When it hurts to think we were made for each other.

Aristotle said, “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” Poetic as it is, thinking that you and your partner were made in heaven for each other can hurt your relationship, says a new study. Psychologists observe that people talk and think about love in apparently limitless ways but underlying such diversity are some common themes that frame how we think about relationships. For example, one popular frame considers love as perfect unity (“made for each other,” “she’s my other half”); in another frame, love is a journey (“look how far we’ve come,” “we’ve been through all these things together”). These two ways of thinking about relationships are particularly interesting because, according to study authors social psychologists Spike W. S. Lee of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and Norbert Schwarz of the University of Southern California, they have the power to highlight or downplay the damaging effect of conflicts on relationship evaluation. Here’s why. If two people were really made in heaven for each other, why should they have any conflicts?