Compromises in a relationship

 

If the link doesn't work, listen to Jacques Brel VESOUL

    Perfection is nowhere to be seen in human relationships, and in this case it means that sometimes you don't get exactly what you want, and neither does your partner. A good compromise would mean that you each get at least a part of what you want. A bad one means, like Brel you get nothing and the other one gets what they want (he wanted to see her sister but  they saw her mum). I suppose there are the disastrous compromises where no one get what they want, but I suspect those may be so rare we'll call them an exception. 

    My whole job is reaching compromises in order for things to  work out for all stakeholders. I'm not the best at it but decent enough. I wish I was at least half as good at it in my own relationship. I'm not really much the one for conflict, even if I'm probably not a people pleaser, but at home at least I more often than not  choose the path of least resistance. That means I don't get what I want most of the time if it's against her interests, we compromise some of the time and a lot of times she gets what she wants, and I get peace and  quiet. You'd think that's frustrating, but peace and quiet are more valuable most of the time. 

   The problem spawns from a recent discovery that even tough I did give up on some things for the peace and quiet, that was temporary and the conflict still happened. I am now staring at this screen wondering what to do: accept the 'I'm sorry' but knowing full well the conflict will resume sometime in the future despite my efforts or.... I don't even know what the alternative would be. I can't get back the things I relinquished in order to make her happy, and the conflict not reigniting is solely up to her and her mind, not mine. 

             By this point I'm not even sure what the moral of the story would be other than keep a (written)  account of your compromises, keep track of what you gave up and for what you go in exchange as well as what the other gave up and got and make sure the balance isn't too skewed after a while. I can't think of anything else that might avoid the frustration I'm feeling right now. I'm going to probably come back and edit this after I figure some things out. 

   May you be loved and apreciated!