The Perfect Partner Trap

I never thought I would be writing about this. But here we are.

There are now apps where you can have a romantic relationship with a bot. Not a dating app that matches you with a real person. An app where the “partner” is the app. It flirts with you. It tells you it misses you.

And this is not a fringe thing. A recent survey found that nearly one in three Americans say they’ve had a romantic or intimate relationship with an AI chatbot.

One in three.

And honestly? I get it.

Think about what this “partner” offers. It never argues back. It agrees with everything you say. It’s always encouraging, never tired, never in a bad mood. It likes what you like. It’s available at 3 a.m. and it never asks you to change.

It sounds like the perfect partner.

It’s actually the perfect fantasy.

Because a relationship where you are never challenged is not a relationship. It’s a mirror. And you cannot grow by falling in love with your own reflection.

What Worries Me Most

After nearly three decades of sitting with couples, here’s what keeps me up at night about this trend.

• It deepens loneliness while pretending to cure it. The comfort feels like connection. But comfort is not connection. Every hour spent with a bot is an hour not spent building something real — and the isolation quietly grows.
• We stop practicing relational skills. Listening when you disagree. Apologizing well. Sitting with disappointment. These aren’t just relationship skills — they’re life skills. And skills fade when we don’t use them.
• It sets a bar no human can ever meet. Real partners forget things. They get grumpy. They have needs. If you get used to a “partner” with zero needs, a real person starts to feel like too much work. That’s not love getting harder. That’s your tolerance getting smaller.
• You’re handing your heart to a company. One software update can change your “partner’s” personality overnight. That’s not devotion. That’s a business model.

Real Relationships Are Supposed to Have Friction

Here’s what I want you to hear: friction is not a sign that something is wrong. Friction is where we learn to give and take. To feel what our partner feels, even when we disagree. To calm our own storm instead of expecting someone else to never cause one. To live in reality — with a real, imperfect, breathing human being.

Friction is also where we learn accountability. A real relationship asks you to own your part, to say “I was wrong,” and to care for another person’s heart — not just your own comfort.

Love that asks nothing of you will never make you more than you already are.

But most of us want easy. Most of us hate friction. And most of us were never taught how to repair after a fight, or how to settle ourselves when things get heated. So the hard moments feel impossible, and the bot feels like relief.

But you don’t grow in the easy. You grow in the hard. Every couple I’ve watched truly transform did it in the messy middle — not by escaping it.

Three Things to Hold Onto

• Friction is information, not failure. Don’t ask, “Why are we fighting again?” Ask, “What is this fight trying to tell us?” Every repeated argument points to a need that isn’t being met.
• If a comfort isolates you, it’s a warning. Ask this of anything that soothes you: does it move me toward people, or away from them? Toward is healing. Away is hiding.
• Repair is the skill that saves relationships. The couples who make it aren’t the ones who never fight. They’re the ones who know how to fight without wounding each other — and who find their way back after a rupture.

If your relationship has started to feel like two people surviving each other instead of loving each other — please hear this: you are not broken. You were just never taught.

That’s exactly why I created the Relationship Reboot Retreat — a place where I teach the skills nobody gave us. How to fight without wounding. How to repair. How to calm your body when you’re triggered. How to feel truly close again.

Not a fantasy. The real thing, with the real partner beside you.

A bot will tell you what you want to hear. But it will never hold your hand in a hospital room, or look at you after thirty years and say, “We made it.”

If that’s the love you want — the kind you can’t download — that’s what we’re building at the Retreat.