“Settling” has become a dirty word when it comes to marriage and relationships. But with recent discussions, I wanted to give it its own thread.
I think someone once pointed out that “settling” is often mathematically unavoidable. The case in point, IIRC, was that a large percentage of women wanted to marry a man 6 feet tall or taller, but only a small percentage of men actually were that tall. Therefore, many such women would eventually have to “settle” for a man shorter than six feet whether they liked it or not. The same could apply for wealth; there are probably far more women who want to marry a man who earns six figures than there actually are such men.
And many men probably want to marry a woman who is in the, say, 90th percentile or higher of beauty, despite the fact that, by definition, such women comprise only 10% of the population. Which means many men will have to settle for a woman in a lower beauty percentile. (Of course, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so this is harder to analyze objectively than wealth or height. I can’t think of any other way to convey the point, though, except the percentile analogy.)
There’s an axiom that “It’s better to be single and wishing that you were married than to be married and wishing that you were single.” Getting married out of desperation isn’t likely to have a good outcome, and it is better to be single than marry someone who is not suitable. So there is a legitimate argument against settling.
Most people who “settle” probably deny “settling.” They claim that their expectations changed (which, in a way, sometimes, depending on the situation, *is * a reworded term for “settling”) or that their partner does meet their pre-settling standards despite the fact that e or she does not. The social stigma of “settling” is still so great that people won’t acknowledge it. Of course, it’s nobody’s business except the settling or non-settling person’s.
“Settling” should *not *be a derisive word. If someone wants to “settle,” OK. If someone does not want to “settle,” OK. That’s their individual choice. But I think it’s time for “settling” to longer be regarded with disdain.
My thoughts: don’t have hard standards about things like height and wealth – rather, one’s physical standards should be something like “do I find this person attractive and would I enjoy being physically intimate with them?”, and one’s status/wealth standards should be something like “is this person responsible with money and does this person have financial and life-style goals that are compatible with mine?”, and the like for personality, intelligence, hobbies, religion, child-rearing, etc.
With such standards, than one doesn’t have to settle.
I never thought of it as settling, I prioritized certain attributes realizing that in no real world I would get all of them. If I had good chemistry with a woman and I felt the she would make a good mother to help raise a family I was about 90% there.
I don’t know that the concept of “settling” came into the picture when I got married. Because AFAICT the process happened in two steps -
[ol][li]Discovering that I was in love, and [/li][li]Deciding if I could see spending the rest of my life with the person I was in love with.[/ol][/li]But the second step didn’t have a variety of factors that I weighed against each other, and decided that it netted out to a Go. There were a number of factors I considered deal-breakers, and if even one had been present I would have not proceeded.
It wasn’t like “She doesn’t have as much X as I wanted but she has a lot of Y so that makes up for it”.
IF Smart = True AND
Stable = True AND
SenseofHumor = Good AND
Pretty = True AND
FamilyBackground GE “Normal” AND
NumberOfCommonInterests GE “A Lot”
THEN
Perform GetDownOnOneKnee
INPUT WillSheMarryMe (range=false/true) HEADER “Do you want to get married?”
ELSE
Perform ExitRelationshipRoutine
END-IF
END
To me, saying one “settled” is not saying that they married someone who wasn’t quite a rock-star astronaut supermodel, but rather that they married someone they considered inferior–someone they didn’t really respect or admire. And I think that’s a terrible idea, and one that leads to a long, painful slide into divorce soon enough.
This was just a few weeks ago. Flashy headline: Better to settle for Mr. OK than Wait for Mr. Perfect.
Turns out its a computational model of evolution. Not necessarily how you as an individual want to choose your mating partner. But that’s science journalism for you.
To me it means someone who knows the person they’re with isn’t a good match, for whatever reason, but placing the desire to be paired above their own best interests.
That doesn’t mean arrogance. I think it reveals low self-worth, actually.
That’s what I was thinking too- having a template when you’re in your early-mid 20s of your mate-to-be, and then realizing that the right person doesn’t meet but a few of those items doesn’t mean you settled; it just means that you revised your template what you found important. I mean, by my 25 year old template, my wife wouldn’t have passed at all, but I’m glad I married her now.
Like others, the word “settling” rightly has negative connotations because rarely is it used in a positive way.
People “settle” when they care more about being married than the person they are marrying. And maybe this isn’t a horrible thing, in and of itself. In theory, having such a strong respect and desire for the institution could very well mean the “settler” is willing to put in lot of sweat equity, just to hold on to the title. Right? But in practice, it often means a daily struggle for the settler. Going against their emotional will just to provide a modicum of affection and intimacy to their partner is like walking up a steep hill; most people can hack this for a short period of time without becoming exhausted, but forever? That is not sustainable for animals biologically wired for the path of least resistance.
I think a lot of people who advocate “settling” fall into two camps. 1) Those who settled and lucked out by picking someone truly good for them. And 2) those who settled, are insecure about their choice, and feel the need to justify it.
I know of no one who had the choice between settling and not settling and has regretted choosing not to settle.
ISTM that the exact opposite is true (unless I’ve misunderstood you). Someone who considers settling is acknowledging that they can’t do better. That’s the only reason to settle. They would like to do better. But they can’t. (Or least have a low probability of doing better.)
I agree with the OP. Virtually everyone “settles”, in the sense that very few people get paired up with someone who is their ideal spouse in a perfect world. The thing is that most people realize upfront that they won’t get their perfect spouse, and go for something realistic to begin with. The people who we think of as settling are those who had to adjust their initial standards and expectations, whether because these standards were unrealistic to begin with or because it just didn’t work out for them for whatever reason. But it’s the same thing.
And the same goes for every other area of life. How many people are living in their ideal house, working in their ideal job, etc? That’s life and you can’t have everything you want, and if your expectations are unrealistic (or if they become unrealistic) then you need to adjust your expectations. No shame in it.
Oh, I think plenty of people admit that they settled. Usually these confessions come out when people are complaining about their marriages and are seeking advice about divorce. This board has seen its share of stories like this.
A long time ago I realized that having a wish list for one’s future SO is great and all, but rarely does this wish list dictate chemistry and compatibility. It’s possible to meet a guy who meets everything on your checklist and still find him unattractive, and believe it or not, it’s also possible to be thrilled with someone who meets hardly anything on your checklist. Often, our standards only represent an approximation of what we actually like and value. Because they are approximations, these standards can be inaccurate and incomplete.
Take height. A lot of women express a preference for tall guys. Height is attractive to them because it conveys strength, confidence, and manliness. Well, as long as these women keep an open mind they could very well find a short guy they find attractive. How? By having a demeanor and carriage that conveys strength, confidence, and manliness in ways outside of being tall.
So such a woman who wises up and discards her height preference is not settling simply by pairing up with a short guy.
I feel like everyone “settles” in that none of us get everything that would be on our list for a perfect partner–because humans have flaws, and nobody is perfect. If you want to be happy in a relationship/marriage, you have to learn to accept/tolerate/work with your partner’s flaws and weaknesses. We all have them.
But I think it is people who spend a lot of time thinking about “settling” and their “list of standards for a partner” who end up pretty unhappy. The men and women in my social group who worried most about whether their partners met certain benchmarks for looks and accomplishments have ended up chronically, unhappily alone.