The Halo Effect: Loving Your Partner More Than They Love You
How to make sure it’s not hurting you.
Relationships are not perfectly, evenly formed.
That’s because the people in them are, er, people. We all have our quirks, our vulnerabilities and triggers, our flaws and strengths; our own brands of crazy.
So it makes sense that we don’t love in equal measure; that one partner in a relationship is more devoted than the other.
I recall one woman who couldn’t stop talking about her husband. He was so charming, so tall, so handsome, so funny, so hot in a suit, everyone loved him, he could light up a room, such a good cook, so socially skilled, she was so lucky to have him….
Trust me, the list was long. When I saw a gap, I took it. “But what about you?” I asked. “Isn’t he lucky to have you?”
She paused. Blinked. Shrugged. “I don’t really think about that.”
Welcome to the Halo Effect.
What’s the Halo Effect?
“I think the perfection of love is that it’s not perfect.” — Taylor Swift
The Halo Effect is a cognitive bias in which we’re heavily influenced by our idealised views of someone. In the…
