As I mentioned in my last post, which was a response to an article by Lori Gottlieb in the Atlantic about marrying someone who’s less than your soul mate (aka “settling”), I’m in a marriage where we’ve both settled. The last post was from the point of view of the one who was settled upon. This one is what it’s like to be the one doing the settling.

What It’s Like to Be the Settler

I keep getting stuck on this bit in the article:

It sounds obvious now, but I didn’t fully appreciate back then that what makes for a good marriage isn’t necessarily what makes for a good romantic relationship. Once you’re married, it’s not about whom you want to go on vacation with; it’s about whom you want to run a household with. Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. And I mean this in a good way.

Even when M and I were dating, I knew she was not “the one” for me. It became starkly clear the day that my former girlfriend MH came to town and we met for a few hours in a field and talked. I had been involved with her for several years before that, and felt that she was my soul mate, but it had been like riding a really big wave with her, and finally I fell off. Or rather, there was such passion and such hell combined that I got tired, and plus, she moved away. But when I saw her that day, when I touched her hair, her face, when I held her, those brief moments felt more full than the year or two I’d been dating M. It was orders of magnitude different.

I went back to M that day and lied. She had been anxious about the meeting. I think she knew, at some level, that I was still in love with MH. But I said that there was nothing there, that I was glad not to be with her, that it was for the best, etc. I didn’t exactly warm to the idea that I was currently dating a stick figure instead of a whole person, but that’s what it felt like at the time. But then I just buried the memory of what it’s like being with a soul mate.

About that quote — it’s what I tell myself about our marriage, it’s how I explain why it’s ok to live without connection, without passion. It is easier, after all — there aren’t the emotional ups and downs, there’s not the constant threat of personal annihilation, of implosion, there’s not as much at stake, emotionally. It’s a partnership. We don’t talk obsessively about “the relationship,” which in many ways is a relief because ultimately there’s barely enough time to deal with all of the other stuff that needs talking about, the stuff that needs to get done to run the household.

And M is the perfect person to run a household with. She’s organized, proactive, she gets things done, she’s good at managing chaos, she makes a decent living. We work well as a team.

So I made the choice to take the easy road. There’s a certain comfort in having an easy life, a low-stress life.

As I’ve looked into this further, though, I’ve come to realize that I didn’t just settle for my wife — I settled for my life.  I don’t pursue passions, big passions, in any dimension of my life (or have not until this point) for whatever reasons — biology, oblivious parents, disappointing snacks at school, who knows. I’m not even sure what those passions might be yet. Maybe I’m just not passionate.

So it should not be surprising that I’m with her. I didn’t have the ability or the energy to dream of the person I wanted to be with, and so I got what I got. It’s no different with my career, with other ways that I live my life. I just sort of fall into things. It distresses me that I do this but it’s hard to see the way out.

Settling Is Sleep

Though I don’t always pursue it directly or with much intensity, I see the purpose of life as waking up spiritually.  Living in connection with someone at the depth I want requires energy and a high degree of alertness — and it keeps me awake.  There is a “something” that goes on when you’re with a soul mate that brings us closer to the divine. (In Gurdjieffian terms, it’s probably purely mechanical, and might have to do with some connection between the sexual center and the higher emotional centers). All I know is that being in connection feels elevating. It feels as though the universe is unfolding its secrets to you. It feels like a drug that allows you to see things you can’t see without it.  It connects us to everybody else.

I really believe that being with the right partner is a spiritual doorway. Without that connection, it is impossible to proceed very far spiritually. Settling is making a choice about that.

Settling is what you do when you’re tired.  Settling is sleep – spiritual sleep.  It’s not just about whom you choose for a partner – it’s a spiritual choice, it’s an outlook on life. It’s a pulling away from great potential, a retreat into your own back yard, taking care of your own stuff, making a private world that you can live in, that’s manageable and safe. Those who settle are simply not trying hard enough, or don’t want enough for their own lives, or don’t know that there can be so much more.

Every night after I put my son to bed, I sit in the rocking chair in the dark for a bit, and every night, our cat hops into my lap, kneads my belly, lays on my lap and starts purring loudly and happily. Inevitably, the dark room, the sleeping boy, and the warm rumbling motor in my lap lead me to drift off, even when I tell myself I’ll only be in there for 10 minutes because I need to do things.

This marriage is a bit like that cat, like that room. It’s hard to throw the cat off your lap, to walk out of the dark room, to leave that torpor for things less certain, less easy, things that require a certain level of focus and energy. It’s just so easy to go back to sleep.

But then I feel the clock ticking. The panic rises in my chest and I want to get out. But the door seems so far away some days.