Settling in a Relationship: How to Recognize It and Stop the Sabotaging Pattern

We enter romantic connections anticipating joy, companionship, support, and love, yet too many people – whether married or just dating – eventually find themselves settling in a relationship. The moment we start to give up and abandon our desires, that connection or partnership takes a turn towards its demise, even on a first date. Unless we learn how to stop settling in a relationship, and while dating, we will never have sustained love. Yet your mind may say the opposite.

Understanding what settling in a relationship means can seem confusing because some people believe that sustainable romantic partnerships require us to give up some of our desires, to simply tolerate things that irritate us, and settle for good over great. This strategy leads only to disappointment, fading chemistry, resentment, and too often divorce. While no relationship will ever be perfect, we can have sustainable romantic partnerships that regularly leave us feeling grateful and blessed. However, we cannot truly feel grateful and blessed while settling in a relationship. 

Here we will start by answering the question “what is settling in a relationship“ and explore how to know if you’re actually settling. Finally, we’ll conclude with what to do if you believe you or your partner are settling.

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What is settling in a relationship?

Once again, settling doesn’t necessarily mean that you are in the wrong relationship. Often it means that the two of you have avoided important conversations that have left hurts and upsets unresolved. Often those who have chosen, consciously or unconsciously, to settle haven’t told their partners clearly what they really feel or what they genuinely desire. They simply hope it will get better. Unfortunately, it rarely does, until you speak up, until you take action.

Too often we have been conditioned to set ourselves aside in favor of our partners. We’ve been told that’s what true love looks like. Yet when we consistently put our needs aside, when we ignore our own needs and desires, when we fear abandonment we can’t help but start settling for good enough. Unfortunately, “good enough” in a relationship usually turns into sadness, disconnection, and sometimes even bitterness, or in the worst cases contempt. 

Finally, those with an anxious attachment style may find themselves more likely to settle in a relationship. If you sense, you’re settling, and you know, you have an anxious attachment style, this offer offers an invitation to learn how to embody authentic self love so that you can have a secure and sustained romantic partnership. If this feels daunting, you may want to enlist the support of a coach or therapist or even find a program dedicated to conscious love – both self love and romantic love. The two “loves” go hand-in-hand.

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How to know if you’re settling in a relationship.

You may not realize it but well meaning advice from friends and family may unintentionally encourage or endorse settling in a relationship. Yet those professionals who work with struggling couples, or people finding themselves repetitively single, know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that settling never ever works. It never keeps love alive nor a relationship together. 

With that in mind, let’s consider some of the subtle and not so subtle signs of settling in a relationship – whether long-term or newly formed. You’ll want to pay attention to these indicators sooner rather than later because if you catch them early, you’ll find the repair process much more quick and effective. Your relationship will likely get stronger and your bonds deeper when you address them consciously. 

Signs that indicate you may be settling in a long term relationship: 

1. You feel resentful.
2. You rarely ask for what you need.
3. You stop sharing your disappointments and hurts.
4. You’ve given up hope on some of your desires ever being fulfilled.
5. You believe your partner’s needs and happiness matter more than your own.
6. You regularly wish for, or day dream about, better and more.
7. You’ve lost respect for your partner.
8. You no longer value your partner.
9. You start to notice that other people seem attractive. 
10. You tell yourself this is better than nothing.
11. You have a short fuse with your partner.
12. You don’t feel connected, but the relationship is convenient.
13. You tolerate being treated poorly without speaking up for yourself.

If you’re in one of the early stages of a relationship, settling might also include:

• Ignoring red flags
• Falling in love with potential over reality
• Convincing someone of a better way (or your way)
• Staying when you know you have significantly different values or long term desires
• Making excuses for unconscious behavior
• Trying to rescue them

When you start out a relationship settling, you will always find yourself chasing your hopes and desires. That chase will only lead you to disappointment, frustration, and eventually anger. 

Whether newly together or married for decades, you have to shut down your authenticity, and along with it your joy, in order to stay with a partner that is not a good fit for you. As we said, that strategy will never lead to sustainable love. However, just because you realize you have settled in your relationship, it doesn’t mean you’ve uncovered an unrepairable problem in the relationship. It just means that something needs attention.

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What causes settling in a relationship?

Once again, settling doesn’t necessarily mean that you are in the wrong relationship. Often it means that the two of you have avoided important conversations that have left hurts and upsets unresolved. Often those who have chosen, consciously or unconsciously, to settle haven’t told their partners clearly what they really feel or what they genuinely desire. They simply hope it will get better. Unfortunately, it rarely does, until you speak up, until you take action.

Too often we have been conditioned to set ourselves aside in favor of our partners. We’ve been told that’s what true love looks like. Yet when we consistently put our needs aside, when we ignore our own needs and desires, when we fear abandonment we can’t help but start settling for good enough. Unfortunately, “good enough” in a relationship usually turns into sadness, disconnection, and sometimes even bitterness, or in the worst cases contempt. 

Finally, those with an anxious attachment style may find themselves more likely to settle in a relationship. If you sense, you’re settling, and you know, you have an anxious attachment style, this offer offers an invitation to learn how to embody authentic self love so that you can have a secure and sustained romantic partnership. If this feels daunting, you may want to enlist the support of a coach or therapist or even find a program dedicated to conscious love – both self love and romantic love. The two “loves” go hand-in-hand.

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What to do if you have lost that loving feeling

If you realize you’re settling or if you sense your partner has started settling, it’s important that you begin to communicate with your partner. The longer you’ve settled, the longer you’ve waited to talk about what’s bothering you, the more difficult that conversation will be. If you’re feeling strong resentment, if the two of you barely talk about the real stuff, if you have no idea how to begin, then we again encourage you to get support. Couples who get support – or even when one partner reaches out for support – they find moving beyond settling in a relationship can actually turn into the deepest connection the couple has ever experienced. That may seem shocking. Yet when true love brings a couple together, true love can hold them together as they go through the uncomfortable process of learning how to honor themselves by communicating consciously. 

One or both partners may need to address self abandonment habits and patterns. They may need to understand and repair resentment in marriage. One or both of you may need to learn how to authentically express themselves. You’ll also want to consider any unhealthy boundaries that contributed to the settling. Most importantly you want to start by truly listening to yourself, to your soul. 

Then you need to listen deeply to one another. Decide to listen to what your partner truly feels and needs. Even if you find your needs apparently conflicting, you can still find a way for both of you to feel truly satisfied and loved – the opposite of settling in a relationship. But, you have to go deeper. You have to look deeper within yourself to what truly matters. You have to listen deeper to what really matters to your partner. 

Our more “surface” needs and desires often stem from our wounding and our fears. Yet when you go deeper, you see and find your hearts. You find your vulnerability and your longing. You find these beyond the blame, beyond the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about what’s possible or what you truly deserve. That’s where all change and all reconnection begins.

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As we close, remember that while settling, putting others first, and keeping the peace may seem like the best way to sustain love, it is actually the best way to destroy love. Going along to get along does not create strong partnerships. It creates fragile ones. 

Moving beyond patterns of settling in a relationship requires courage. It requires a level of honesty and authenticity that can feel risky, for sure. Yet to not take that risk will almost always ensure broken hearts. We say this in our events all the time, “The strength of the relationship you have with another can only be as strong as the relationship you have with you.” If you don’t have a strong relationship with you, if you don’t have the personal confidence to express yourself genuinely, you will tend to automatically settle in a relationship. And, you now know that will never bring you what you deserve or desire.

So, honor you. Create space for your partner to honor themselves. 

When you both choose self honor first, and honoring of each other, your relationship can find its way into the realms of truly ecstatic love. 
 

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Since 2006 conscious men and women have chosen Ecstatic Intimacy to find and cultivate true love and sustainable partnerships, while also fostering their mastery of the yin and yang of relationships(masculine and feminine).

 We invite you to explore what your heart most desires…