When you’re single you become frustrated, it can often feel like that the couples around you have figured out the secret of happy marriage. You might look at people who are happily married with envy and wonder how people in unhappy marriages ended up there. Choosing a life partner is a daunting and complicated task. It can determine your perpetual state of happiness or unhappiness for years to come.
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Here are some common mistakes consciously or unconsciously people makes while making one of the biggest decisions of their life:
6. People often do not know what they want from a relationship:
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It can be hard to know what exactly you seek from a relationship when you haven’t been in many serious relationships and have lack of experience to judge what they really want from a relationship. In a study in which speed daters were questioned about their relationship preferences, it could be seen that most of them actually preferred different things in an actual situation than they said they did. As a single person, it is really tough to know what your relationship needs are. So it’s easy for you to choose a life partner when you think you want one thing but in actuality, you want another.
5. Society sets the wrong precedents:
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Society teaches us to put too much faith in Romance. While making any other life decision, let it be choosing a career path or starting a new business, it is encouraged to have a well thought out plan. Research and analyzing your performance seems to be good ideas for avoiding mistakes. However, when it comes to relationships and choosing a life partner, the stance is the complete opposite. If you follow the same advice while choosing a partner you’re criticised for being over-rational or not being romantic enough. It is encouraged to ‘go with the flow’, ‘follow your gut’ or simply leaving things to fate. If you took this advice while making any other decision in your life, you will only succeed if you get extremely lucky so how will it be any different when you’re choosing a life partner.
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Society compels us to choose a partner only from the small pool of people around us, no matter how limited the options may be. Methods like speed dating, online dating and any other way which may increase one’s horizons and introduce them to people outside of their immediate social circle are frowned upon. This is the reason why inter-racial and intercultural marriages are still a novelty. There is a stigma attached to meeting your life partner online or even worse, a dating app. Following society’s stingy dating rule-book will do nothing but leave the chances of you meeting someone outside your social circle who may be a great match for you to dumb luck.
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Society prioritises settling down. You are pressured to get married before you’re too old not when you find the right person. It is more acceptable to be married and unhappy about the time you’re 30 than remaining single and happy. Society would rather force you to marry the wrong person before a certain age than marry the right one later. Our need to be accepted by the psociety often outweighs the need to find the right life partner.
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4. Our bodies are not on our side:
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It’s hard not to make the wrong decision when your body goes haywire on the slightest signs of attraction towards someone. It could just be a crush but your brain producing all those chemicals which make you go all lovey-dovey can limit your rational decision-making abilities.
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For women, it’s particularly cruel if they want to have biological children with their husband. It sets a time frame for them to select a life partner, usually before 40. It is already stressful enough finding a life partner without having to worry about risky pregnancies and menopause, the added pressure pushes us to rush. However, you might be happier adopting children with the right partner than having biological ones with the wrong one.
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When you have a person around you who do not know what they want from a relationship, you push them to find a partner before a certain age but also through socially acceptable means AND their biology putting a clock on their heads what do you get? A lot of unhappy people in unhealthy relationships have no clue where they went wrong in making the most important decision of their life. Now let’s look at some personality types who are most likely to end up with the wrong person:
3. The Hopeless Romantic:
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The hopeless romantic puts all his efforts in being in ‘Love.’ He believes that being in love with someone is a good enough reason for marrying them. He tends to ignore the pragmatic factors that may affect a relationship and will hang on to that love even if things aren’t going well with his partner. This delusion often leads them to make hasty decisions if they believe they’ve met their soulmate.
2. The Easily Influenced:
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These are the kind of people who care way too much about what other people think. Their need for validation from their friends and family makes them go for people who may or may not be a good match for them but will be liked by their company. They might even break things off with someone who they would have been happy with just because the people around them did not approve their partnership. It could be the other way round too when they marry the wrong person just because everyone thinks they will be great together.
1. Shallow people:
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Shallow people care more about a person’s status and looks than what sort of a person they are. Appearances matter more to them than having an emotional connection with their partner. They often find themselves stranded in unhappy marriages when the charm of outward appearances wear off and the realization of the lack of substance in their relationship settles in. Making choices is hard. Making big choices is even harder. When you choose your life partner you’re not only choosing a spouse but the future mother/father of your children, your roommate for all the years to come, your travel partner and old age companion. Hence a lot of thought and consideration should go into it.
Article by BornRealist
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