Relationship Advice
Today, People Magazine posted a story online (I got the link from CNN, I swear) in which Vanessa Hudgens (she of High School Musical fame) shares the “secret to her great relationship with co-star Zac Efron.”
There are so many things wrong with this story, but I’d like to tackle her “secret.”
“If you really love someone, you shouldn’t have to work at it,” the actress tells Cosmo Girl! for its July/August issue, reports Entertainment Tonight. “You finish each others’ sentences and have the same sense of humor.”
First of all, it should be assumed that we all know this is a 19-year-old talking about the secret of her great relationship with her 20-year-old co-star. It’s beyond ridiculousness. Hudgens and Efron have been dating since October of 2007. For those of you that are bad with math, that’s less than 12 months.
While a great relationship should not feel like work, you still have to work at it. If I’m going to take a celebrity’s sage advice about relationships, I’ll stick with my boy Will Smith who said:
“Counseling, individual learning, books, conflict resolution,” Smith confided. “It is a full time job to try and be happy. People tend to think that they can go to work for 50 or 60 hours a week and then come home and their relationship is just supposed to work.”
That’s the truth. Why would you spend less time working at your relationship than you do on your career? I know that People’s business is selling magazines and driving traffic to their site, but it’s really irresponsible for them to prop up this lackadaisical attitude toward relationships, especially from a teenage pop star who has been in her supposed “serious” relationship less than a year.
Over the past several months, Alli and I have been doing some pre-marital counseling for a couple that I will be marrying in late July. It’s been a terrific experience because out of all the things I’m good at, I think I’m probably best at being married. It’s not a skill that will necessarily lead to a long, illustrious career, but it sure makes my life a lot more enjoyable.
One of the things that I’ve found is a constant in the couples that I look to as relationship mentors in my life is that if you want to make a relationship or a marriage work, you should work harder at your relationship than you would in your career. When you do, it won’t feel like work. You’ll be happier, your significant other will be happier, and you’ll find that working at a relationship can be the most rewarding thing that you’ll ever do. If I had but one piece of advice to give to couples, that would be it.
That, and don’t get relationship advice from 19-year-olds in People Magazine.
10 Responses to “Relationship Advice”
Chimpo
- 2:33 pm on 06/25/2008
How is one defined as good at “being married?”
Different people need different things in life and in relationships, and I find it silly to blast her because you think differently. Maybe the context of the article expands on it more, but I don’t plan on reading it as a grown man who could care less about the romantic lives of Disney stars.
Shane
- 2:43 pm on 06/25/2008
You’ve missed the point. I wasn’t blasting her for thinking differently. I am actually saying that:
a) She’s wrong.
b) She’s 19 and her relationship with her co-star can barely be called a relationship.
c) People Magazine is stupid for touting her soundbytes as “sage advice”.
d) While people may need different things in life and relationships, all require work.
Disagree with me if you want. It’s the truth. And I don’t have any sort of barometer on how to measure whether I’m “good at being married”. I just know that I am. Because I work at it.
Chimpo
- 3:16 pm on 06/25/2008
Lots of people work, it doesn’t mean they’re good at what they do.
I must be a master crapsman, the way I worked my morning deuce.
Shane
- 3:20 pm on 06/25/2008
See, that’s where I disagree. At least in this case, the most important part is that you just work at it.
emawkc
- 5:08 pm on 06/25/2008
In their defense, that’s not the only reason People Magazine is stupid.
Spyder
- 8:19 pm on 06/25/2008
Yes, you should work at it. As you would if going for the Gold in the Olympics. And if you need counseling, get it. Don’t give up easily on your marriage. I’m like a dog with a bone. Our 7th year was bad. He had his head up his butt he will tell you. We did get counseling & have been happily married for 23 years now.
jake
- 2:13 pm on 06/26/2008
first of all, NO couple EVER finishes eachother’s sentences. and second, why are you getting so bent out of shape about it. she’s 19 years old. why would you take anything she says seriously anyway? and People magazine is just doing a celebrity story. not like they really believe what she says.
Natasha
- 2:37 pm on 06/26/2008
“…if you want to make a relationship or a marriage work, you should work harder at your relationship as you would your career.”
Truer words have never been spoken. I try to get this across to the couples I work with. I think people agree with it in theory, but just don’t put it into practice (like healthy eating and exercise). Then they wonder how they got to the point where they’re sitting in the therapist’s office contemplating divorce.
SallySitwell
- 11:54 pm on 06/26/2008
Psssh. She’s his beard, duh.
I can’t wait until this awful cultural phenomenon passes. Especially that Hannah Montana. A local radio station, whose target demographic is the 30-50 year old moms-and-dads sector, proudly advertises its “Grown Ups For Milie” bull honkey. And grown people, with jobs and spouses and children, actually CALL in, speak proudly of being a Milie fan, and request that her songs. Ick. I try to put in context, you know, because when I was 12/13, Britney Spears and N*Sync were big and there had to be some grown ups listening but…I just…
Ick.
Faith
- 12:44 pm on 06/27/2008
I remember what it was like being in a “relationship” when I was 19, 20, even 21. And it was hard. Because I didn’t understand what I needed to do to make someone love me. What was I doing wrong that made my boyfriend of 14 months decide he didn’t want to be with me any more? Or that guy that I went out with decide that attempting to grope me in the dark on our first date was a good idea? Or that other guy I went out with that I actually liked who didn’t call me after our 2nd date to make a 3rd one, like he said he would?
She’s probably in the first relationship she’s ever had that she didn’t have confusion over. Which is what makes it seem easy to her, and which is why she’d make a statement like that. I’m finally in a relationship like that myself. Sucks that I didn’t find it until I was 31, but thems the breaks! My mom and dad found it when she was 17, and he was almost 20. Some people just get lucky like that.
Let’s just hope this chick is lucky, and that teens everywhere are able to figure out that sometimes, when a relationship sucks ass, it means it’s not a good one.
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