Making a safe relationship choice often implies staying with a familiar and predictable partner, even when there is an opportunity to find happiness with someone new. Despite wondering who else is out there, people often choose to stay with a partner because they share similar values, backgrounds, or lifestyles and worry they might not find such a combination again.
Given how comfortable the relationship feels and the minimal effort it requires to maintain, these individuals end up talking themselves into staying put even though they’re not happy. The problem is they’re not unhappy either.
That said, the reasons for staying in a lackluster relationship usually run deeper than simply not wanting to expend the effort required to find a new one. In other words, laziness is a lazy answer. Below are some other explanations for why some people don’t try to find a partner who is compatible but also makes their heart skip a beat.
Social Pressure
Societal norms and expectations can shape relationship choices. People can feel pressure to conform to traditional partnership ideals, such as marrying someone of a similar socioeconomic status or cultural background, even if it means sacrificing relationship quality.
Someone gay or bisexual, for example, may choose to stay with someone of the opposite sex because they are worried about what their family, friends, or community would say if they learned the truth about them. The result can mean living a lie.
Cultural and Religious Beliefs
Cultural and religious influences are cousins of social pressure; both can likewise shape perceptions of what constitutes an “acceptable” relationship. Many cultures and religions emphasize the importance of maintaining tradition. So, in the interest of keeping the peace among their relatives and communities, some individuals make safe choices.
Long-Term Goals
Individuals who prioritize long-term goals such as career advancement or financial stability may choose safe relationships that speak to these objectives. They may view a stable partnership as a means to an end and, therefore, prioritize compatibility and reliability over chemistry, maybe even love.
Fear
No one likes to go through a breakup, let alone a series of them. As a result, people may choose to stay in a safe relationship to avoid experiencing more pain and disappointment. Stability and security reign over passion and love because of the potential for heartbreak while in search of it.
Aversion to Risk
Many people are naturally risk-averse; they tend to avoid uncertainty at all costs and prefer to minimize the potential for risk in all areas of their lives, including relationships. These individuals gravitate toward safer, less volatile partnerships to compensate.
Past Trauma
Previous experiences with infidelity, abuse, abandonment, and any other instance of trauma can affect one’s willingness to take risks in relationships. It can be challenging to open up and be vulnerable again after being hurt deeply. As a result, safer, more guarded connections become a means of self-protection and, thus, the status quo.
Low Self-Esteem
People with low self-esteem may settle for safe relationships because they believe they don’t deserve better or fear being alone. Low self-esteem can come from many origins: feeling unattractive, feeling socially awkward, and past experiences, including trauma. Lacking confidence in their ability to not only attract someone new but also to successfully maintain a more fulfilling partnership, they settle for the relationship they perceive as safe and stable, though not altogether gratifying.
The Passage of Time
It’s not logical, but it happens anyway: People believe that because of the time they’ve already invested in their relationship, they should try harder than they might otherwise to make what’s not working work. This is throwing good money after bad, and since time is money, staying in a relationship that is just meh can mean wasting precious months, years, or perhaps decades.
Confusion About Comfort vs. Settling
Healthy relationships, where people love, are in love with, and like their partners, are the pot at the end of a rainbow. It’s this type of relationship that most singles seeking commitment claim they want. However, it can be elusive, meaning it can take years and many failed attempts to find. So, although people may covet this holistic type of love, they don’t always act on their desire to get it.
But that’s the purpose of dating — to experiment, to figure out what the optimal relationship looks like, which should also be based on personal preferences. What’s perhaps most unfortunate is that a person in a lackluster relationship who wants out but sticks around anyway because of any of the reasons above might be missing out on true happiness. The same can be true of their current partner, who also ends up suffering because they don’t have someone who’s fully invested.
Shelby, played by Julia Roberts in the 1990 film “Steel Magnolias,” best encapsulated the penalty of settling when she said, “I would rather have 30 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.”
What about you?