Dr. Venus Nicolino Shares the Biggest Relationship Challenge Facing Lovers in 2022

Relationship expert Dr. Venus Nicolino — known by her nickname, Dr. V — sees more than her fair share of dysfunction in the couples she works with. As a doctor of clinical psychology, Nicolino gives lovers her no-holds-barred advice on what it will take to save their relationship.

Her advice cuts through the BS to warn lovers about the biggest challenge they’re facing, and it’s a surprising one: “Attention. How can you keep the attention of your romantic partner when their phone, TV, and computer control most of their thoughts?” Dr. V ponders.

Modern couples can be at odds with each other because you can’t get a healthy relationship with the press of a button. In a culture that treasures video views, likes, and #HotGirlSummer hashtags, plenty of partnerships are over before they even start. According to Dr. Venus Nicolino, it’s time to ditch the excuses, look up from the screen, and deal with real life. Follow Dr. V’s three tips to boost your union’s attention span.

Dr. Venus Nicolino’s Top Tip: Put Down the Phone

How much of your life do you spend on your phone? When you get home from work and see your partner, how much one-on-one time do you have together? Are you both sitting on the couch, streaming Netflix, and scrolling through TikTok without any concrete connection?

The real problem may be that the two people in your relationship aren’t fully in it. Your brain and your heart are elsewhere, and that can cause big issues in your relationship. You might forget to ask your companion about their day, or you might not say more than a few sentences to them all evening because you’re so wrapped up in social media drama.

We live in an “always on” digital age that has transformed relationships into replaceable commodities. It’s something Dr. Venus Nicolino sees in the celebrities she interviews for her podcast, “The Tea With Dr. V.” “Employers expect workers to be available remotely at all hours. TV keeps us engrossed with personalized streaming,” she explains. “They turn love into a consumer product you can ‘use once, then replace’ like everything else we touch.”

You don’t need a weeklong yoga retreat to fix a lack of attention in your relationship. You need to put down the technology and get actual face time with your partner. That means having a meaningful conversation, telling jokes, and connecting with your sweetheart without the filter of a screen. Remember why you fell in love with them in the first place. TikTok can wait.

“I'm not here to put down technology. I think what's important is that we attempt to maintain real in-person contact with people because people help us feel things all day long,” Dr. Venus Nicolino points out. “Sometimes what they help us feel may not be good, and that's OK because you have to figure out how to deal with some of those feelings.”

Ditch the Delusions

Every person sees the world differently. “Our world is about our attitudes and our beliefs, which add up to our isms,” Dr. Venus Nicolino says. In her work, Dr. V finds that lovers aren’t always truthful with themselves when they look for the root cause of why a relationship hits the skids.

“We fall in love. Hearts get broken. And since we have no control over or understanding of the hows and whys of it all, we lie. To ourselves. With delusions like ‘I didn’t love myself enough’ or ‘My mate didn’t love themselves enough.’ Those are simplistic explanations of complex issues,” explains the author of the number one selling book Bad Advice: How to Survive and Thrive in an Age of Bulls--t.

Relationships are like caring for a plant: you can’t put it in a corner, forget to water it, and then blame the plant when it withers and dies. Dr. Venus Nicolino wants couples to ditch the delusions and find out what’s actually going on in your relationship — that’s the key to turning things around.

Embrace the Discomfort

Nobody wants to hear their paramour say, “Hey babe, can we talk?” It’s an omen of discomfort, which is something humans avoid at all costs. Couples avoid messy conversations and arguments because they don’t like dealing with complicated things. They want life to be simple, and that means avoiding conflict and discomfort at all costs.

But Dr. Venus Nicolino warns that avoiding discomfort deprives you and your partner of substantive growth. Instead of tackling issues together, couples dive into the digital world to escape it all. “Our phones are a cure for boredom and an instant escape from arguments and uncomfortable conversations,” she says. Couples will insist that everything’s fine and jump back into their Instagram feeds to numb the pain.

If it’s been a while since you’ve addressed real problems with your sweetheart, you might find that they’re a completely different person — and that’s to be expected. “Once we feel as though we know someone, we have a fixed image of who they are in our mind. But that person, anything, and anyone is bound to change at any moment. We have to have an open mind about the people who are in front of us and their ability to change and shift and move,” Nicolino says.

You have to learn how to navigate who you and your partner are today to get through these uncomfortable conversations. It’s messy and uncertain, but pushing through discomfort is the best way to reinvest in your connection.

Is It Easier To Give Up Love? Dr. Venus Nicolino Says It Isn’t That Easy

It might feel easier to avoid love altogether, but Dr. Venus Nicolino says that isn’t an option, either. “You are human. You're built to love others,” she says.

The issue is that modern life forces couples to prioritize everything but each other. You have to give if you want true love. That means putting down your phone, being honest about the problems in the relationship, and pushing through discomfort. These steps won’t bring every liaison back from the dead, but giving your beloved the attention they deserve can help you learn to embrace each other again, warts and all.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes