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There is a difference between seeing the best in people and refusing to see someone’s flaws. There is a major discrepancy between giving someone the benefit of the doubt and allowing someone to step all over you. And there is just no overlap between having hope and being delusional. If you put your romantic partners on a pedestal, you may think that you fall within the first description of each of those sets of traits, but you actually fall into the second category.
Putting partners on pedestals is something that many of us start doing at a young age. We have these dreams, starting in our teen years, of someone who will be just perfect for us—the yin to our yang—and will sweep us off our feet and ride away with us into the sunset, possibly saving us from our crazy families. That’s what all of the classic movies make us believe will happen. The media will have us believe that there will be signs that your person is perfect for you, because he’ll only like the muffin bottoms while you just like the muffin tops. In reality, the signs will be more like…your partner remembers to re-stock the toilet paper in your bathroom for you, knowing you always forget. Or, he can tell you when you’re being a lunatic in a way that doesn’t feel so bad. Relationship “perfection,” as it turns out, isn’t very perfect-looking.
But, still, many of us never grow out of that phase of putting our partners on pedestals, and every new relationship brings this flurry of ecstatic, over-the-top emotions and hopes. It’s a bit unhealthy, and certainly unfair for the people you date. Do you put your romantic partners on pedestals? Here are the signs. Take them down from there, now.
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You refer to them as “types”
When telling friends or family about a new man you’re dating, you use the word “type” a lot. You say things like, he’s one of those “athletic disciplined types” or he’s one of those “free-spirited, open-minded types.” The fact that you keep referring to him as a type means that you’ve already put him in a box and you hope he stays there.
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You believe they’ll fix you
Whatever your issues are—your emotional instabilities, insecurities, or traumas—you believe that every new partner can fix you. You don’t need to fix you. Certainly not. It’s not a matter of therapy or personal work. It’s just about finding that perfect person who will be the glue that covers up the cracks in your psyche.
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You believe they’ll change everything
You also have this hope that every new relationship will change your life. You get these visions of it being totally different. You’ll be jet setters, naturally, so you need to buy a set of suitcases and renew your passport. You’ll be social climbers, at galas every weekend, so you need new gowns. You envision this entire lifestyle before date number three occurs.
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You inflate one quality
You hone in on one quality that you really want in someone. When you see a glimmer of it in a man, you snatch onto it, inflate it, and run with it. You look at everything he does through the lens of that quality. And everything he does must conform to it and confirm that he is that way. You need that.
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You suppress the bad qualities
You have a way of obscuring and ignoring the bad qualities. Friends or family will try to point out something your partner did wrong—or something he did that was strange—and you’ll turn on them. You’ll tell them that they are being negative or “unsupportive.”
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You make excuses for them
You are always ready for an excuse for your partner when he messes up. If he lets you down, you feed him reasons why he is justified. Even when he insists he’s a jerk and should be chastised, you won’t do it. You won’t even let him apologize, because that’d be admitting that he’s imperfect.
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You take their advice on everything
You rely on your romantic partners for advice on everything. You ask them to help you draft business emails, pick out outfits for big meetings, choose which stocks to invest in, choose which workout class to take, and so on. You see their input as the holy grail.
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What they say goes
You stop having your own opinions on how things should be done. You’ll be doing whatever your partner wants to do that weekend. You will convince yourself that that is what you wanted to do, and that he read your mind. This is a form of convincing yourself this is your perfect person, and deluding yourself into believing you’re always in sync.
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You make others accommodate him
You make everyone in your life bend over backwards to accommodate your partner’s needs. You instantly put his demands and desires over those of friends and family who have been in your life for much longer than he has. You ask them to make ridiculous and unfair compromises to make your partner happy.
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One flaw devastates you
If you have to face the fact that your partner is not perfect—if you cannot delude yourself or excuse him anymore—it absolutely devastates you. It’s a crippling blow. You truly do not know if things will work out anymore when your partner proves to be imperfect. In fact, that’s how most relationships have ended.
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You rework the story to your liking
You can always rework any story to your liking—to fit into the mold of this narrative you’re creating of your partner. So if he, for example, is domineering and bossy in a situation, you spin it to say that he cares a lot and puts in a lot of effort for those he cares about.
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You’re embarrassed of his mistakes
When he messes up in a public way—in a way that everyone sees and talks about—you distance yourself from him. It embarrasses you. You think of how it makes you look. You aren’t by his side, comforting him. If anything, you’re asking him how he let this happen.
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The attraction is superficial
There is one factor that, if it were gone, you know would be the end of the relationship. Maybe you love that he’s powerful, or wealthy, or famous, or influential. If that went away, you would also go away. You don’t want to admit it, but you know it’s true.
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Everything starts fast
All of your relationships go from zero to 100. You go on one date, then you’re telling everyone you’re in a relationship. You ask to bring him as your plus one to everything you’ve been invited to for months to come. You talk to single women as if you are different than them, because you’ve been in a relationship for a…week.
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And ends abruptly
Everything ends as abruptly as it begins. And that’s usually because one change—one revelation—could break everything for you. This entire relationship lived on a cloud—a delusion—and anything that goes against that and pops that bubble ruins the whole thing for you.
