If Jon and Kate can't make it ...

Go-To Girl

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By Jenna Phillips

With the recent news of Jon and Kate Gosselin, of TLC's "Jon and Kate Plus Eight," heading into divorce, I have been bombarded with Facebook status updates from several of my friends. These statuses read along the lines of "OMG! If Jon and Kate can't make it, what hope is there for the rest of us?!"

Forgetting the fact that this couple's life has been all over the media, pushing them straight to celebrity status, a bigger issue arises. Whether it's Jon and Kate, Angelina and Brad or any other "perfect couple," people forget about their own relationship and focus on some power couple that they aspire to be.

That said, there's no such thing as a perfect couple. Every couple has problems because there are two different personalities, and those personalities are bound to collide at some point. The only thing that makes one couple look better than the other is how they present themselves to the public.

Couples who argue in public or couples who don't show as much affection in front of people are perceived as "troubled;" everyone waits for them to break up because it has to be coming. Couples who put on a show and get along great in perfect must be great all the time.

We can't see what goes on in other people's lives, so we assume that it's the same as what we see. The truth is that any couple has the same chance of making it or not; it all depends on the amount of effort that they are willing to put into it.

That means that we shouldn't spend so much time comparing ourselves to other couples. What happens to one couple has nothing to do with another couple. The goal, then, is to focus on our own relationships.

If you think that your relationship is worth anything, work at it. Don't ever think that another couple is better than you just because of public appearance, and don't waste energy that could be spent bettering your own relationship on someone else.

Originally Published: Issue 806 - July 1, 2009

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