I Don't Want My Relationship To Be Perfect, I Want It To Be Worth It

There’s a good chance you'll never find the love of your life. There's also a good chance you won't spend your life with the love of your life. Half of the people in the world don’t end up with the people they want to end up with.

This may seem like an odd statement, as countless couples get married every single year. But to get a better understanding of reality, you need to look at all the other factors at play.

According to the US Census Bureau, roughly 40 percent of first-time marriages end in divorce. If you’re thinking that’s all right because you’ll have better luck next time, you should probably know that consecutive marriages only increase the likelihood of ending in divorce.

I’m sure that you’re still thinking that you know plenty of couples that have been married for years and are still together.

Well, keep in mind that the average length of marriages that end in divorce is eight years. So just because they're still together after five or six years doesn’t seem to mean much.

Despite that, there are many marriages that do go the length -- or at least we’ve heard of them. If 40 percent of first-time marriages end in divorce, then 60 percent don’t.

The problem with this statistic is that not every couple that remains married is happily married.

Finding a trustworthy statistic of unhappily married couples that stick it out to the end is difficult, so I won’t throw out a number.

Yet, I think that we can all agree that there are a good amount of individuals who remain married even though they don’t love their partner, and don't want to be married to them.

Regardless of what this number may be, you still have over a 40 percent chance of not ending up happily married. That’s a very high probability when you consider how important just about every single person in the world believes finding a life partner to be.

The good news is that the glass is half-full. For every person who ends up alone, one ends up happily married. So what differentiates those who end up happily married from those who end up alone and miserable?

Those who end up alone either are, or at one point were, complete schmucks.

I don’t think there is any other word for it. Anyone -- and I mean, anyone -- can find a person to love and be loved by in return. Every single person on this planet has that ability. Yet, so many of us end up alone.

We either don’t appreciate a good thing when we find it -- either we don't understand what we’ve found or we expect to find something better down the road -- don’t bother looking hard enough or smart enough, don’t put in the work to make ourselves appealing enough to the right persons, or we search for something perfect, not understanding that perfect doesn't exist.

Like I said, schmucks. 

We’re all too good for everyone else. We’re special -- we must be because it’s us. We only get to see the world from our own eyes, so we must matter. We must be important. We deserve only the best. We blah, blah, blah. Most people in the world don’t deserve to find a great partner because they aren't great people.

What could you all possibly be thinking? If you’re not worth keeping around then why would anyone worth keeping around want to keep you around?

All the other people in this world believe they are just as special as you are -- so they don’t plan on settling either. They’re most likely also looking for perfect. Perfect… such a beautiful and ugly word. It was once something that was strived for. Now it’s something we all want to either buy, or to be given. We feel deserving of perfection when, in reality, no one is.

I don’t want perfect. What I want is someone who's striving toward some form of perfection -- not complete perfection -- but perfection in some sense of the word. I want someone who wakes up every morning and wants to better herself and the entire world, too.

I want someone who understands that perfection is something you must work for every single day; someone who understands that even working toward perfection every single day will never allow them to attain that perfection.

It’s very important to find a life partner who understands this -- who understands that perfection is to be forever strived for and never attained. This is the only type of individual who makes an amazing partner, because this is the only type of individual who will continuously work on your relationship and your life together, and never give up on you.

More importantly, this is the only type of individual who will expect only the best from you while forgiving you when you make mistakes or fail. This individual is striving for the impossible and expects the same from you.

I don’t want perfect, and neither do you. What you really want is someone worth it. And the only type of individual who's worth spending your life with is the type who's willing to create perfection with you, knowing that you'll both beautifully fail.

But you’ll fail together, and that’s the only thing that matters in the end.

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