Think kindness matters most in a relationship? Or maybe loyalty, or shared interests? According to two of the world’s top mental health experts, you’re missing the mark.
In an episode of SOLVED, a podcast hosted by bestselling author Mark Manson, psychotherapist and writer Lori Gottlieb revealed that the real secret to a healthy, lasting relationship is something few people ever consider: flexibility.
‘The number one quality that predicts whether somebody is going to be a good partner is flexibility,’ Gottlieb said.
‘You don’t want to be with a rigid partner. And what the mental health stuff out there is saying is be really, really rigid. Be super boundaried. You can’t be rigid if you want to have relationships.’
It’s a provocative claim in today’s social media landscape, where wellness influencers and pop psychologists often encourage people to prioritise themselves, even if that means cutting off friends, family, or partners at the first sign of conflict.
But Manson, who has built a global following by challenging self-help clichés, agreed that modern conversations around mental health and ‘boundaries’ have become a little too strict.
Citing writer Oliver Burkeman, Manson said, ‘The friction is the point.’
He explained that it’s not just tolerating each other’s quirks and bad habits that builds intimacy – it’s often those very traits that form the foundation of deep connection.
‘There’s a psychologist named Robert Glover and he said: ‘We fall in love with people’s rough edges’.
‘If our expectations of people, both in friendships and romantic relationships, become too inflated, then we’re not willing to tolerate any sort of inconvenience or discomfort. And we rob ourselves of the chance of intimacy,’ Manson said.
Listeners were quick to relate.
One person wrote: ‘The internet is obsessed with boundaries. Healthy relationships are not about putting yourself first every second.’
Another added: ‘My ex was the least flexible person I knew. Makes sense it didn’t work.’
Others said they’d experienced the opposite – being too flexible for too long with the wrong people.
‘People shouting boundaries from the rooftops are people who have been flexible at the expense of themselves with a partner who didn’t care about them,’ a commenter shared.
Ultimately, the conversation wasn’t anti-boundary – it was about balance.
As one listener put it: ‘We grew up with Boomers who didn’t know what the word boundary was. Now we live and die by our boundaries, probably too much so. I’m excited for our children to find the balance.’
Or, as another summed up: ‘Boundaries aren’t synonymous with rigidity. But there is beauty in the growth through friction.’
So next time you’re thinking about whether someone is ‘relationship material,’ you might want to look past the dating app profiles and dinner-table charm – and ask yourself: are they capable of being flexible when it matters?
Because according to the experts, that’s what really lasts.
