I think on average people should be more willing than they are to make big investments in relationships (couples therapy to learn how to fight, fly out to meet someone perfect but far away...) and less willing to endure small things that are never ever going to be fixed (they’re always late but you can plan around it, they can’t stand up to their mom but you don’t have to see her that often). The big investments sometimes pay off enormously, and the objectively best relationship for you probably contains a few. And if they don’t work, you’ll know and act on it. Whereas the small annoyances keep racking up costs, often getting slowly worse but never bad enough to generate the activation energy to fix it or leave. And either you’re frogboiled indefinitely, or something (illness, job stress, child) takes enough slack leaves the system that you freak out about something that has objectively been true the entire time, right when there is the least capacity to deal with it.
[Reverse all advice, etc. Maybe the main post should link to reverse all advice as well?]
I think on average people should be more willing than they are to make big investments in relationships (couples therapy to learn how to fight, fly out to meet someone perfect but far away...) and less willing to endure small things that are never ever going to be fixed (they’re always late but you can plan around it, they can’t stand up to their mom but you don’t have to see her that often). The big investments sometimes pay off enormously, and the objectively best relationship for you probably contains a few. And if they don’t work, you’ll know and act on it. Whereas the small annoyances keep racking up costs, often getting slowly worse but never bad enough to generate the activation energy to fix it or leave. And either you’re frogboiled indefinitely, or something (illness, job stress, child) takes enough slack leaves the system that you freak out about something that has objectively been true the entire time, right when there is the least capacity to deal with it.
[Reverse all advice, etc. Maybe the main post should link to reverse all advice as well?]