15 TV Couples Who Are Really NOT #RelationshipGoals
Almost every television show has a bit of romance, either on the side or in the forefront, to spice things up a bit. After all, who doesn't love love? There are definitely a lot of excellent TV couples out there who people root for and ship like crazy, giving them cute couple names and tearing up at their wedding when the ship officially becomes canon. There are couples who fully embody #relationshipgoals like the quirky Andy and April from Parks and Recreation and the loving Bones and Booth from Bones.
But then, there are also couples who have people scratching their heads and grimacing as they think to themselves, "Nuh-uh, that is not great. Nope, please break up," because those couples are the total opposite of #relationshipgoals. There are those pairs on television who are like a walking cautionary tale of how things can really not work out between two people. All the lying, deceit, drama, or just plain old incompatibility that results in a lot of fights--not love quarrels but pure, unadulterated hate fights--show that these two were far from meant to be.
Check out the couples who were just not meant to be--and are definitely not ones to emulate!
15 Ron Swanson and Tammy Two in Parks and Recreation
Aside from being a rather amusing couple, as well as husband and wife in real life, Ron Swanson and Tammy Two, the seductive librarian, are just not meant to be--and for good reason. Tammy Two knows how to use her guiles and attractiveness to lure in men, drive them mad, then use them to her advantage. This is incredibly unhealthy for Ron Swanson, who would not act like himself around her--as a matter of fact, he would lose all sense of self and become whoever Tammy Two wants him to be. It's never a great relationship when one person has all the say and the other person becomes a mindless drone doing and saying whatever the other demands. Tammy Two has the uncanny ability to make him go from an independent, strong-minded man to a nervous wreck whose first instinct is flight rather than fight.
14 Felicity and Oliver in Arrow
Do not get me started on this! Okay, I'll start. The "Olicity" couple starts off innocently and cutely enough, but quickly spirals into a completely toxic relationship. Felicity becomes clingy, needy, and obsessive with Oliver, who, through his passivity, enables her to continue being this demanding woman who tries to make decisions for him and control his life. This is not a great relationship because it lacks balance and emotions are not in check. Oliver is oblivious about the negative impact Felicity has on him, and she can be pretty vicious and unforgiving with her words, always dropping a tirade on him with every innocent decision or mild mistake he makes. Her inexplicable self-righteousness and his strong desire to do the right thing often collide. Neither is happy and the relationship is super unhealthy.
13 Aria and Ezra in Pretty Little Liars
"Ezria" might be one of the more popular ships in the show, but the actual ship that embodies their relationship has way too many holes in it to still stay afloat, not to mention actually get anywhere. Aside from the fact that their relationship is a forbidden one of teacher and student, they are also in a toxic relationship with too many breakups to count. They break up for a day and then get back together like ten times. At a certain point, it seems more like they are obsessed with or lusting for each other rather than actually in love, what with all the suspicions, paranoia, lying, and lack of communication. On top of that, he stalks her and betrays her… It's a rollercoaster of a ride--not one that seems worth getting on. And one that involves a lot of secondhand nausea for those watching.
12 J.D. and Elliot in Scrubs
Another on-again-off-again relationship, J.D. and Elliot are good friends as interns--and that's really all they should have been. They break up and get back together too many times when they really don't work that well together--definitely not enough to get married. Elliot is super intense, rigid, and insecure, and those traits clash with J.D.'s personality as he likes to make jokes and can be blunt and insensitive with what he says sometimes. With all that tension (mixed with confusing sexual tension), this relationship really shows that sometimes boys and girls should just be friends. The first episode where they're a couple in season one was enough of an assurance, for me at least, that they would never have worked out romantically in real life because their personalities are fundamentally too different.
11 Tom and Ann in Parks and Recreation
Good job, April! First you take Andy, and yes you two are the perfect couple, but then you sic Tom, the womanizer, on Ann. Not only are they just an incompatible couple but also they are not at the right times in their lives to be in a relationship! Tom is desperate and has yet to learn how to love himself less while Ann is desperate and has yet to learn how to love herself more. They jump into that relationship for lack of a better one to jump into. Tom is self-centered and high-maintenance. Ann already had to take care of childish men like that, such as Andy, so she finds herself in a cycle of mothering her boyfriend instead of being in a balanced relationship where caring goes equally both ways. With the constant squabbling and bickering like they are siblings more than lovers, the two, unsurprisingly enough, do not last long.
10 Ted and Robin in How I Met Your Mother
This is another serious case of will they, won't they--and it is quite a tumultuous one, at that. The two are constantly fighting, questioning their feelings for each other, demanding things like getting rid of anything to do with their exes, liking each other at different points in their lives, not trusting each other, not communicating properly, and then finally ending up together at the end when Ted's own children (with another woman) recognize and point out that he seems to be in love with Robin, prompting him to make a move so they can finally be together. Both of them are pretty bad at realizing their own feelings and then expressing them properly to each other. How would they have made it without other people guiding them the whole time?
9 Blair and Chuck in Gossip Girl
Although another popular couple, they might have just been liked for all the amusing drama they brought to the show. A couple should always bring out the best in each other, but that doesn't seem to be the case in this toxic relationship. Chuck always brings out the worst in Blair, especially because of his ambitions for controlling an empire for which he basically sells Blair, like property, for actual property in the form of a hotel. Because he wants them to be a power couple, the two are always scheming and not developing as positive characters with emotional maturity and depth. Sometimes he can be outright abusive with her, unable to control his emotions, like jealousy and rage. They are rather dangerous for each other, which some people might find hot, but it's far from healthy, what with their obsessive and deceptive natures.
8 Rory and Jess on Gilmore Girls
Another huge favorite when it comes to TV couples, but can't say that they're a great example. It's the typical story of good girl falls for bad boy. Rory is just too sweet of a girl to be able to handle Jess's moodiness, mind games, and belittling. It is a bit one-sided because he is forward to the point of being aggressive and doesn't have the patience or gentleness to deal with her sensitive, cautious personality. He leaves her crying a lot and makes things uncomfortable for her with the way he treats those close to her. He is open about his feelings but not otherwise very good at expressing himself or taking responsibility for things, leaving her to deal with the consequences alone. He is cynical and angry, expecting a lot from her while he himself did not meet anyone else's expectations. She deserves better.
7 Phoebe and Cole in Charmed
The relationship starts off with deception and manipulation… and this beginning paves its way for even more deception and manipulation. Aside from the fact that Cole is an all-powerful demon and Phoebe is a good witch, the two are incompatible from the start. Cole, either to take advantage of or protect Phoebe, can constantly be found lying to her and withholding secrets from her. On the other hand, Phoebe picks up some of his moves and switches the tables on him with her own betrayals. The constant mind games and cat-and-mouse chases between the two prove why they don't work out. He takes advantage of the fact that she is sweet and naive, and then later, when she becomes more mature, he becomes obsessed with her. She's always been a convivial, optimistic girl and he nearly extinguishes that fire and sucks the life out of her (almost literally) while the two are together.
6 Izzie and George in Grey's Anatomy
Is there something about hospitals that make two people so very confused about whether they should be friends or lovers? Izzie and George are another pair who kept thinking there might be something more between them, struggling as they go back and forth from "we should just be friends" to "no, we're more than friends." This is a bad relationship because neither really knows what she or he wants. During all these wishy washy emotions, they have sex, resulting in George cheating on his wife Callie and getting a divorce, just because Izzie seems to be into George and George eventually becomes "convinced" he is into Izzie--but turns out, they are not… ? In the end, they realize that they aren't even a great item after all, so then what was all of that drama and iffiness for? Nothing. Just two people who couldn't figure out their true feelings; they just got caught up in all the what ifs.
5 Michael Scott and Jan in The Office
These two just needed to have passionate hate sex and then to never speak to each other ever again. Jan's rather temperamental personality and complete disgust of Michael Scott's dim-witted and inconsiderate personality is enough proof that the two are completely wrong for each other. She can't stand how dumb he seems to her and he can't handle his childlike emotions well enough to really pursue and court her the proper way. She is also too much woman for him, too frigid and scary for him to approach and express himself, and they constantly show signs of hating each other (even outright saying this), so it comes as no surprise that this ends up more of a fling than a concrete, long-term relationship in the series. Although amusing when together, they are far from a model couple--they just drive each other insane!
4 Whitney Frost and Calvin Chadwick in Agent Carter
This power couple proves to be quite dangerous together--and for each other. Their relationship is one focused on power plays. There isn't much affectionate love between them, more the fact that they need each other for superficial, social-ladder-climbing reasons. The brilliant Whitney is the puppeteer who helps the couple rise to power by controlling her husband because of the gender roles at the time, but this leads to her not getting the respect she deserves from others and her husband feeling emotionally and verbally abused by her controlling, belittling personality. In the end, out of fear, he tries to betray her in a way that would get her killed, but she figures this out and kills him--so not much more explanation is really necessary for why these two are the total opposite of #relationshipgoals, right? Where's the love when there's not even trust?
3 Cho and Summer in The Mentalist
Cho is a righteous and dutiful cop while Summer is a CI who worked as a prostitute. Already uh-oh. What's really bad about this relationship is that the two did not bring out the good in each other, which seems to be a common theme in all relationships. Although Summer could be sweet, like her name, she could also run hot, so she would sometimes yell at Cho, and she even beats a confession of love out of him. Then later, he adopts that fiery persona, taking his anger out on a drug dealer, who harmed Summer, by beating him up (police brutality much?). She clearly has a lot of problems that she has to deal with, like substance abuse, and is a bad influence on Cho, turning him violent, so the two ultimately break up. Two people can love each other but not be right for each other. Sadly, that is the case here.
2 Britta and Troy in Community
This pair is random, and some consider them to be forced--and for good reason. There isn't that much chemistry between the two, and they rarely seem to be on the same page. Britta is an insecure woman who needs validation from those around her, as much as she tries to pretend she doesn't, and Troy is not attentive or intuitive enough to notice and provide that for her. A lot of the times, she seems to be the one who is giving 110% into the relationship while Troy, who liked her first, seems disinterested. She puts in more effort to make this unbalanced relationship work, showing they don't feel the same way. There is also a disparity in their emotional maturity: Britta is more readily open and expressive, but Troy is still too childish to meet her level of commitment. In the end, she seems like a third wheel in the Troy-and-Abed (in the mooorning!) friendship.
1 Piper and Alex in Orange is the New Black
This couple is pretty tiring, although there's no denying the chemistry. Despite that, the two are constantly butting heads, seeming to betray each other, not trust each other, and prone to lashing out when things end badly. Alex was cheating on someone with Piper, and then Piper cheated on Alex with someone else later--maybe they should stop trying to make it work? Although there's no denying that Alex is not the best influence on Piper (since Piper wouldn't even be in prison if she hadn't met Alex), Piper could be quite frustrating herself. She, on occasion, is a self-centered and inconsiderate partner in this relationship, often ignoring Alex's "paranoia" because she's too immersed in her own emotions. Considering both have somewhat unhealthy lives and personalities, perhaps it could be said that "two wrongs don't make a right"?