To think most people settle in their relationships?

I think people 'settle' because they don't know anyone different.
Lots and lots of people marry the first person they have a long term relationship with, or the 2nd person with the first relationship being as a teenager. Lots of people marry the same person they started dating in their early twenties. I don't know about anyone else, but what I know about love and relationships and myself now is incredibly different at 35 to what it was at 20, and I imagine it will be different still at 40. Some people land incredibly lucky, sure. They meet a great person at uni, treat each other well and grow together and it works out. But so many people I think... do you only think a relationship is good enough to bring a child and marriage into because you simply have no other experience to compare it to? I often see people struggling to end marriages where the person clearly doesn't even like them that much, because they have never dealt with a breakup of a serious relationship before, so on top of the practicalities, there is simply this vast unknown. You don't tangibly know there is another life to the one you have, because you've never done it before! You can't go 'well it feels impossible because I love him and he will be so devastated even though he is horrible to me but we WILL both survive and have lives after this' because you've never experienced the minute you realise your ex jumped on Tindr two weeks after the breakup and you havnt thought about picking his socks up off the floor in months and the cute guy in accounting has text you back.
A PP talked about how it's hard sometimes to think of a horrible ex treating the next person better, and I wonder if so much of this is because a lot of people genuinely will not truly realise they are in the wrong, even if their partner tries to communicate with them over and over again, until that partner leaves them and they have to deal with the consequences. So you might look at your ex and think 'he was so lazy, how does she stay with him' but he might have genuinely changed. We never get to find out. Or there's some other poor woman cleaning the toilet bowl after him.
Very interesting topic!

All relationships are compromise and working together. Even the most well matched, loved up couple face speed bumps.
Its how you handle them, build a life together and treat each other.
To me love comes with being kind to each other.

He said “better than being single I guess”. I think his type of mentality is common.

I realise this mentality is common but like you, it's just unfathomable to me. Firstly being single is fine! I like my own company and I like being alone. I was perfectly happy single before I met DP. And secondly living with someone, taking them into account all the time, and knowing that's the foreseeable future - that's only tolerable if you actually like someone. A relationship with someone I wasn't into would be literal hell for me. And there's nothing I want in this world that would make up for it.

I think it’s better to be lonely single than lonely within a shit relationship.

Worse possibly, a relatively young girl I know openly accepts that her partner is controlling and has a history of violence to his own children, but she’s recently out of a long term relationship and isn’t ready to face being alone.

Sure. Thats life. All my friends have. Some
havent but they’re lonely

Oh he was an awful person. I was just sharing a mindset I came across in terms of this topic.

A similar story was my friend’s (now “ex”) wife who, after my friend proposed to her propositioned her ex. She wanted him
to commit to a proper future with her. He could not commit to that so she settled for my friend instead.

I think some people are like this too. Not everyone but some. Women are often accused of settling as they want to have kid but I think men settle as much if not more and it’s not down to a biological clock but more relating to convenience and a fear of being alone. These are often the same kind of men who seem outraged at the increasing amount of women choosing to be single.

An ex of mine was genuinely surprised that I said I wouldn’t settle. I said I wouldn’t ever deal with an awful guy and I’d rather be single. Then he replied what if the guy wasn’t awful he just wasn’t that great? I said heck no because that would be awful to me since I would hate to be in a relationship with someone and living with them if I didn’t find amazing and love their company.

He seemed surprised and it put me off him a bit because it suggested he either thinks all women are desperate for a man, or that is his own mindset in terms of finding a life partner and therefore I’d be worried he was settling with me.

After reading MN threads it kind of explains why so many men are utterly vile to their wives and long term girlfriends though. They never really liked them that much.

I am older but still will only be with Mr Right. But it cost me having children of my own. I know other women are not willing to do that.

I guess for me, it was easy. If I did not like him, we would never have had children because I am incapable of having sex with men I do not like.

Quite a weird and unpleasant story.

I wouldn't say I am settling for less, but I'm definite comfortable. There are times when it is meh, other times we fall in love again throughout the year.
No relationship is perfect.

I definitely settled the first time, probably without realising. I wanted the “normal life,” good careers, decent house, husband and kids. It was like some sort of checklist.

We completed most of that checklist and it wasn’t enough, we divorced and both moved on. Looking back we were never compatible.

My partner now is my best friend and absolute team mate. We really are in it together, always. We have far less materially, but really do have far more life, love and laughter. Our life is difficult, but it’s ours.

I cannot come on “most” but of the friends I am close to who “settled” because they want kids / marriage it’s fairly obvious to those who know
them well and we talk. For one of my friends it’s even obvious to people who don’t know her well…

It seems to me that a lot of people
settle for “the best I can get of a bad bunch” as opposed to somebody they actively want to be with.

To explain further. I remember years ago talking to a man about a news story with a fat woman in it. He was discussing how gross she looked and I pointed out that she had a husband. He said he thought most men with fat women were only with them because that’s the only woman who would have them. I said “ I don’t understand, why would you be with somebody you don’t like just to avoid being single?”

He shrugged. He said “better than being single I guess”. I think his type of mentality is common.

This makes me feel better. Because I have never been like that. I need to genuinely like a man not just feel he’s the best of a bad bunch like trying to find something to wear and just settling for something that fits not something that you actually feel good wearing.

Friends tend to talk about their lives and relationships. Certainly close friends, anyway.

Depends if you want children, whether they are a non negotiable for you, whether you’re a “ideally yes but only with the right guy and it won’t be the end of the world if I miss the boat” or if you don’t want them at all. I’ve seen plenty settle for non ideal partners (and I do think that ideal is not the same as perfect) because they’re scared of “ending up childless”.

What does settled even mean? You didn't find your 'soulmate'?

In this life, you meet a finite number of people.

From these people you meet someone who you get along with, fancy, who has faults which you can live with AND they feel the same about you. That's a tiny fraction.

You work hard to build a home together, probably parent kids together, negotiate the births & deaths and illnesses of people you love, which are an inevitable part of life. You grow together and hopefully see your relationship deepen with that increasing understanding of who you both really are, warts & all.

I think the concept of soulmates is whimsical & twee. It's pure luck if you find someone who compliments you so well that you're romantically loved up until the day you die. Average marriages/LTRs have really hard patches where you have to actively choose each other all over again because people aren't perfect & most of us are deeply irritating.

And I actually think those periods of choosing again are pretty special (once you're out the other side and content again & can look at them without wanting to kill them).

My main friendship group is a mix.

Two close friends most definitley panicked about having kids and settled one is divorced and the other is getting divorced. Having a child was always the end goal the man was almost irrelevant.

Of my close friendships where we also hang out as couples sometimes including us there are 5 very successful long term marriages, not settling, these people enjoy life and are well matched with similar interests being the main factor. There have also been 4 divorces amongst my friends.

I am amazed I got married as I was not that bothered about marrying or children and ended up doing both much to mine and everyone else’s surprise.

DH and I nerded out together at a vintage steam train and car rally event last weekend. On a date he was impressed when I explained how V2 rockets worked when at the Imperial War Museum. We had many a date playing Tekken 2 together. We match and I feel exceptionally lucky.

I dislike the whole concept of settling. It makes choosing a partner sound like a sort of consumer choice. I married my husband because I was head over heels in love with him and I remain so over 20 years later. Whether another chap might have objectively have been a better bet according to some metric didn’t cross my mind.

There have been times in history when women have had to make these sorts of pragmatic decisions. Charlotte Lucas settled for Mr Collins because he was the least worst option. But these days women in the west have all sorts of options, including to have a child without a partner if that is their choice.

Your DH constantly meets women far more attractive than you, but still wants to be with you instead of them.

This is literally the opposite of him settling for me. (Not that I believe there's any such thing as objective attractiveness.)

It depends on the definition of settle. Is there someone more suitable for me a better version of my husband probably yes.

For the first 6 years of my relationship I would have said no we were perfect for each other. Then life for various reasons got tough and I learnt dh doesn’t always have my back, will sometimes (fairly often) put his needs above mine and the kids. That he’s weak at times and doesn’t have capacity to change himself. But nonetheless we still love each other, fancy each other, he’s a good provider and on the whole a good person. He’s funny sometimes and intelligent and interesting.

And odds on a better version of him probably wouldn’t want me because I’m not perfect either.

Yes, exactly, and Austen was making a point about the limited opportunities open to women of her class. Plain, dowry-less and ageing (at 27!), Charlotte’s two options are to remain living at home, a financial burden on whichever brother will inherit Lucas Lodge after their parents die (and who is already making comments about it) or to marry someone. She’s never, we presume, had a previous offer, and she’s a complete realist. It’s unlikely she will ever get another. This is a piece of unheard-of luck for her, and Austen does not condemn her for going after it, or depict her as miserable, even when married to a man she can’t respect. Having a home of her own is worth Mr Collins.

Lizzie, younger and prettier, and with a more outgoing personality, can still hope to marry for love as well as money, and so refuses Mr Collins, but is realistic in her turn about not being courted by Wickham or Colonel Fitzwilliam, both of whom are attracted to her, because both need to marry for money.

No one needs to settle now in the way Charlotte did, unless they’re desperate for children and determined to have them only in the context of a relationship.

This exactly.

Well I think it’s negative to say you’re invisible for relationships after 40. It’s also patently untrue. Of course your chances are reduced, but you’re not necessarily invisible.

I wasn't being negative, I think you have misunderstood my post.