Anonymous wrote:I don't regret not settling. I felt passion and love for my husband and he was perfect in every other way. I had prior boyfriends that were fine, just 'meh' and not an insane attraction. It's good I didn't end up with any of them because 25 years later I still find my spouse attractive and we still laugh a lot.

Oh--but I will agree with your point when it comes to marriage. People are not taught that long marriages have cycles and periods of unhappiness at times, just like people. Some cut and run at the first bit of ennui or strife, not knowing in many cases that isn't how the rest of the marriage will play out. It's how you weather those times and work together and know that sometimes it is life's stages (work/kids/high stress times) that do change and evolve as should the marriage. (obviously not talking about true abuse, etc.).

I don't regret not settling. I felt passion and love for my husband and he was perfect in every other way. I had prior boyfriends that were fine, just 'meh' and not an insane attraction. It's good I didn't end up with any of them because 25 years later I still find my spouse attractive and we still laugh a lot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do we need to stop thinking of life as never ending and see it as it is, complex and fragile? Instead of saying, "'You're young. These relationships don't matter that much anyway. Why are you worried about it?'", why don’t we tell youth to seize the day, value the love if you find it, don’t chase perfection, enjoy the ordinary imperfection? How many of you regret loosing perfectly good partners in pursuit of perfect ones?

It was the exact opposite for me, and most of the women I know. We wasted our youth on partners who weren't good enough, not on chasing perfection. If I could do my 20s over again I would treat men as much more disposable than I did and have much higher standards.

+1000

Anonymous wrote:Do we need to stop thinking of life as never ending and see it as it is, complex and fragile? Instead of saying, "'You're young. These relationships don't matter that much anyway. Why are you worried about it?'", why don’t we tell youth to seize the day, value the love if you find it, don’t chase perfection, enjoy the ordinary imperfection? How many of you regret loosing perfectly good partners in pursuit of perfect ones?

It was the exact opposite for me, and most of the women I know. We wasted our youth on partners who weren't good enough, not on chasing perfection. If I could do my 20s over again I would treat men as much more disposable than I did and have much higher standards.

This is so simplistic. I don’t regret “losing” my ex husband. I don’t regret the 10 good years we had before things got bad. I don’t regret having a kid with him. I 100% did the right thing ending it, we were miserable and had tried rounds of therapy.

Anonymous wrote:Do we need to stop thinking of life as never ending and see it as it is, complex and fragile? Instead of saying, "'You're young. These relationships don't matter that much anyway. Why are you worried about it?'", why don’t we tell youth to seize the day, value the love if you find it, don’t chase perfection, enjoy the ordinary imperfection? How many of you regret loosing perfectly good partners in pursuit of perfect ones?

Intelligent people already do this. The game should not be played for its own sake. As soon as you have a winning hand, cash out and leave.

Anonymous wrote:Why settle? There’s plenty of fish in the sea, as they say.

Unless you want to keep fishing for too long, you’ll end up alone or settle for worse to get rid of loneliness.

Why settle? There’s plenty of fish in the sea, as they say.

Do we need to stop thinking of life as never ending and see it as it is, complex and fragile? Instead of saying, "'You're young. These relationships don't matter that much anyway. Why are you worried about it?'", why don’t we tell youth to seize the day, value the love if you find it, don’t chase perfection, enjoy the ordinary imperfection? How many of you regret loosing perfectly good partners in pursuit of perfect ones?