Breaking the Mold: How Community Connection Transforms Single Lives Beyond Romance
Meagan A. Culberson & Karina Desroses at the Single Girl Club Wine Tasting
As women, we are taught to place all of our eggs in the proverbial basket of romantic partnership. From the time we are little girls, we are taught that finding our Prince Charming and our happily ever after is what ultimately will complete us. Furthermore, once we find that partner, the expectation is that we’ll maintain this partnership for life.
For centuries, we’ve been bombarded with sociocultural messaging about women's worth being attached to romantic partnerships–specifically with a man. Even accomplished women can struggle with feeling like they lack something just because they aren’t partnered. While romantic love can be beautiful and fulfilling, we have been conditioned to place such unrealistic expectations on it.
As a licensed marriage and family therapist, by training, I’ve helped people understand how their relationships with themselves and others impact their mental health. What I’ve noticed, particularly with my women clients, is how much romantic relationships–and sometimes the lack thereof–caused so much distress.
I have worked with single women who felt lonely and afflicted in their singleness, women sorting through a series of situationships, trying to determine whether they had the right to feel the feelings that they felt, women who were partnered that felt unsatisfied and unseen, and those navigating divorces, and breakups. Many of these women had so many other wonderful things going on. Still, the pursuit and maintenance of romantic love seemed to cause a lot of distress for many. It was for some of these reasons that I stopped providing couples therapy in 2022. First, most of the couples that I’ve encountered arrive to therapy with the relationship already in crisis. Or, one partner seemed to have more emotional investment in therapy than the other.
The work I’ve always found most energizing is the work I do with single women, which is why I developed a coaching program to help women feel whole in their singleness. Often, the needs that we are looking for to be met in romantic relationships are needs that can be adequately met by community-that is, different relationships with different people. After years of studying and working with human relationships, I’ve found that the expectation that a romantic partner should be your best friend, lover, confidante, and life partner all in one is such a big risk. It reminds me of when my grandmother would warn me not to put all my eggs in one basket.
That doesn’t mean I don’t think romantic love can’t be fulfilling. I’ve experienced it myself, and when it’s done right, it can be beautiful and transformative. But even then, we can still experience deep, long-lasting connections with people who we aren’t romantically attracted to.
Unfortunately, the process of decentering romantic love can be easier said than done at times. We still live in a society in which marriage is incentivized through our government systems and social norms. These incentives to partner or marry are what can make it difficult for women to decenter romantic love. There’s messaging everywhere, from our media to our peers, about the pursuit of romance. We see friends posting engagement announcements, baecations, and couple goals photos and think that’s what we’re missing. The title of “Wife” can bring with it a certain status that is respected and rewarded (i.e., taxes). However, there was a time when being a wife and mother were the only options available to women. We have so many more choices now. Some of the outdated thinking that contributes to common modern relationship dynamics remains unchanged. People often forget that the romance part of romantic relationships is often fleeting.
“I really want to help women unlearn the idea that a relationship must be romantic in order for it to matter.”
— Tiffany Hall
Maintaining a long-term relationship, romantic or otherwise, can be challenging. As a woman in my late 30s, I’ve likely gone through about three different versions of myself in the past fifteen years. The woman that I am today probably won’t hang out with me from ten years ago. It seems unrealistic to expect one person to grow and stretch along with me. Our needs and values change. We change. Naturally, our relationships change as well. So why are we expecting ONE relationship to fulfill so many of our needs?
I believe we need to embrace more diverse forms of love and community. Culturally, we’re currently experiencing a loneliness epidemic due to a lack of community. Many of us try to make up for this lack of community in one singular partner and then wonder why we remain unfulfilled. Romantic relationships should not be placed on a pedestal above platonic love. We should also consider that “family” can look different than the traditional nuclear family model.
Although it may take time to change the systemic and structural factors that influence us, we can contribute to the change by changing our own lives. This starts with examining our attitudes about romantic love and relationships. In my course, Decentering Romantic Love: The Path to Self-Love and Empowerment, I refer to these as life scripts.
Our life scripts are our beliefs about how to do life “right.” For example, many of us have been conditioned to adopt the life script that true love is forever.
When it comes to decentering romantic love, one of the life scripts I really want to help women unlearn the idea that a relationship must be romantic in order for it to matter. We all experience love in a multitude of waves, but romantic love is the one that gets the glory. Our friendships can be just as intimate, if not more, than some of our romantic relationships. I encourage women to spend more time cultivating community beyond romantic love. Sometimes, different needs will be met by other relationships, such as those with friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, etc.
That does not mean that women should abandon their desire for a romantic relationship. Community isn’t necessarily a replacement for romantic love. However, decentering romantic love allows us to rely less on romantic partners to fulfill our need for connection. Our romantic partners don’t necessarily need to be our best friends. Rather, our partners can provide us love in support to complement the love that we receive from our best friends.
Decentering romantic love also means not ghosting your friends as soon as you’re in a new relationship. It means maintaining your support system, hobbies, and interests. It means cultivating a better relationship with yourself. It means doing the inner work so that you can invite healthy love and be ready for it.
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