In relationships, settling is a bad word… so we often live in denial, and instead believe in, or chase, a dream free of any demand that we settle for an imperfect mate. Or we measure ourselves against that dream as failures, and wonder if there is greener grass elsewhere.
So some partners cheat. Others may wish they had the depravity to cheat; instead they may just ‘quit.’ And who’s to say that when one quits, the other is so wrong to cheat? Is halfhearted participation in a relationship already a form of cheating? Can you really cheat in a relationship that doesn’t actually exist?
Here’s what the evidence says about settling, and it’s rationally pretty indisputable (but we practice hopeful denial anyway)…
No relationship has perfect balances.
Perfect balances in sexual desire
Perfect balances in how to spend time together
Perfect balances in time needed away from the partner
Perfect balances in how to spend money
Perfect balances in how to treat and react to family
And, especially, perfect balance in who “gives more to the relationship”
Whether “greater” balance is the goal, and settling is the enemy, what happens to marriages?
Half of them end in divorce. Period.
So why the hell do we give any credence whatsoever to advice about balance?! Or settling? It seems to be right only half the time – which are the odds of a goddamn coin toss.
Notice we are talking about settling, and balance, here. The ideal notion of balance is 50-50. Anything else is imbalanced. Do you find it curious that the success rate in marriage is 50-50?
We want to hide our head in the sand when it comes to that distressing statistic. We want to believe we are in the half which will succeed.
Have you ever wondered how many of the lasting 50% survive because they accept and tolerate settling? Do you think it’s because they generally have a 50-50 balance? Ha!
Do you wonder if they altogether reject the notion of “settling”?
Do you wonder if settling (or balancing) is not even a word in the vocabulary of their relationship mindset?
In popular psychology – even if it doesn’t have directly to do with relationships – you hear vocabularies like: “Partners in relationship need to set and respect boundaries… need to give-and-take… need to compromise.” Generally, these imply we can get more of our needs met, but how is that done without our partner settling? Maybe they need to take less and give more. What if they say the same about us?
Just as there can’t be giving without taking, how can there be taking without giving?
It seems wise to say that a relationship needs balance. But, who is the arbiter of that balance? If it’s not me who gets to define that balance, then I sense an imbalance. If it’s not my partner who gets to set that balance, then my partner feels an imbalance. So we need to balance the balancing🙄
In the end, it seems both need to settle in some circumstances, at some times, about some things. So, why the hell does settling taste like such a bad word?
Those of us who fear we are in the failing 50%, or who have actually experienced that failure, desperately want an answer to the question of settling. Actually, we are probably desperate for *any* answers that are simple enough. That’s what desperation does. It wants simplification. Desperation does not favor complexity, does it?
Maybe I too desperately want my partner to be someone they aren’t – someone else.
Maybe I too desperately want my partner to be simple while I desperately want to remain complex.
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Neil D. 2023-08-09
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