[Bonus Ep] How Are We Meant To Pick The Right Life Partner?

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1:43What is up? I'm Grace Beverley and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast shared guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing. Because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

1:57welcome back to another bonus episode as i mentioned before or if you missed the previous one i really want these to be a space for everything that i can't usually fit into normal programming because usually those are either deep dive episodes on a specific topic or a guest episode and there's so much more that i see throughout the week that's either in pop culture or a particularly interesting piece of literature or something that i've seen being shared over and over or something that me and my friends have talked about that I really want to have a discussion about and when we were rerouting the podcast actually one of my like top things that I really wanted was to be able to make this podcast more of a space that has a two-way conversation rather than just putting out content which I obviously love but I see so much back and forth in my DMs and on Instagram about things that people found particularly interesting and have opinions on and everything and that makes me want to respond like I want to be able to have a conversation with you.

2:48So today is an article review. I love articles. Like I love long form articles. I think that I didn't really know about them. That makes me sound so stupid. But I really didn't know about them until maybe I definitely was in like my mid 20s. I just didn't really know that like long form articles were the kind of art form that they are. So we're going to be bringing my love of these long form articles specifically into this podcast because I feel like it's important and it makes you a more interesting person. It makes you a better person. It makes you have more interesting conversations um so i read an incredible article the other day it was recommended by steph the founder on instagram and i wanted to kind of review it and chat it through with you it's by a guy called tim urban and it's all about how to pick the right life partner i'm going to summarize the article because i think that's really important in the discussion i also asked for some dilemmas which i've got and want to talk through but i just thought i thought the way this article was positioned was so profound and such an antidote to usual content around like picking a life partner and I think there's so much anxiety around this decision in particular and so much kind of need to move fast and need to know exactly what you're doing and it's such a huge decision and yet as he talks about in this episode you're not meant to approach it with too much kind of scientificness otherwise it feels inorganic and unromantic whereas actually it's such a huge decision.

4:12Anyway, we're getting into the article because I found the article itself really interesting. So there are two parts of the article. Number one is the problem with picking a life partner. So he begins the article by talking about how picking a life partner is arguably one of the most important decisions that you will ever make. You know, and that's not really just about big milestones. Your partner shapes your daily reality, mood, personal growth, everything. And actually one of the things I really loved at the beginning of this article was that he depicts basically i'm going to try and describe this to you he says to a frustrated single person life can often feel like this and it is a staircase and the staircase represents having figured it all out and at the bottom of the staircase is you the frustrated single person and at the top of the staircase is these couples in love or a couple just in love and they look happy and they're in love and it feels like couples are the ones who've really figured it out because if we are striving towards finding a right life partner then looking at someone who has found a partner automatically puts them into this like figured it all out box and I do think this is very like prevalent especially in your 20s and 30s and especially as a woman when you know the reality of your biological clock and you're obviously a lot of the time trying to find a partner like you see them in a couple and you automatically assume that their life is further along than you he says at first glance research seems to back this up so research actually suggests that married people are on average happier than single people and much happier than divorced people but a closer analysis of that research basically reveals that if you split up married people into two groups based on marriage quality people in self-assessed poor marriages are pretty miserable and much less happy than unmarried people and people in self-assessed good marriages are even more happy than the literature report so basically the data is hugely skewed and there's like this really wide range and actually looking at married people as one homogenous group doesn't make sense data wise because there is such a widespread result and actually if you split up that result into people who think they're in poor marriages they're pretty miserable and if you split that up into people who think they're in great marriages they are really really happy so it's actually not that couples in general are happier it's that that is an incorrect way to split that up so he basically changes the graphic to show that this kind of staircase you're in the on the middle step and couples are actually both on the bottom step and the top step anyway i thought that was really interesting and i thought that was a really good way to look at it but what he's really talked about first is that finding a life partner is very important there are very high stakes and it's not just about having a big milestone your partner shapes everything about your daily reality for a very very long time he talks about how if you minus your age off 90 that's probably how much time you would spend with a life partner if you were to choose them now then he goes on to talking about why people make bad choices it's such an important decision so why do we often make bad choices like why are there so many divorces why are there so many relationships that fall apart when the intention was to find a life partner especially when the majority of people getting married say that they don't think they'll break up obviously you'd hope he basically identifies two big problems so first of all is the fog and this is emotional confusion societal pressures and unrealistic expectations so those are big reasons why people make bad choices they're either emotionally confused they're drawn in by romance or whatever it might be or there are societal pressures they feel like they need to be settling down and so they jump into something on the other side the other big problem is he calls the wrong map this is basically using flawed criteria to choose a long-term partner so using things like looks status fear of being alone instead of actual long-term compatibility and that's why people often choose a wrong life partner.

7:50Another thing he identifies is that people have the wrong priorities so many people base partner choices on short-term infatuation or external checklist items and then this leads to relationships that are built on shiny qualities that fade so for example charm, money or hotness instead of actual substance. Anyway so that kind of outlines why we choose the wrong partner but obviously the aim is very much to pick up the right partner. So he breaks us down in part two of his kind of essay or article he says that there are three crucial ingredients for a great relationship so number one is an epic friendship that includes emotional connection laughter shared interests genuine like for each other and a big part of that is that you should love hanging out with this person outside of romantic or sexual attraction so would you want this person to be your friend like do you is it restorative when you actually spend time with them are they the type of person that restores your social battery and you really enjoy spending every day with or experiencing certain things with rather than just when they're being particularly romantic or loving or whatever it might be because that is ultimately what this person like you're going to spend more time being a friend to this person than you are any of your other friends even if you removed like all of the romance out of it i assume so the second thing he says is a crucial ingredient for a great relationship is a feeling of home so this involves emotional safety mutual trust acceptance of each other's flaws and just so you feel at ease and yourself around them in past relationships I've definitely not realized when I'm performing a certain version of myself and I think that you know like yes that could be you and it could be a part of you but when it doesn't include the other parts of you I think that's when it becomes harmful because that's not your true and full self and undoubtedly over time you're going to basically realize that you're shrinking areas of yourself that you don't feel like they resonate with in order to be just one version of you and if you're thinking about how much time you're going to spend this person and how much unfiltered time you're going to spend with this person like if you think of some of the hardest times you'll go through in life you are probably going to be the most unfiltered version of yourself and the mental load of trying to like keep up a kind of charade charade never know how that's meant to be said i would say charade but jury's out it's just going to be so exhausting like it's going to be completely unmaintainable number three of the important things is a determination to make it work and i think this is so important and this is why this might be a controversial take this is why i think it is so important to know your um attachment style and to know what attachment style you need in someone else obviously ideally everyone moves towards secure in a good relationship i will say i'm anxious avoidant so i have this in me i think that if you are avoidant it can often amount to not a lack of determination to make it work but a instinct to run when things get difficult which makes it harder for you to push through to have a determination to make something work your natural kind of unhealed instinct is to start something else rather than making something work or fixing something or you know when it just gets too hard and of course there will always be that line and knowing where that line is is also good and you know an issue that you don't want to have if you're not good at knowing where that line is but i totally agree that a determination to make it work and a determination that like really understands the the sanctity of your specific relationship and what you're going to do to keep that healthy including changing behavior including understanding where certain ways that you've grown are difficult for that other person or whatever it might be and really being able to work as a team because you are a team so what he says here is that you know know relationships obviously require effort growth and mutual commitment to making it better over time important traits in order to protect that and that kind of help you be able to hold this together are self-awareness communication skills emotional maturity and lack of ego so any of those things that are exhibited in a partner are particularly beneficial in being able to actually make something work because you're going to have to squish your ego so many times if you're trying to make something work and if you're in a team with someone who's really going to tell you how it is he has a few important warnings before he wraps up the article and those are don't ignore red flags or stay due to fear of being alone i think that is a huge one i think sunk cost fallacy is something that is so often fallen into in relationships so i've already invested three years in this relationship and therefore i should just go through with it and actually just understanding that no what that means is you've invested three years and three more years would be three more would be three wasted years rather than the years you've already done like you've learned what you needed to learn in that time you would never have made a different decision at the beginning and actually okay what you make it one more year great you make it two more years great like life is fucking long like it is short but it is really long staying because of a fear of being alone or societal structures or whatever it might be is just so i think a lot of us know it's wrong it doesn't make it any easier the second thing he says is an important warning is avoiding being swept up into the honeymoon illusion so infatuation is not the same as compatibility and that is why it is so important to wait before making big decisions because if you came out of an avoidant relationship into a more anxious relationship that anxious relationship might feel like everything you need because it has that contact that you've lacked from the avoidant relationship however those two things could be bad just in different directions and i think that understanding where the relationship is when it settles into a more everyday relationship like a more standard one I think is very very very important and I do think that you can almost always be in like a honeymoon type period by just being like polite nice people that communicate well and deal with each other in a way that you would want to be treated but I also think that like the honeymoon illusion he calls it but like the honeymoon stage where it's really what the relationship will settle out to be in a few years is a risky place to make decisions it's like making you're on like oxytocin i was about to say oxycontin not the same um like you're it's the same as like making a big decision when you're drunk or something it's it's not the reality anyway next is rejecting the notion that love should be easy and effortless forever good love takes work think this is so important relationships require so much work and love requires so much work and it is just incredibly important so one thing he says in the first part of the article actually is when you choose a life partner you're choosing a lot of things including your parenting partner someone who will deeply influence your children if you choose to have children you're eating companion for about 20 ,000 meals your travel companion for about 100 vacations your primary leisure time and retirement friend your career therapist and someone whose day you'll hear about 18 ,000 times and like when other would we do 20 ,000 things or 18 ,000 things and expect them to all be smooth sailing and expect us to agree with all of them and expect us to you know it just to work every single time like you're going to go through so many ups and downs and easy is not the right word I don't think for what you expect like the relationship to be I think you know it can be easy to love someone without a relationship being easy and growth is difficult like I think at this stage in life I for example i think some of the toughest times i've had has been when you know myself and my friends for example are growing at different rates and then imagine what that's like in a relationship because you're going to have a relationship likely well hopefully if you're choosing a life partner hopefully that relationship might be longer than you've ever had a friendship even at this stage so yeah not expecting it to be easy and effortless but expecting it to be worth it and still you know you can still be kind and um considered and ensure that it feels easy loving each other without the relationship necessarily being always like quote unquote easy he does put a few practical pieces of advice in the article which i really like because i feel like we can hear all of this but actually consolidating this into like what you should do and how you can even test this if you're for example dating or if you're in a relationship and you don't know whether it is the right person and all of that one of them is get to know each other in non-glamorous situations so how do they handle stress failure or chores this is why i think getting out of the honeymoon stage is so important because a lot of it like time just allows for more things to happen so it could be that they get fired it could be that you have something really good happen to you that isn't where they are in their life it could be that they deal with grief it could be that there's i don't know there's so many things that can happen just based on time and I think that understanding how they deal in situations that are less than ideal is so incredibly important and I think that you know there is part of honeymoon stage where you feel like do you know what I might not have been happy to do this for anyone else but I'm happy to do this for you and actually if that's going to disappear in a year or so then it might be something that's a non-negotiable it might be something that's not a non-negotiable and I think that knowing that is really important and adding an extra year on to waiting before making big decisions is very little in the grand scheme of how long you expect to be with a life partner second piece of practical advice is do not settle because of a timeline or societal expectations and he does acknowledge in this article that like the biological clock is a bitch and you can't really it's like i don't find it that helpful hearing from men like don't settle because of a timeline or societal expectations where like if you want children likelihood is you do have a timeline and like you there are ways to make it happen by yourself but like they're not the easiest ways they're not the cheapest ways they're not you know they're not gonna be easy once you know you manage to get children and I think that it is a reality and it's not like a fallacy and so we kind of do need to act with that in mind and it is tough I think that he is right that sometimes we prioritize being with the wrong person over being with the right person and taking a little bit longer the third piece of practical advice is just picture your future with them so do you respect them would they make a good co-parent with like if you weren't together anymore are they a decent person do they treat people decently would they be a good teammate like raising children together do you have the same parenting style all of that i feel like those things are really really really important when thinking of this longer term partnership and obviously at the end of the day it's not foolproof really is it and like terrible things happen and great things happen and you know you can't really plan for everything but I do think that this like constant racing fear of being alone and being in a couple always being better than that definitely shifts us into making worse decisions um that I think it is incredibly important to feel like we're as equipped as possible to deal with that was the article and I thought it was really really interesting and I would actually recommend you go read it we'll put some of the information about it and the diagrams up on the Working Hard Instagram because I think they're really interesting and really help kind of understand what's so good about the app.

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Whatever your needs, Atlantic Union Bank is here, providing easy access to knowledgeable bankers with local market insights and the right digital tools to keep your business moving forward because you deserve a relationship manager who cares call visit us online or stop by a branch today atlantic union bank any way you bank it's cool um but we're going to go on to some dilemmas so the first one is i would love some help i've been with my boyfriend for three years he is kind really supportive shares my values and our families get on so well we hang out together all the time and my favorite thing is going around his mom's for a roast but I'm starting to worry recently that there's no spark and it's really just a friendship I feel guilty for even questioning it because everything else should be perfect how do I know if I'm settling or sabotaging something good I think that is so difficult I saw someone post on reddit and it was on like the relationships subreddit and they were they were like a 20 year old or something and they were saying you know this is the person I've dated for two years and I really want to be with him but I'm just starting to think that like is this really it and but I'm terrified about breaking up with someone and not being right and all of that and I don't mean to diminish the severity of that decision based on the fact that that person is younger but I do really think that you know the constant like what ifs what ifs what ifs and making ourselves less risk averse to making what could be a really really great decision because it's terrifying is so natural but at the same time like I wanted to comment on this reddit literally being like you have so much life ahead of you but like if you're asking if this is it I would go as far as to say that it probably isn't it I do think there are aspects of relationships that do get a little boring and almost should get a little boring because often we're attracted to like very up down more toxic more push and pull relationships especially when we're younger because that feels like you know that feels like a version of love if you're not secure attached that will likely be what you are attracted to in some way because it feels safe and it feels representative of what you know and everything but you know i do think relationships should be boring in lots of ways in that they just feel settled and they feel repetitive and they feel comfortable in a way that home sometimes feels boring if you're starting to think of someone more as the friend then I think that's less about it having got boring and more about it just being a friendship and to me it totally depends because I think that weirdly getting married and like getting engaged puts this extra like we've got to decide now type things on things all I would say is like you don't need to make a decision now but you don't need to move forward with anything whilst feeling this way so I would say definitely when you're questioning if you're settling or if this is it then I wouldn't be making any big decisions like moving in together or getting engaged or having a baby or like whatever it might be but I do but I also don't think you need to make an abrupt decision just because you feel like getting engaged is in your timeline just because it's at some point in the future I don't think that every relationship has to be for marriage and I don't think every relationship has to move super fast to be able to like deal with a certain time anyway I feel like that wasn't super helpful I would personally say that if you feel like there's no spark and you've done a few things to ignite that spark so I don't know there's so many things you can do you can get a little sexy you can say do you know what it would really mean a lot to me if you just arranged a date or something like that um and you could try and reignite the parts of him that you really fell in love with and if you've tried that and you still feel like do you know what I think this is a friendship then maybe it's just run its course like some things are for a season rather than forever and I feel like knowing that is so incredibly important the next dilemma is I've dated for pretty much all of my 20s but I haven't found someone who feels like home I'm 28 now and I feel like the dating pool is shrinking my friends are settling down and I'm starting to worry wonder if my standards are unrealistic be honest with me please grace is it smarter to find someone good enough and build from there or should i keep holding out so this is hard for me to say because i don't know what your standards are and i do think there are different types of standards i think there are standards that don't really matter as much so things like they have to be over six foot or they i don't know just things that ultimately are not going to help them be a good life partner i think if they're all of these standards and it's like a list of a hundred things a lot of which don't help them be a good life partner i think yes maybe your standards are too high but i would always be very resistant to tell any woman that their standards are too high because i do think that this the dating pool is actually getting smaller because women we know statistically are upskilling and spending a lot of time on self-improvement and spending a lot of time on becoming the partner that they would want and not necessarily being greeted with that elsewhere in the dating pool if you catch my drift it's hard to say without knowing your standards but i would try and differentiate them into actual like must-haves and nice-to-haves and things that you think are preferences based on what you think you're attracted to at a surface level.

25:34I do think we always have a right to be with people we are attracted to but I think definitely in a social media world we are more likely to see looks far before we see anything else and therefore rule people out when they shouldn't necessarily be ruled out. But I definitely definitely definitely don't think settling is a good idea I don't think good enough is right for you I think you deserve more I think working out what right looks like and knowing it's not just good enough I think is incredibly incredibly important and is not going to be easy but I think the best way you can try is really like what if you just try to go on a few dates with people who you wouldn't usually go on dates with so maybe you're compromising a certain looks aspect maybe you're compromising a certain earnings aspect whatever it might be trying to push the boat out in terms of like some of those directions I think are incredibly important then you can work out for example whether there are certain biases that you hold that are making you feel like everyone who doesn't tick your boxes is just good enough rather than actually right and learning whether some of those boxes need to go and then you can redefine what right looks like to you and make sure that you are finding someone right and not just good enough because you deserve far more than good enough and good enough doesn't last a lifetime.

26:46I think right for you will or it will serve the purpose that it needs to serve but don't let the anxiety get to you. Don't let you feel like the dating pool is shrinking. It's not you're going to find someone fantastic. I think getting to the bottom of what you really want is incredibly important though. Before I leave as always I'm including a quote to live by in all of these bonus episodes and this one is from Michelle Elman and it's very much a dating quote that I go back to. People absolutely loved it on TikTok and I totally see why. I think it is very very important and i think it's good for a confidence boost as well while you're dating actually being okay with being single is a really pivotal part of knowing you aren't settling in a relationship because otherwise you will settle for the first person who walks in the door because you don't like your own company and if the worst thing in the world is i end up forever alone then i end up forever with me and i like me so that's okay whereas if you think oh i'm going to be left with myself and I don't even like being alone and I have 50 best friends because I never want to even sit in my apartment by myself, then of course you're going to run to anyone as company.

27:52But for you to actually have standards and criteria and for you to look at do you like them, not just do they like you, you have to know what you deserve. And that ultimately comes down to knowing the difference between being lonely and alone. And being in a relationship will not fix your loneliness there are people in a relationship who are lonely because they are not being understood by their partner who walk through the world as if they're a single anyway but just have their partner in their life because they feel they need that to match what society tells them they should be especially around age if you're a certain age and single or if you're single for a certain length of time they've been told you're too single you've been alone for too long all of those things and actually if you're happy in your life that's all that should matter so that is all for today i hope you enjoyed the episode i'm going to see you on monday but as these are very much still in the works let me know what you thought of this episode let me know anything any articles you see or anything that you would like an episode on um it doesn't have to be an article it can be whatever but the whole idea is to get the discussion going and have informed and interesting conversations about ourselves and other people and the world and all of these things but definitely head over to the working hard instagram because we will be discussing all of this then um love you lots and I will see you on Monday.

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