The 9 Mistakes We Make When Choosing a Partner
Friendship is always helpful, but love sometimes even does harm.
A quick update before we begin- I’m in the final stages of editing The Stoic Manual: Meditations on the Art of Living, a collection of 150 Stoic meditations on living well. It’ll be released soon and included free for all Annual and Lifetime members.
Welcome! I started this Relationship series because most people, myself included, tend to compartmentalize instead of integrating what we’ve learned in Stoicism. For example, I may be courageous enough to cut up a person and fix whatever is wrong with them but sometimes when it comes to relationships and handling the delicacies that require an unholy amount of courage- I find myself shying away, which in hindsight, leads to more trouble than I’d have let on. Relationships are one of the hardest places to practice love, good judgement, kindness, patience, duty, and self-discipline. And if it’s relevant to you, that’s why last time we talked about Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person, & When Does an Affair Begin? & Three Questions to Ask Before You Leave or Stay in a Relationship. Let’s get into today’s lesson.
The 9 Mistakes We Make When Choosing a Partner
“A friend loves you, of course; but one who loves you is not in every case your friend. Friendship, accordingly, is always helpful, but love sometimes even does harm. Try to perfect yourself, if for no other reason, in order that you may learn how to love.” - Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 35
“Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.” - Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 7
Somewhere around mile eighteen of a marathon, a pebble the size of a lentil can end a race. At the starting line, you might not even feel it. But after thousands of steps, it’s rubbed the same patch of skin raw until every stride hurts.
A long relationship works in much the same way. The habit that mildly bothers you during the first year may become the argument you have for the hundredth time in the tenth. The way someone handles money, anger, affection, disappointment, responsibility, or sex rarely reduces once you begin sharing a life.
Choosing a partner means choosing how your life pans out. It means choosing who’ll sit across from you at breakfast, who’ll care for you when you’re ill, who’ll help raise your children, and who’ll be beside you when one of you loses a parent, a job, a dream, or faith in yourself.
You’re also choosing one of the strongest influences on the person you’ll become.
Epictetus warned his students to…