Tom Holland I just said the quiet part out loud. He is married to Zendaya. He called her his own. He said he was happier than ever.
The Internet melted, as it should. This couple has been quietly the most devoted couple in the Marvel orbit for years. No messy drama on the red carpet, no mysterious Instagram following, just two people who seem really steady around each other.
So why, when I read his quote, did I feel so little protective of them?
Because “I’ve found my person, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been” is one of the most beautiful and dangerous sentences a human being can say out loud. I hear that in my office all the time. Usually, about a year before the first real fight.
“Personal” biology
Here’s what really happens when Tom says that about Zendaya. He’s not being romantic. It describes a biological event.
Attachment theory is the best theory we have about what love is. In short, love is the need for emotional attachment to another person. According to this theory, everyone needs this. From cradle to grave, this isn’t optional, no matter how good your Netflix subscription is.
When she was born, she needed more than just food and shelter. You needed someone good enough on the other side of your birth, someone who would be there for you and show you that you were enough. Without it I would have died. These wires don’t disappear as you get older. It’s just a transfer.
For Tom, Zendaya is now that person. His whole body is scanning her all the time, asking two questions. Are you there for me? Am I satisfied with you?
This is what “I found my personality” actually means. He has installed her as his primary attachment figure. And it’s great. This is also why the risks are quietly rising for both.
During the honeymoon period, everything your partner says or does seems like further proof that, “I am loved, I will be cherished forever, I knew this day would come.” You’re both living on a high, and you’re sure to feel this way forever.
Then, inevitably, something changes.
The buffalo went unnoticed
In my office, I see this transformation happening in the most ordinary things imaginable.
You drive with you. You say to your wife, “Hey, look at that buffalo over there.” And they don’t respond. Or they pull the blanket towards themselves too quickly and you think, what did I do?
That’s it. This is the moment. The first little tear in the fabric of the honeymoon. Your nervous system is setting time before your brain, and suddenly your partner asks you, where did you go, are you upset with me? Your partner asks the same questions about you.
Couples in these cycles are constantly with each other. Most of the time, people only notice when it escalates into something that looks like a fight. But this happened all the time, in the same way that young children communicate with a parent across the playground. Mom, are you there? Where are you now?
The more one of you feels abandoned, the more the other person will reject you. The more rejection they feel, the harder it is for them to show up and like you. So you feel more abandoned, so you reject more. This is where most couples stumble, and it has nothing to do with whether they are people for each other. they. This is exactly the cause of pain.
If you want to figure out your relationship pattern before your first big breakup finds you, I’d rather you do it now than at 2 a.m. after a fight you didn’t see coming.
Disconnecting is a feature, not a bug
This is the thing I wish someone had told Tom and Zendaya at their wedding, and which I tell every couple sitting on my couch in the glow of their love.
Separation between two people who love each other is a feature, not a bug. Everyone is walking around acting like the disconnect is something wrong, a squash glitch. It’s not like that. Breaking up is proof that you really love each other and that you intimidate each other because you mean too much.
Your worst fights with your partner only happen because you love them so much and they love you too. Fighting is a wild misunderstanding of this love. The only reason people do the painful dance is because they are both hurting inside, and they both feel unloved at this moment.
Here’s something nice I want Tom to hear. If you truly believe that the goal is to be completely your true self in every corner of your life and to never intimidate your partner, you will suffer. We guarantee you’ll scare the living daylights out of Zendaya at some point just by being you. It’s guaranteed to do the same to you. There’s a whole science behind entanglement and the way couples mistakenly try to manage this by getting too involved, that doesn’t save you from the scary part. Nothing does. The scary part is the price of accepting love.
The part of you that needs love the most is not a weak or needy part. It’s the best part of you, and it deserves love.
What does his person actually ask of her, and what does he ask of him?
So, if a breakup is coming for Tom and Zendaya, what’s the actual step?
Give up the dream of never fighting again. Good relationships are not defined by the amount of good times you have. It is determined by how good each of you is at giving yourselves and each other a chance to make amends.
When you fight, try to see it through an attached lens. Can you see that your reaction is driven by a need to be important to your partner, or a need to be enough for them? If you can, you’ll realize that you’re only fighting because you love each other. Nothing else happens. This reframing, repeated over a thousand little moments, is what keeps a marriage alive.
The fix is the guide. Not the absence of rupture. Return.
Another thing for the happiest he’s ever been
Tom, if you’ve read this before, congratulations. I really found it. And the day you do a little thing that knocks the wind out of you, or you do to her, that’s not the end of love. This is love that becomes real.
The happiest you’ve ever been is not the finish line you crossed at the altar. It’s something you’ll build, over and over again, every time one of you comes back through the interruption and says, I’m here, come back.
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Figs O’Sullivan, founder of Empathi, and his wife Till, San Francisco-based couples therapists and relationship experts at Stars and Silicon Valley, are the founders of Empathi and built Figlet, our AI relationship coach, an AI relationship coach trained in their clinical work.
