Striving to do your best is never a bad thing. In fact, doing your best will often get you far in life. However, there is a fine line between your best and perfectionism. You know you’ve crossed that line when you desire to succeed and accomplish your very best but still feel like a failure. The pursuit of excellence comes with such high standards that they might actually be unattainable.
Perfectionist behaviors apply unnecessary pressures on the task at hand. When that spills into the dating world and your habits, it can make an already difficult act even more complicated. While it has the potential to be rewarding, you take the chance of ruining the relationship.
Unrealistic Expectations
Dating isn’t always easy. Finding YOUR perfect match isn’t easy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to find your person, but that doesn’t mean they will be perfect. Those ideals of the perfect partner will often lead to dissatisfaction. This also places a heavy burden on your partner to meet those standards and ideals. You will not feel satisfied, and they will feel inadequate. These negative feelings can lead to bitterness or disdain towards each other.
No Room For Error
Perfectionists tend to gravitate towards either end of the spectrum—something is true, or it isn’t. There is little room for a middle ground. When your partner fails to meet the perfect ideal, they simply become “not the one.” It casts an unfair image onto them. Life isn’t black and white. Your dating life shouldn’t be either. There is so much gray, and perfectionism takes away from that.
Control
Perfectionism stems from a need to be in control. You want perfection from your partner. Before the relationship even begins, it sets the ball rolling in an unfavorable direction. Healthy relationships require communication and compromise. It’s the bones of a good foundation. When you demand perfection, it contradicts that need for compromise. It also alters the quality of communication with your partner to something of a false reality. You may even find yourself arguing more than communicating.
Focus On The Negative
Wanting perfection focuses on negative qualities or shortcomings rather than anything positive your partner does. You will miss out on the cute little things or the happiness that comes from learning and exploring each other. Mistakes happen. They should happen. After all, they are the biggest teaching opportunity of life. If you don’t learn from mistakes and ruminate on the negative, you won’t be able to grow, and your relationship will suffer.
Living In An Altered Reality
Think of the last time you went on a date. Those first few weeks or months may have felt like pure bliss. It’s what many people call the honeymoon phase. It’s like a drug that pulls you in and makes you keep coming back for more. When that phase of the relationship ends, reality sets in. The addictive euphoria mindset wears off, and if your partner is no longer meeting perfect ideals, it can be easy to fall out of like with them.
It doesn’t have to be all about your partner, either. If you are a perfectionist, you likely hold yourself to crazy high standards as well. When it comes to engaging with your partner’s friends and family, you may find yourself avoidant in fear of saying the wrong thing or them not liking you.
Perfectionism can steal great social experiences from you all because of a skewed picture you hold in your head. Having a hard time finding your person? Struggling to manage your expectations? Perfectionism doesn’t have to control your life. Reach out for a consultation for relationship counseling, and let’s chat about it.
