What is the Cost of Being in this Relationship and Are You Willing to Pay It?

 “When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action." - Lois McMaster Bujold

When you find a partner to share your life with, you are choosing all the traits, habits, and genes that make them who they are – some good, some bad. In blending our lives, we are going to have to expect that life will not always go the way we want. Sharing space is not easy; television is filled with shows that either make light of this, like The Odd Couple, or real-life dramas like Fear Your Roommate, where someone ends up dead. How well do you really know this person?

Whenever two people live together, there is give and take and we will not always see eye to eye. Even among siblings who share genetics and a similar upbringing, there is conflict. It is not surprising, then, that those who are without these similarities fight. In a partnership, it is virtually impossible to get one’s way all the time, in particular if a relationship is balanced. Balance is needed in order for the relationship to have health and endurance. Needs will go unfulfilled, we will have to do things we may not want, eat foods we would rather not. It is unrealistic to expect that there is not a price to be paid.

While there will be a payment you need to make, you should not forget that if you are choosing to bond yourself to someone, there are benefits you expect to receive. You would not be doing it otherwise. The costs you will accrue need to be weighed against what you will receive and evaluate the sum total. George Homans calls this ‘Social Exchange Theory’. The gist of this theory is that our interactions entail an exchange in a benefit versus risks fashion. When the risks or detriments outweigh rewards, people walk away from the relationship. If you are thinking this relationship could go the distance, then at this point in time the rewards are high.

Take some time to evaluate what the reward to cost ratio is for each of you. Think of this as what you are going to have to pay, abandon, or do that you do not wish to. Remember life is always in flux, so project yourself into the future.

Will one of you put the other through school? Will one put their career on hold to take care of children? Will you give up a free-wheeling life to mow the lawn on Saturdays? Will you need to move away from family? It is easy sometimes to make these compromises when in the early bloom of love, but in the long run, will it build resentment and will you eventually feel like you missed out on life?

A couple who marries shortly after high school because of a pregnancy may end up with an enduring love, but they will have cut short their own youth. They may have given up higher education and, as research shows, will likely have a lower income. Statistics also suggest they are more likely to divorce.

Traditional marriages in the fifties saw the man as the head of the household, the breadwinner, and the main decision maker. While most North American households are no longer based on this model, some still hold this to be true. A woman in this model lacks independence and power. Would you be okay paying that cost?

My father was out of town for long periods of time, so my mother had to be very independent. When he was in town, routine was thrown out the window and it was often busy as he had limited time to get things done before he had to leave again. The cost to my mom was not having a partner day to day, but also a lack of predictability.

It may be less clear to ascertain what the cost will be for you in your relationship. Is this because the other person has conceded on so many points that you are not giving up anything? While that might feel pretty good, rarely does this form a lasting relationship. At some point, the resentment will cause the teeter-totter to fall to the other side. A spirit of wanting it all your way is a selfishness that is not conducive to be a healthy partnering.

If it seems one will have to sacrifice greatly to be in the relationship, what will life look like when the white hot passion cools? If one does not want children, but agrees just to be together, that person may never be okay having given up lazy Sunday mornings, spontaneous out of town trips, or nights out. They may eventually realize the cost is not something they will continue paying and one may find themselves raising children alone.

It is important to discuss early in a relationship what you both want and see if you can work out a five, ten, or twenty year plan that will allow you to both achieve as many goals as possible. It is a process that probably has to be renegotiated over and over through the ups and downs of life. If you both have an ability to compromise and think creatively, you can come up with a life and love that will endure. Maybe the compromise is you each stay living with your parents until you both get a higher education before you marry. Maybe it is you delay children. If what you have is real, it will be worth working for.

Have You Clearly Defined What has Brought You Together?

Ask someone why they got married and they will probably answer something like, 'I thought it was the right thing to do' or 'It felt right'. Simon Sinek, in his book Start with Why, states that the reason we are not more clear is that gut feelings come from the limbic part of the brain and this part of the brain does not have a language function. His book, though modelled for a business setting, can be helpful in looking at relationships.

Sinek postulates that most people in business focus on what they are doing, as it is easiest to describe and is where their vision is clearest; they want to sell coats, for example. What is the result of the action, like starting a book at the last chapter. How is also fairly simple to determine, but the why – the purpose or belief behind what they want to do – is harder to elucidate. From this notion, we can assume that many businesses fail because the head of the company is working backwards – in Sinek's view – and may never be clear on the why of it all. As he states, customers buy into the why of the business, not the what.

To extrapolate this information to relationships, we will not achieve the what (i.e. happily ever after) if we do not know the why. I can no longer remember where I read this, but the following quote expresses this thought well; "Get the Why of your marriage right, fill your marriage with the right Hows, and you have a much better chance of a successful What – a great and lasting marriage." As someone who has gone through a divorce, a lot of time and energy goes into understanding why it ended. It would have been so much less heartbreaking to have invested in understanding why it began.

I have already talked about the why of relationships in terms of why you chose this person. Now, I talk more of: do your why and their why coincide? We tend to assume that people see the world the same way we do and so we may not ask the big questions that would indicate a symbiotic pairing. I know of weddings that take place before the question of whether they both want children ever came up and not surprisingly, these marriages sometimes did not end well.

What is your 'why' in entering a committed relationship? To have children? Financial gain? Belonging? Will you both be happy living in the same area? How will children be raised? Will one of you put the other through school? Will you both climb the corporate ladder?

Daphne Kingma, in her book Coming Apart, looks at helping us understand why we came together in the first place. It’s advisable to spend the necessary time to understand this before the walk down the aisle than spending time and money on therapy and legal bills to undo the tangled web a married life becomes. She encourages people to define what tasks you hope to accomplish by choosing this person to marry.

We need to know who we are and what makes us tick. It is known that the early years of life is when the brain is most rapidly developing. Some studies suggest who we are is largely determined by our first seven years. Early life experiences are important in defining who we become, the scripts we are likely to play out, and the lessons we need to learn.

It is Kingma's position that our life plays out according to emotional patterns established in our childhood. "...we try so hard to duplicate our early experience through our adult love relationships..." Is the script you are playing out a method to make up for things lacking in your childhood? Or is it just assigning meaning to what occurred in your younger years? Do you see within your partner the means to help you grow through what you need to learn. Someone who grew up in a home filled with chaos and instability may need a structured secure home in which to understand the person they are and to develop confidence to be all they can be. She goes on further to state that a marriage will end when the developmental task of one or both have been resolved – "...we have learned basically who we are.”

Kingma, in helping people understand the ending of a relationship in Coming Apart, suggests exercises that could be done to help you understand where a couple stands before deciding to make a life together. You need to look at what you are both trying to accomplish, what your relationship status has been for the past while, and what development tasks you each may be trying to complete.

Sadly, couples do not ask enough questions before they decide what they feel will last a life time and solve all their problematic concerns. Songs, poems, and movies describe that over the moon feeling we have when we are madly and passionately in love with that special someone. Research and life experience teach us that this intensity of feeling lasts only between six and thirty months. Having an understanding of this and how love is likely to change over a lifetime will lead to better outcomes for a couple. What script do you see yourself playing out, individually and as a couple? What roles? Do you have similar purposes? You need to determine how compatible you are as individuals but also in terms of life goals.

There are a myriad of questions one should ask or otherwise ascertain about the other before you bind yourself to them. Will you have children? Where will you live? If a great job is offered in Timbuktu will you take it? How is money handled? Will you be members of a specific religion? How comfortable are you with talking about sex? The more questions you ask the better.

Kingma asks, "If you have not defined what it is that brought you together, how will you know if it's working?"