There's a new term to describe that annoyingly perfect couple who make you want to vomit.

How annoying are couples, yeah?

Eating their brunches and walking their dogs all smug like, never bickering over the telly remote. Even if you and your partner are those people, even you make yourselves sick sometimes.

Now, there’s a new term floating around you can use to describe their/your loved-up Insta-filtering ways. Besides that other one that, ahem, rhymes with ‘ick heads’…

It’s called, the ‘Autopilot relationship’. And you might even be in one. Right. Now.

To put it simply, it means always appearing – at least, on the outside – to be completely, inhumanely, 100 per cent chill.

No fighting or problems or the days when you kind of can’t even stand the person you’re with. Just blue skies, and carefully curated social media feeds.

Don’t get us wrong – there’s nothing wrong with wanting to post nice pictures of yourself and your partner, or getting your Instagram husband to take pictures of you in the one spot in your garden that’s not covered in weeds.

There is, however, one big, fat problem with being an autopilot couple all of the time. And it’s got less to do with them, and more to do with us.

"Everything we look at and put out into the world has to look so good, that that's the main focus in a lot of our lives," sex therapist, Dr Kristin Zeising told Refinery29.

If you're in a relationship, there's a good chance you've often felt shitty because of bloody Karen and Dave's impromptu picnics, awesome house parties or couple friends holidays to the Whitsundays all over Facebook. Damn Karen and Dave.

But what we don't see is when they didn't speak for a week over a stupid argument, or when Karen stayed up all night rocking their daughter for the fourth night in a row while Dave slept soundly because he's 'got an early meeting and can't'. Not because they didn't post it on social media, but because they don't tell anyone about those things, even their closest friends.

Rather than being honest with our friends and family about our relationship struggles or the monotony of monogamy, we focus our attention on creating the perfect outward appearance. Which helps no one because it raises the bar for other couples just that bit higher whenever we do it.

LISTEN: Speaking of relationship terms, have you ever been 'stashed'? Mamamia Out Loud investigates (post continues after audio...)

"It's perpetuating the idea that relationships don't take work — and they do," Dr Zeising explained.

Now, no one is suggesting you go ahead and do a Facebook live video of your ordinary sex or that argument you have every Friday before going to dinner with the in-laws.

Social media will always be a 'highlight reel'. But what we can do is not bottle our problems up. By sharing the less attractive sides of our relationships with our close friends and family, we are doing each other a favour by lowering relationships standards.

Not to low life levels, but just to the regular human level where we accept life isn't halloumi and palm trees 24/7.

So go ahead and post that picture from that thing you dressed up for three weeks ago as if it was last night. And then tell your mates about how your partner introduced you as 'my friend' to their grandma.

You can catch all of the Mamamia Out Loud goodness from the full episode down below...