You’re scrolling through Instagram and there they are: the perfect couple with their dreamy beach vacation, hand-in-hand, glowing smiles, captions filled with love and gratitude. You pause. You feel that twinge of envy. “Wow, they’ve got it all figured out,” you think. And then, before you even realize it, you’re comparing. Comparing their perfectly filtered lives to your own messy, imperfect relationship.

Welcome to the "relationship goals" trap — the phenomenon where we hold our own relationships up against the highlight reels of others, thinking that if we don’t look like them, we must be doing something wrong. The problem? Comparing your relationship to others on social media is one of the quickest ways to erode real connection.

Here’s the first thing you need to remember: Instagram is not real life. It’s a carefully curated, filtered version of someone’s reality. Those perfect couples you see on your feed? They’re only showing you the best moments — the romantic getaways, the surprise gifts, the milestones. What they don’t show you are the arguments, the miscommunications, the doubts, and the frustrations.

When you compare your relationship to someone else’s Instagram-perfect version, you’re comparing your full reality — with all its ups and........

© Psychology Today