Romantic Relationship Between Unequals
Relationship light-bulb moments with Bob Grant's e-book »
Like it or not, unequal romantic relationship is not likely to survive. In our article What Causes Falling in Love we mentioned that when choosing whom to love we consider a number of factors that sum up to your potential partner's "market value", one of them is what does he or she bring to the relationship, in other words you ask yourself a question, 'What's in it for me?'
You may feel that this is totally inappropriate question when talking about romantic relationship, but leave it out and suffer the consequences. So, the reality is that both of you evaluate each other according to the following criteria: beauty, financial situation, prestige, education, personality and character. If you were to evaluate these qualities in your partner and in yourself (be objective!) on the score scale from 1 to 10, try to choose a partner that is no more than two points away from you.
So, here is a question: is romantic relationship between handsome rich prince and Cinderella going to last? Usually not, unless our prince scores much less that her in some other criteria than financial situation. Let us say, he is an ugly prince and she is drop-dead beautiful Cinderella. This way it somehow compensates her lack of financial resources. The point here is not the money.
But the point is that Cinderella herself will be unhappy soon after the first blush of love will wear off. She will grow insecure. As for handsome prince, we probably don't need to go in much detail why would he be unhappy. Soon he will decide he deserved much more and look for somebody else. He will feel entitled and superior, which leads to becoming demanding and maybe even hurtful. Love and passion will wear off. Cinderella is not treated like a princess anymore, she is treated like Cinderella.
Relationship light-bulb moments with Bob Grant's e-book »
But wait, that's not all. This is also true if inequity strikes after the marriage! That means that even if they were equals when married, if one of them lost one of his or her qualities after the marriage (like a woman who gained a lot of weight few years into the marriage), another one is likely to behave as if he is superior and that he or she deserves much more! Well, we hate to be the ones who brings the bad news, but as your parents used to say, 'One day you will thank us for this'!
