To some people, love and marriage come relatively easy and is long lasting, but to others, it is one bad relationship after another.

Could it be that the love story you have scripted into your brain is to blame? Perhaps so, says Robert J. Sternberg, a relationship expert. In a study he conducted, he explains that the story of once ideal love life plays an important factor in why he or she finds it challenging to stay and maintain a long lasting relationship or marriage. Some of us, he explains have unrealistic love stories planted in our head, and like an antenna, it picks up the wrong love signal for us.

The story of our life, according to Sternberg, helps us find the love of our life. He says we start forming our ideas about love soon after birth, based on our inborn personality– our early experience and our observation of our parents’ relationships as well as depictions of romantic movies, television, and books.  Perhaps this explains some concern, I too had in not attracting the right kind of ideal lover while at the University because I was picky and thought no guy measured up to the type of guy I had planted in my head. Like many of my friends in College who were single, the ideal man of our dreams looks like Blair Underwood; a movie star.

Our ideal man should be perfect in everything… like the kind of men we watch in Hollywood movies- but after college and I eventually settled in America, I realize that the chances of my finding and falling in love with the Hollywood type of men were illusive, so I began reconstructing the love story I had first formed in my head about what is an ideal mate.

Hollywood kind of romance according to Ted Huston, a pioneer in the psychology of relationships, is very unrealistic and delusional and often leads to partners expecting too much from each other. Huston also says, “the road to divorce is inevitable when couples have unrealistic expectations.” In an experimental study, where he followed one hundred and sixty-eight couples from their wedding day through thirteen years of marriage, Huston found that, although couples whose marriage bliss are particularly divorce-prone, and starts with less Hollywood romance have more promising future. American culture, Huston confers, is to blame for perpetuating the myth of storybook romance, prompting some to feel that they ought to live the kind of love life they see on television, which in truth is very unrealistic.

Some men and ladies, as in the African community, sometimes have unreal love stories about how their ideal partner must look, love and behave like. Unfortunately, because what they have planted in their heads is based on a false premise, they end up year after year meeting, falling in and out of love with the wrong kind of person.  In the research Sternberg conducted, he explains that some people describe love in many ways, and this description reveals their love story. For example, someone who firmly believes in close relationships is like good partnerships who tells a business story and someone who says they end up with partners who scare them or like intimidating their partner- enacts a horror story.

Some couples according to Sternberg, usually start out being physically attracted and have similar interest and values. But eventually, they may notice something missing in the relationship and that something is usually story compatibility. Some couples whose stories don’t match are like two characters on stage acting out different plays- they may look right at first glance, but underneath the surface, there is an underlying lack of coordination in their interaction.

The key to compatibility with a romantic partner is whether our stories match. When our love stories do not match, this is the signal that something is amiss- and to fix it, we must be conscious of what our love stories are, then seek people with compatible tales, and perhaps replot conclusions that aren’t working for us.