The MYTH of Compromising in Relationship

Over the last decade I’ve spent working with clients who are suffering from a breakup or divorce, certain patterns seem to show up on repeat.

What I’ve seen happen again and again is people succumbing to a common myth.

Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s the myth of compromise.

It’s the idea that every love relationship requires each partner to make compromises for the sake of the relationship.

At first glance, this seems like a general truth — that you need to give a little and take a little in relationships to make them work.

But I’m here to tell you that actually, what we think of as “compromise” is a surefire way to set your foot firmly on the path towards resentment.

Trigger warning: what I’m about to tell you may feel “wrong” or unreasonable, but I’m asking you to hear me out.

Here’s the typical pattern that gets set into motion when we are asked to compromise:

You’re asked to change something. You don’t necessarily want to, but you do it anyway, out of a sense of duty to please your partner (or perhaps to just “shut them up”). You then begin to resent yourself for not staying true to yourself, which ultimately leads to feelings of resentment for your partner. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Now, I’m not advocating selfishness. Sometimes you need to make a change, sometimes you need to do things for the other person that you don’t want to do in the moment, for the betterment of the relationship.

But if we have a long-term pattern of this behavior, and that’s how we move through the relationship, the cumulative acts of doing things you don’t want to do divorces you from your heart and will create long-term damage.

This is when compromise becomes long-term sacrifice.

When you compromise, you disown your desires, leaving parts of yourself behind because you believe that’s necessary for the relationship. You feel put upon by your partner who’s “forcing” you to make changes that you’re not happy about. In doing so, you lose touch with your heart and start to feel each sacrifice is a little cut that will eventually bleed you dry.

Relationships become transactional, tit for tat, I did this for you, now it’s your turn to “compromise” for me.

What I think successful couples are doing is actually an “adjustment” where they find a way to sincerely agree with what their partner is asking of them, thereby bringing their heart into the action instead of compromising themselves.

This new pattern looks something like this: Your partner asks you to change something. Rather than compromising begrudgingly, you pause, look inside, and search for a way that this change is actually good for you.

You enroll your heart in the action, and see how it is aligned with a greater vision of what you want to create or who you want to be.