand us effortlessly, without the need for communication. It suggests that true love comes with an intuitive, mutual understanding—implying that if we struggle to connect, our relationship is inherently lacking.
• Romanticism equated love with total acceptance. It taught us that we should delight in our partner exactly as they are, making the idea of wanting them to change feel like a betrayal. At the same time, it diminished the space for human error and personal growth within a relationship.

These assumptions create an unrealistic ideal of how relationships should function. We don’t view romantic relationships as evolving projects that require maintenance, improvement, and, at times, rebuilding from the ground up.
The modern script of love is delusional. To be considered "normal," a relationship is expected to meet the following criteria:

• We should meet an exceptional person with both internal and external beauty, feel an immediate, special attraction, and they should feel the same toward us.
• Sex should be consistently passionate and fulfilling.
• We should never feel attraction toward anyone else, emotionally or physically.
• We should intuitively understand each other.
• We should be able to raise a family without losing emotional or sexual intensity.

Understanding the history and flawed assumptions of Romanticism can be a source of comfort. It relieves us of the burden of self-blame when things don’t work out in a marriage or relationship. It teaches us that love is not an effortless, mystical force but a complex skill—one that must be learned, nurtured, and continuously worked on. By recognizing this, we set ourselves on a path to seek wisdom in how to truly be with someone.