“If It Were Meant To Be”… Is a Load of Crap!
About this episode
In this episode, Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D. challenges the comforting belief that 'if it's meant to be, it will work out,' arguing that it can lead to dangerous misconceptions about love and marriage.
I hear it a lot. Sometimes from someone in the middle of a marriage crisis, trying to make sense of the pain. Sometimes from someone who hasn't hit crisis yet, but carries the belief quietly in the background — like a safety net they don't know they're depending on. "If it's meant to be, it will work out." It sounds like wisdom. It sounds like acceptance. If you've thought it yourself, I understand why. It offers something we all want in a painful moment — a clean explanation that doesn't require anything else from you. But I want to make the case that this phrase — as comforting as it feels — is one of the most dangerous ideas your marriage has ever encountered. Here's why. Our culture handed us an incomplete story about love and marriage. A story built on two beliefs so familiar they don't even feel like beliefs. The first says that finding the right person is the whole game — get the selection right, and everything follows. The second says that real love shouldn't require much effort — if you have to try hard, something is probably wrong. Neither of those beliefs is true. And together, they set up a very predictable failure — one that has nothing to do with whether your love…
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