Talks on Love Playlist (1/5): Your relationship expectations could be holding you back | Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if the secret to a happy relationship isn’t following the rules, but rewriting them? In this refreshing talk, couples therapist Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile explores why letting go of traditional societal expectations of romantic relationships — like sharing the same routines or even, in some cases, living together — can help couples embrace their individuality, reduce conflict and build stronger, more fulfilling connections.
This episode originally aired in 2024.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | June is LGBTQ Pride Month for many around the world. It's a time to celebrate the fight for rights |
| 0:06.3 | and the many forms love and relationships can take. In honor of this, today we're dropping five |
| 0:11.7 | of our favorite TED Talks from the archive on love and relationships. Happy listening. |
| 0:20.7 | You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. |
| 0:26.4 | I'm your host, Elise Hugh. |
| 0:27.9 | A challenge for you today, listeners. |
| 0:30.3 | Marriage and Family Therapist Stephanie Yates, Anya Buele, says we should actually reject everything we know about relationships. |
| 0:42.0 | And that doing this will be freeing and can be the key to having a great relationship. |
| 1:00.6 | If this sounds counterintuitive, she will make sense of it in her 2024 Talk of the Day. |
| 1:05.3 | I'm a couple's therapist and an absolute romance theme. |
| 1:09.0 | I'm talking about everything from the notebook to Twilight to a show. |
| 1:10.7 | Some of you may remember called The Flavor of Love. |
| 1:14.2 | It's a reality competition show where the prize was the love of Flav-A-Flave. |
| 1:20.2 | I think about relationships a lot, |
| 1:22.9 | and something that comes up a lot of my work |
| 1:25.1 | is this belief that relationships are hard. |
| 1:28.9 | And we believe that due to one primary reason. Our metric of success is based on what we've seen everyone else do. |
| 1:36.2 | Imagine how you would honestly feel if you heard the following about another couple. Okay, I said |
| 1:41.5 | honestly, okay? I heard they don't even sleep in the same |
| 1:46.0 | bed anymore. They claim they never want to get married. I don't think they ever plan to live |
| 1:52.5 | together. Would you think to yourself, it sounds like they have some serious issues? If we're honest, |
| 1:59.4 | a lot of us would. And it's not because we're not open-minded, |
... |
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