Why Modern Relationships Fail.

Do you find yourself asking why modern relationships are so hard today? We notice there are so many people failing at love every chance that they get. You have to console your best friend numerous times after she gets her heartbroken or you have to convince your boy there is someone else better out there… but all we are doing is avoiding what is truly right in front of us. Today, in the 21st century, why have we forgotten how to love and what love actually is? In this article, I am going to walk you through what’s going on now in our modern relationship world. It’s my hope that this article will be an eye-opener and really point you in the direction of being active and not giving up hope on love. As always, I would love to hear from you about this article, so please don’t hesitate to leave your question in the comments section below.

In today’s day and age, so many people are not prepared to sacrifice and may not even know what that actually means. We think of love as something that should come easily. Love can be easy, it’s true, but our idea of “easy” is not having to invest our time into making a relationship work because we rarely have to invest our time in life. We want everything to come easily. We might not think that we are quitters when it comes to love, but unfortunately, we are. All it takes is a single challenge to frustrate us and make us give up. We don’t let our love grow; we let it go because we compare it to what social media or the internet supplies us with. We are taught our fears are a way to escape and avoid actually working to bond and form a connection with another person. Then, we erase the chances of forming a relationship because we continue to play games and bask in our own fears. Both people end up losing. We want a relationship without the work or risks involved in a real one. We want the hand-holding for a moment, we want the comfort for a moment, we want the affection for a moment, we want the attention for a moment, but we don’t want the work that is required to build a real relationship.

How the obsession with instant gratification damages modern day relationships…

Ultimately, we live our lives just for that moment without really working towards a clear goal. We should be putting aside the games and stepping up to communicate and act on what we truly want. It’s not love we’re looking for; it’s the chase and the thrill of life for that moment. So many of us want someone to Netflix and chill with but the moment someone opens up and shows us vulnerability and their deepest secrets, we run away. Or we say we aren’t ready because…

Sometimes, when a relationship gets to this point, we still continue to be in that moment for the affection, but we avoid the commitment. We just want to fill the void of affection and attention. We spend time together but we don’t make lasting memories. Then the time spent together is immediately interrupted because one of you found someone else that thrills you, or things got “too heavy,” or you continue to say you’re not ready because ultimately that’s the easy route – giving up on love. We let our fears run our love lives. Then we start to compare our past relationships to our new ones because we think that the old negative patterns and fears will appear again in this new relationship. We don’t want that past relationship, that boring life, or an ex-wife to take all our money or an ex-husband to lay a hand on us. Instead, we say we want a relationship but don’t understand that we put out all the energy into not having a life partner – just someone who can make us feel alive for that moment. The moment the excitement fades, we pick up our phones and find someone else.

We now frown upon predictability instead of seeing it as realness, and this results in fragile relationships. We are now so blinded by instant gratification and we continue to seek thrill and adventure by saying, “She’s too predictable” or “He’s too available”  or “I need space.” Predictability is actually just getting to know someone and there is a true beauty behind just that. We immerse ourselves in a comfortable state and bask in the superficial ways of life so we can still be independent and barricade ourselves from vulnerability. We want to keep chasing love but we don’t want to fall into it. We have friends with benefits, comforting relationships, booty calls, go-with-the-flow relationships, dating for 4 months without commitment relationships, you name it, but these are all just based on convenience. We stick with them until we get a new man or woman flirting with us through text message to give the illusion of attraction and feeling wanted.

We look for instant gratification in everything we do. We are so used to it that it effortlessly plays into our love lives. We just have to ask Siri, plug in our address to a GPS, open up a dating app, post on social media, click one button to have our car parallel park for us, listen to that song we have in our mind by one click on iTunes, tell Alexa to order us milk, use our thumbprints to pass security in the airport, not go to the grocery store because now it can be delivered to your door … We live a life in which human interaction is taken out and we are gratified in an instant. We expect the same thing in our love lives so we get easily distracted.

The way we view relationships today is the problem.

Now we believe in “having options” when in reality this is just a bandage to ignore having to do any real work. We’d rather spend an hour each day with a hundred people via social media than spend a day with one. We meet people but we avoid getting to know who they truly are. We find a flaw and say it won’t work instead of encouraging a partnership to bring out the best in that one person. We want them to be perfect because we can be perfect with a tap of a finger on an app. In modern relationships, we might date a lot of people but rarely give them a real chance. We’re a generation in which sex is easy. We love to “hook up” because we want to feel good. Sex comes easily but loyalty doesn’t. Whatever happened to the thrill in the chase and loving deeper? We are a generation living based off fear of love. We are fearful of falling in love and getting hurt, commitment, being with one person, not being good enough, or getting our hearts broken. We blame someone else for their shortcomings when we need to realize that these are walls we created ourselves. The thought of bearing our soul to someone frightens us and we look at vulnerability as a weakness, so we put up this wall. Vulnerability deeply frightens us, but what we need to recognize is the thing that we truly want… The things that we deeply desire, the things that are generally fulfilling, all require patience, work, energy, compassion, self-love, honesty, time, and trust. The challenge is that we want to be with someone who makes us happy when we haven’t found how to make ourselves truly happy. The easy way out is stating we don’t want a relationship… but at the end of the day we actually really, really do.

The only way to change this is by breaking through and no longer letting people look at vulnerability as something scary. When we stop letting the superficial and instant gratification feelings interfere with what we really want, we will experience a breakthrough. Start to take ownership of who you are and understand that relationships don’t just come at the snap of your fingers. In order to create and form an undeniable bond with someone, you have to connect on a deeper level – A soul level. You can’t get to the soul without getting underneath the distractions. If you find yourself being able to relate to this article, I encourage you to take a step back and look at the ways that you are not making an effort to be the best version of you. What are you scared of and what might be holding you back? During my years of coaching, I’ve been able to take clients to a deeper level of what love and relationships are. I’ve worked with them in order to change their reality and vision one step at a time. I say this because as we grow up, love and relationships are not always taught to us and then we are lost when we come into our adulthood. We end up doing the wrong things or adapting to how society portrays modern relationships, but that’s not the answer. The answer is to look inside and make sure you are being honest with yourself. Allow yourself to be honest and become the best version of yourself that you can be. Pay attention to your behaviors and always work towards self-improvement. Knowing how to love is different than understanding how to love. When you have the true understanding of love, you can start to plant the seed for the tree to finally blossom into something spectacular.

The root of that tree starts with you.

So, let me ask you this.

Can you be vulnerable?

Your Love Coach,

Apollonia Ponti

Apollonia Ponti, an international certified coach and founder of apolloniaponti.com. She works with men to attract the woman they desire, build confidence, master their attraction skills and helps rebuild relationships.

You can find her expert advice on “is she using me”, plus a couple other of your core professional services, through her YouTube Channel, and Attract a Woman E-Book. To get real results with women NOW! Change your life and master your attraction. Book a coaching session here.

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14 Comments

  1. Great article! The point about how relationships have turned to an instant gratification expectation – and how we can change this – rocks!

  2. What are your thoughts on the “pro” single crowd. To have by choice decided against long-relationships relationships, kids, etc) In favor of a lifestyle of freedom, career, travel, more times for friends, hobbies, (and of course I’m assuming random casual sex) The overall meaning if their lives seems to be found in “self” they’ve traded “we” for “me”

    i can understand this type of thinking while we’re young, or older after perhaps having a string of bad relationships. How on earth could ’the idea’ of such things replace what a real warm, loving relationship, with a real inner connection with another person give you. Someone who’s there for you, cares for you. And no, imo, not the same kind of love that a friend or family member can give to you.

    This crowd loves to throw around vague terminology to shoot down relationships, or make ”requirements”.
    I.e. you must be “complete” on your own. Even a good relationship can’ not fulfill your life. Well what the heck is “complete” anyway?

    ”You must be so happy on your own that you won’t need a relationship” .. “If you are in one, the relationship should be viewed as nothing more but icing on the cake, of an already amazing, fufulling life”
    in other words. Don’t need them.

    I however find that the vast majority of us are not wired that way. We have depended on relationships for eons, to bring fulfillment and meaning into our lives, and romantic-commited relationships are a big part of that. To be clear, the best and most Inspiring relationships Ive seen truly make the other a priority. They are #1. They fight for eachother. They miss eachother if apart to long. They share a commitment that means something to them. It would be difficult to imagine a life without eachother. This Is not to say that they don’t do things separately, have friends, spend time alone.

  3. I think this is an accurate observation of modern dating and relationships, but unfortunately, even if one chooses to “buck the trend” does not mean that person will have success finding someone like-minded. As a guy who would prefer to be more vulnerable (and is capable of that), I don’t think it’s really practical to be that way day-to-day, and so it just gets habitually ingrained in you to act more guarded. Some examples: guys at the gym will subtly disrespect you for not being “man enough”, people in business (hiring managers during salary negotiation, boss during workload assignment) will assume you are naive and try to take advantage of you, and some girls will similar to some guys disrespect you or treat you like you’re repulsive for again not being “man enough” just because you are a bit more of a sensitive person. As far as relationships go, I do think a lot of people (at least in the US and other wealthy places like Switzerland or Singapore) are scared off by someone being “too genuine” in the dating context. Just a lot of immaturity from what I have seen (now late 20s). From past experience, some places in Europe and some less wealthy/more traditional places like China, Russia, Mexico, and even Africa have a lot of people who are more down to earth and don’t make such a big deal out of the whole process of getting to know someone; it kind of feels like going back in time 10-15 years.

  4. Impressive article……I hv gone thrgh the same situation in my initial days…..I was depressed n sad.. ..I didn’t know what to do…….m still in dilemna…….really good article……..I can relate……..

  5. Great article. I have trouble showing any vulnerability because I know once a man does that, most modern women find him unattractive and weak. Another thing I must admit is that with the divorce rates so high and people always looking for an easy way out of something, it is a real worry of mine to lose my house and half of my earnings if she just gets tired or bored and wants to leave because she thinks she can find something better. I work too hard to just give away half of what I have. Admittedly I don’t really put myself out there anymore. I’ve never really been one for bars or night clubs. They’re just not my thing and I have a very small circle of friends because I only keep the one’s that are true friends and not just fair weather one’s. So there’s no chance of meeting someone through them. I’ve giving up on dating apps because after being on them several times over many years I’ve realized that a lot of the women on their are either there simply for validation and have no real intent on dating someone they find on the site or they are low quality women who are just looking for someone because they need someone in their lives to help them get by financially. I know that this is not everyone’s experience, but they have been mine and turned me off to online dating. The only answer I’ve been able to come up with is to remain single. It’s not really my first choice, but for me it seems to be the safe choice. I have found happiness in being single and negating the problems a modern relationship brings into one’s life. I just think it kind of stinks to think I’ll never have someone to grow old with, travel with or share life experiences with. I guess this is the price some of us have to pay for living in an easy, everything is instant society. I know that it is on me for not really putting myself out there, but that’s just how I feel after being burned several times. I’ve been cheated on by one or two ex girlfriends and had a few just end the relationship with no real explanation. I guess they just felt like they found something that interested them more. Now in my 40’s I find it harder to trust people. We are a product of our life experiences. I know I’m not alone in this situation and many other people out there must feel similarly as I do. I will always accept at least half the blame for my current lack of dating options, but it does take two to make both good and bad experiences in love.

  6. It is not that most people are bad people. I honestly believe that most people are good. I am simply stating that most people although being good people, are horrible at being good people.

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