Talks on Love Playlist (1/5): Your relationship expectations could be holding you back | Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile

Summary

Podcast Summary: TED Talks Daily — "Your Relationship Expectations Could Be Holding You Back"
Speaker: Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile | Airdate: June 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode, part of TED's "Talks on Love" playlist, features marriage and family therapist Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile exploring how common relationship expectations and societal norms can actually lead to dissatisfaction or shame in our own relationships. Yates-Anyabwile argues that by questioning and even rejecting traditional benchmarks for "successful" relationships, couples can create fulfilling partnerships that genuinely reflect their values and needs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Weight of Societal Expectations

• Yates-Anyabwile opens by challenging the familiar belief that “relationships are hard,” attributing most of this difficulty to measuring our relationships against what others do or what society dictates.
• She asks listeners to consider their real reactions to couples who diverge from the norm (e.g., not sharing a bed, not planning to marry, or not living together), suggesting most would quickly judge or feel concern (04:33).
• Insight: Labelling certain behaviors as “red flags” can actually stifle relationship health, especially when those behaviors might work perfectly for those involved.

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When the Wrong Person Isn’t the Issue

• Yates-Anyabwile acknowledges that sometimes true incompatibility exists—“if your deepest desire is that your partner change fundamental aspects of who they are, you really want them to be a different person,” then reevaluating the relationship may be necessary (06:10).
• For people confident in their partnership yet still feeling frustrated, it’s often misaligned expectations—not their partner—that are harming satisfaction.

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Case Study: Breaking Norms for Happiness

• She recounts working with an engaged couple struggling to blend families. Despite a declared “95% good,” their real problems were extensive.
• After conflict over family routines, Yates-Anyabwile poses: “Do you think that living together has hurt or helped your relationship more?” (08:31)
  • The couple experimented with living separately, creating a thoughtful contract for their circumstances.
  • Result: “By the time they came back to me, I’d never seen them communicate so well... They were looking forward to every weekend that they got to spend together” (09:45).
  • Their romantic and parental relationships improved, demonstrating that unconventional choices can strengthen partnerships.

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Embracing Individuality Over “Normal”

• Yates-Anyabwile emphasizes that tailored solutions—rather than prescriptive ones—are key: “There’s no such thing as normal when we’re talking about two unique individuals with their own backgrounds and their own values.” (10:51)
• Small daily divergences (arriving places separately, for instance) can be mistaken for trouble, when they may actually support lasting love. She shares her own family’s story: her parents drove separately everywhere for 23 years.
• Quote: “Any deviation from the norm can be met with curiosity and even judgment. It also shows us that sometimes when we decide to do things a little differently, we can avoid the difference between having a really challenging day as a couple or a smooth day…” (11:48)

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Permission to Redefine Relationships

• Listeners are encouraged to:
  • Accept major and minor individual differences, rather than seek to “fix” their partners.
  • Break with traditions if it leads to greater personal and relational well-being, whether that means:
    • Having separate bedrooms
    • Maintaining one’s own last name
    • Traveling separately
    • Deciding not to share relationship details on social media
  • She reassures: “It’s okay if people are confused about your relationship. It was never theirs to understand in the first place.” (12:16)

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Reflecting on What’s “Hard”

• Yates-Anyabwile asks, “Is it really the relationship or is it external factors like our own personal trauma histories or work stress?” (12:48)
• Listeners are challenged to pinpoint actual sources of relationship difficulty and to co-create solutions with partners—sometimes by “rejecting everything we’ve ever known about relationships” and instead honoring the “peculiarities that make us us.” (13:13)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Expectations:
  “Our metric of success is based on what we’ve seen everyone else do.” (04:13)
• On Seeking Change:
  “If your deepest desire is that your partner change fundamental aspects of who they are, you really want them to be a different person.” (06:10)
• On Innovation in Relationships:
  “What kind of couples therapist recommends that couples live apart?… For a majority of my clients, this solution would not work. And that is the point.” (10:23)
• On Judgement and Normalcy:
  “Any deviation from the norm can be met with curiosity and even judgment.” (11:48)
• On Permission:
  “It’s okay if you want to break tradition… It’s okay if people are confused about your relationship. It was never theirs to understand in the first place.” (12:16)
• On Liberation:
  “I want us to reject everything we’ve ever known about relationships and challenge ourselves to create a relationship that not only defies expectations, but honors the peculiarities that make us us.” (13:13)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:37] — Introduction: Challenging mainstream relationship scripts
• [06:10] — Recognizing when expectations (not the partner) are the problem
• [08:31] — Case study: The couple who thrived living apart
• [10:51] — The illusion of “normal” and individuality in partnerships
• [11:48] — Embracing non-traditional arrangements
• [12:16] — Granting “permission” to live differently
• [12:48] — Reflection: Distinguishing external stressors from relationship issues
• [13:13] — Closing challenge: Rewriting the rules to suit your partnership

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Tone & Takeaways

Yates-Anyabwile delivers her talk with warmth, humor, and the gentle authority of a seasoned therapist who has seen many forms of love thrive best when freed from comparison and “rules.” Her message is liberating: true relationship contentment comes from authenticity rather than adherence to social scripts.

If you’ve ever worried your relationship doesn’t look “normal," this episode offers both challenge and permission—a call to co-create the kind of bond that works for you, not for others.

Transcript

[A]

June is LGBTQ Pride Month. For many around the world, it's a time to celebrate the fight for rights and the many forms love and relationships can take. In honor of this today we're dropping five of our favorite TED Talks from the archive on love and relationships. Happy listening. You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. Hi, I'm your host Elise Hume. A challenge for you today listeners. Marriage and family therapist Stephanie Yates Anjabuile says we should actually reject everything we know about relationships and that doing this will be freeing and can be the key to having a great relationship. If this sounds counterintuitive, she will make sense of it in her 2024 talk after the.

[B]

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[A]

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[C]

I'm a couples therapist and an absolute romance fiend. I'm talking about everything from the Notebook to Twilight to a show some of you may remember called the Flavor of Love. It's a reality competition show where the prize was the love of flava Flav. I think about relationships a lot, and something that comes up a lot in my work is this belief that relationships are hard. And we believe that due to one primary reason. Our metric of success is based on what we've seen everyone else do. Imagine how you would honestly feel if you heard the following about another couple. Okay, I said honestly, Okay, I heard they don't even sleep in the same bed anymore. They claim they never want to get married. I don't think they ever plan to live together. Would you think to yourself, it sounds like they have some serious issues? If we're honest, a lot of us would. And it's not because we're not open minded. But we've been taught that these are warning signs for a relationship in trouble. And while they can be, for a lot of people, that is not always the the case. Relationship experts have found that one of the primary obstacles that couples face are their own expectations. When we compare ourselves to societal norms, we can develop a sense of resentment toward our partner as well as a sense of shame for how we ourselves are coming up short. Now, before we really get into this, I have to say that some of us have to reckon with the fact that that we may be with the wrong person. And that will be clear. If your deepest desire is that your partner change fundamental aspects of who they are, you really want them to be a different person. But if you're confident that you're with the right person and you just still feel frustrated and dissatisfied, we may find that rejecting everything we've known about good relationships is the key to actually having one. I work with couples every day and I help them through relational crises. I remember I was working with an engaged couple for about a year, and when they first came to me, they said, We're 95% good. We just want to address the 5%. And I hear something to this effect often when I first meet a couple. It turns out that 5% was more like 75% and increasing. They were struggling to make a blended family work. One partner had kids, the other one had never lived with kids before, and they moved in together after only knowing each other for three months. One time I went on vacation, and by the time I got back, they'd called off their wedding. But why? Their love was honestly, it was evident, and they were not cruel to each other. Their issue was figuring out how to continue building their romantic relationship while also figuring out how to raise teenagers, who, to be honest, already had two very involved parents. They weren't really in need of a third. After a particularly big blow up over chores and responsibilities, I finally asked a dangerous question. I said, do you think that living together has hurt or helped your relationship more? We took a few weeks to explore that question, and they decided to test it out. They got a short term lease on an apartment nearby for the partner who didn't have kids. And we were really strategic. We made a contract. Let's talk about dates, let's talk about expectations while you guys are living separately. And by the time they came back to me, I'd never seen them communicate so well. They said that they were looking forward to every weekend that they got to spend together. It felt like a vacation because they would spend the entire week planning their time together and savoring every moment they had together. They also found that their individual relationships with the kids drastically improved without the pressure of trying to transition them into an entirely new household dynamic, especially when they only had a couple years left in the house. So at this point, some of you may be asking yourselves, what kind of couples therapist recommends that couples live apart? That's a fair question. And to be honest, for a majority of my clients, this solution would not work. And that is the point when we're thinking about our relationships, we have to avoid focusing on what is normal. There's no such thing as normal when we're talking about two unique individuals with their own backgrounds and their own values. For this particular couple, this they had to figure out a way to separate their romantic relationship from what really boiled down to roommate issues. And they had a Circumstance that supported the option to live apart. One conflict that comes up a lot in my work is the difference in values between arriving on time and arriving looking and feeling your best. Neither one is wrong, but I had a great model for this with my parents when I was growing up. We drove absolutely everywhere separately. Everywhere. You know, if you're going to be a little bit late, you arrive with my mom. And if you're arriving on time, you go with my dad. They had two minivans for only two kids. Okay. We didn't go anywhere together. And one time when I was about 12 years old, one of my closest friends finally worked up the courage to ask me about it. And I could tell she was so nervous. Like I was about to reveal to her that my parents were secretly separated and she just figured it out. You know, now that I think about it, I bet her mom put her up to this. What's interesting is that her parents did go on to get divorced, and my parents stayed together for 23 years before my mom passed away. Now, do I think that's due to them commuting separately? Of course not. But I think it shows us two things. First, it shows us that any deviation from the norm can be met with curiosity and even judgment. It also shows us that sometimes when we decide to do things a little differently, we can avoid the difference between having a really challenging day as a couple or a smooth day by simply accepting our differences not as a couple, but as individuals. Instead of trying to change our partners, what if we instead embraced their differences, our difference in values, and released the pressure of doing what everyone else is doing? It's okay to be a stay at home dad. It's okay if you prefer to travel without each other. It's okay if you need to have your own bedrooms so you can maintain personal space and be sane for each other. It's okay if you want to break tradition and create a new last name. It's okay if you want to share your love on social media, but it's also okay if you want to protect it from public opinion. It's okay if you're in a season of life where you both just cannot prioritize sex. It's okay if people are confused about your relationship. It was never theirs to understand in the first place. If we continue to accept the narrative that relationships are hard, then we'll continue to do nothing about it. If our relationships feel hard, I encourage us to reflect on what is hard about it. Is it really the relationship or is it external factors like our own personal trauma histories or work stress. If it really is your relationship, let's really think about what you and your partner are willing to do differently to enjoy it again. I want us to reject everything we've ever known about relationships and challenge ourselves to create a relationship that not only defies expectations, but honors the peculiarities that make us us. Thank you.

[A]

That was Stephanie R. Yates. Anya Buile at Ted next 2024 this talk was originally published in November of that year. If you're curious about Ted's curation, visit ted.com curationguidelines and that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is a podcast from ted. This episode was fact checked by the TED Research team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Lucy Little, Emma Tobner and Taun Chansika Songmar Nivam. Additional support from Daniela Ballaraizo, Christopher Faizy, Bogan, Valentina Bohanini, Banban Chang, Brian Greene, and Lainey Lott. Learn [e-mail] I am Elise Hu. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by the world's leading ESIM brand, Airalo. When I travel, I don't want to just see a new place. I want to engage with it. It's often the small, unexpected moments that stay with us. The cafe you stumble into, the conversation you didn't plan for, the turn that leads somewhere surprising. Airalo makes it easier to stay connected to those moments. You can activate your ESIM and get online the moment you land. No swapping SIM cards, no searching for wifi, and no hidden fees. With unlimited data and reliable coverage through top local carriers, you can explore freely and use your phone the way you do at. It's a simple way to stay connected so you can experience more of wherever you're traveling. To get unlimited data this [e-mail] that's a I R A L O.com this episode is brought to you by Pura. What if fragrance could do more than fill a room? The Sense of Calm Collection, a partnership between Pura and Calm, is crafted to help you unwind recenter and find stillness right where you are. It includes three fragrances, each paired with Calm's most loved audio experiences. One to ease you into rest, one to anchor you in presence, one to clear your mind and refresh your energy. Breathe in and reset. Discover the Sense of calm [e-mail] Calm

[D]

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