Ironically, marrying the wrong man is the easiest mistake a woman in love can make, and also the most disastrous. We figure out why, despite total incompatibility, we allow ourselves to be led down the aisle, and why sometimes it’s worth accepting once and for all that some people just can’t be together.
There are no perfectly compatible people. We think most of us already understand this: any of our partners, no matter how great they may seem, are not right for us in some way. It may be the most trivial detail, but it still exists. At the beginning of a relationship, it is smoothed out by a feeling of elated love, and then it is polished by our ability to seek compromise and, more importantly, to achieve it.
But this is the ideal scenario, according to which healthy and self-sufficient relationships should proceed. In the most neglected cases, we can often observe how such insurmountable tension reigns between spouses or partners that one can only wonder how they manage to get along together at all. Usually, this is immediately obvious. It is impossible to be with them when they are together: an atmosphere of hostility, disagreement, and absolute indifference towards each other hangs in the air. And the worst thing is that no compromise, no psychologist, no training can help them. For them, there is only one way out – to admit that they do not love each other and go their separate ways.
And here the question arises: is it so difficult to predict that people are not right for each other, at the dawn of a relationship, when it is easier and less painful to burn bridges? It is possible: remember at least Prince Charles and Diana Spencer. The fact that there was an insurmountable spiritual gap between them was evident even in the first months of their acquaintance.
And yet, the marriage took place. Why? There are a great many reasons, but if we put aside the ornate prescriptions of dynastic protocol and turn to psychology, the answer will lie on the surface. Probably, some of these nine mistakes were made, from which – let us immediately stipulate – no one in the world is immune.
We tell you how we choose the wrong people, and why we are on the threshold of an era when you need to choose a partner with your head.
We don’t understand ourselves
Describe what your ideal partner would be like. Smart? Handsome? Caring? Well, that’s exactly how most women think when they’re searching. Remember how Meghan Markle described her blind date with Prince Harry: “The only thing I asked my friend when I found out who she wanted me to meet was, ‘Is he even cute?’ Because if he wasn’t, none of this would make any sense.” It’s not that the idea of looking for someone kind, handsome, and smart is bad. It’s just that the idea doesn’t make any sense because it’s too vague.
What does “smart” mean? Guided by such a request, you can equally successfully find both an erudite man with whom it is pleasant to talk, and a conceited man like Prince Charles, who will quote his favorite philosophers even in the most everyday situations.
It is important to understand that everyone has “cockroaches” in their heads – and this is normal. Moreover, they should become your main indicator in finding a partner (and vice versa). Find out about each other’s “oddities” right away and decide together whether you are ready to put up with them or not.
We don’t understand others
The problem of poor self-knowledge is further compounded by the fact that other people – just like you – know damn little about themselves and are therefore in no hurry to share all the ins and outs of their character.
Naturally, we make every effort to get to know each other better. We sleep over at each other’s houses, meet each other’s families and friends, look at photographs, study the interior of his apartment in the hope of learning about his hidden traits and passions. But in the end, it all seems like a novice pilot deciding that he can fly a plane just once, by folding origami and launching its paper equivalent.
Remember the fate of Grace Kelly, who, in pursuit of her prince, was in no hurry to deeply study his character. It was enough for her that Rainier was a prince, he had tiger cubs in his garden, and he himself was very nice in communication, and they would learn everything else about each other already in marriage. The actress was not at all interested in the fact that he, unlike her, was an unsociable person, homely, and did not tolerate parties at all. Well, later, the Princess of Monaco paid dearly for her vain indifference.
They say that in the future, humanity will approach marriage planning with all seriousness. Potential spouses will have to fill out complex psychological questionnaires, take tests, and undergo physical tests. It sounds scary and unromantic, but it is not so hard to believe, considering that we already have marriage agencies, and on dating sites, you must fill out personal questionnaires.
As with everything that concerns the future, we will not judge how good or bad such a hypothesis is. We will agree on one thing: before going down the aisle, it would not be superfluous to find out how a person thinks, what irritates him, what calms him down, what excites him, what he thinks about children, money, fidelity, and so on.
We are not used to being happy
It is generally accepted that in love, each person seeks their happiness. But this is not entirely true. As practice and numerous studies of the unconscious show, in love we seek what is close to us, from the point of view of our personality.
Everything comes from childhood. It is at a young age that we learn from our parents what love is. True, in a very sophisticated understanding: yes, our parents loved us, but at the same time, there were punishments, an upbringing, and distancing. If we recall, for example, the childhood of actress Angelina Jolie, then in her case, there was another karmic attitude: love always goes hand in hand with betrayal. Even the unusually “correct” Brad Pitt could not destroy this idea ( read also: “6 obsessions of Angelina Jolie that destroyed her marriage” ).
As a rule, we look for partners based on subconscious signals that depend on the characteristics of our psyche and, of course, experience. A candidate who is too “perfect” makes us feel perplexed and like a pig in a poke. And we reject him in favor of someone who seems closer to us.
We are afraid to be alone
It’s hard to stay sane when choosing a partner when loneliness is already making your soul ache. That’s when the idea “just be with someone, just not alone” appears in our heads.
Unfortunately, we live in a society where, at a certain age, being single becomes something shameful. Singles are not invited to family dinners to avoid awkwardness. They have a harder time snagging their already-married friends for lunch. As a result, they start to feel awkward if they go to a restaurant alone or buy just one ticket to the cinema. And sex, contrary to modern mores, is not so easy to get when you are single: casual relationships do not provide the necessary pleasure, and there are problems with the frequency here.
Perhaps it would be easier for the whole society if our life resembled one big “communal apartment”: with public canteens instead of restaurants, with parties and promiscuous relationships. But, despite Hollywood plots, with age more and more couples begin to rest, eat, and have sex only with each other. And lonely people have to urgently look for a partner, considering marriage as a pass to social life, and not as a path to spiritual harmony and human happiness.
We rebel against the mores of the past (and lose our heads)
And this is already a question of human history. Today, marriages of convenience seem to us something low and sinful, but just two hundred years ago,o it was considered absolutely normal to choose spouses for your children (even if they were not yet born) in order to increase your family wealth. Such marriages were a cruel reality, ruining many lives of our ancestors. And now, when we are free to choose those with whom to go down the aisle, we are beginning to fall into the other extreme: from marriages of convenience we are moving to reckless marriages.
Watch any melodrama of our time: choosing a partner with your head is shameful, mean, and wrong. It is much more noble to marry, as they say, “at the behest of the heart,” when the only motive is love. This attitude still works in our collective consciousness. We praise Prince William and Prince Harry for choosing their wives for love, and we reproach Prince Charles for not giving up on Lady Diana at the dawn of their acquaintance.
Romance should be above all else, and we are in no hurry to abandon this idea, even though it is already starting to become outdated. After all, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson also once married on the leash of their instincts – and what happened then? Cheating, scandals, and a quick divorce ( read also: “Leaving the Windsors and staying happy: the story of Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew’s ex-wife” ).
We are trying to preserve happiness
Throughout our lives, we want to immortalize the best moments of our existence. We want to get the convertible our friends took us for a ride in, or move to the country we fell in love with while visiting as tourists. Why? Because all these things or places are connected to a happy time you once had. The same with people: we spend a wonderful time with our partner, enjoying every minute with them, and mistakenly believe that marriage will immortalize this feeling. As if marriage is a sterilized jar in which love can be preserved.
This is, of course, not true. Marriage has never had and will never have the power to turn a fleeting feeling into something permanent and monumental. It is impossible: after all, the entire surge of romantic emotions that you experienced with your partner at the dawn of your relationship was connected with a certain entourage, the unknown, and the unusualness of everything that was happening. Marriage will not be able to give you unusual moments in the order of a conveyor belt: on the contrary, there will be everyday life, there will be an apartment on the outskirts of the city, children, expenses, and so on. But your partner will remain, who will always be permanent. And perhaps, it is at this moment that you will understand that a long time ago, it was not he who created that fairytale moment.
Marriage won’t help you preserve happy moments. But it can help you start experiencing new ones. Of course, if “your” person is nearby.
We consider ourselves special
We think that each of us has examples of unsuccessful marriages. For example, we watched our friends get married and break up, and in general, we understood that marriage entails many problems and trials. And yet, despite the frightening statistics, we automatically begin to include ourselves in the circle of those who will be lucky. And we voluntarily begin to play Russian roulette.
We consciously exclude ourselves from the crowd, believing that “nothing like that will happen to us.” And yet this is a mistake and, again, self-deception, because getting married, relying on luck, is unwise and, most likely, will not bode well for you. Any doubts should be subject to careful analysis.
We are tired of looking for “the one”
Not everyone is destined to find love at first sight. Most often, before meeting the man of our dreams, we go through a whole gamut of love adventures: we fall in love without reciprocation, then create unsuccessful couples, then experience a period of total loneliness, then get involved with scoundrels, then vainly go to parties and bars in search of a gentleman. It is not surprising that this series sooner or later tires us so much that we just want to marry “anyone” to calm down and break the vicious circle.
Perhaps it was partly these feelings that guided Queen Elizabeth’s sister Margaret when she learned that the only man she had ever loved had married another. The suffering exhausted her, and in despair, she married her long-time admirer, photographer Tony-Armstrong Jones. We all know the end of this story: this marriage lasted 18 years, but brought happiness to no one ( read also: “Princess Margaret: the star and death of the first beauty of the British Kingdom” ).
It is a mistake to think that as soon as we put on wedding rings, we automatically find ourselves in a quiet haven where there is no place for drama. Marriage has everything: betrayals, scandals, suffering, and bitter disappointments. And, returning to the previous point, it is far from certain that all this will not affect you.
Whether we like it or not, when entering into marriage, we should be guided solely by whether our partner is right for us on a psychological level or not. If not, then no matter how wonderful our love may seem to us, it will not withstand the onslaught of “aggravating” circumstances that a passport stamp entails.
