Is It Settling or Is It Sanity? The Case for Marrying Your Equal

There is a recent internet confessional haunting the nightmares of romantics everywhere. A man took to Reddit to admit he wasn’t attracted to his wife and never had been. He rated himself a “two” on the attraction scale, admitted he could only pull women in the “two to four” range, and settled down with his best friend because the math made sense.

The twist? His wife found the post.

But instead of packing her bags and torching his car, she laughed. She told him that she wasn’t physically attracted to him either. She said, “You’re as ugly as I am. We match.” And then she said she loved him, loved their life, and was relieved she didn’t have to perform for a husband who was out of her league.

Most people read that and recoil. They see a tragedy of lowered standards. I see the only honest relationship description I’ve read in a decade.

We are fed a steady diet of “reach” culture. We are told to manifest our dream partner, to never settle, to find someone who takes our breath away. But we rarely talk about the crushing anxiety of actually catching the car we’re chasing. There is a profound, under-discussed case for marrying your equal — not your “better half,” but your mirror image. It’s not about giving up. It’s about finding sanity.

The Exhaustion of Living on Your Tiptoes

There is a specific type of neurotic energy that radiates from a person who knows they are the “reach” in the relationship. You see it at dinner parties. They are slightly too attentive, slightly too groomed, laughing a little too hard at their partner’s mediocre jokes.

When you marry someone significantly “better” than you — whether that’s in looks, social capital, or charisma — you sign an invisible contract to constantly audit your own worthiness. You live in a state of perpetual audition. You wonder why they are with you. You wonder when they will realize they can do better. You become grateful instead of comfortable.

Gratitude is a terrible foundation for intimacy. You cannot be fully vulnerable with someone you feel you tricked into loving you. You can’t wear the sweatpants with the hole in the crotch. You can’t admit you’re insecure. You have to keep up the charade that allowed you to punch above your weight class in the first place.

Marrying your equal obliterates the audition. When you look at your partner and see someone who is exactly as messy, average, and human as you are, the power dynamic flatlines. You aren’t the lucky one. They aren’t the charity case. You’re just two people wading through the muck of life in comfortable shoes.

The “Trophy” Eventually Collects Dust

The “Disney” version of love relies heavily on the spark — that electric, visceral jolt that usually comes from high-definition physical attraction. We are taught to prioritize this above all else. If you don’t want to rip their clothes off in year one, the marriage is doomed.

But ask anyone married for twenty years what gets them through a mortgage crisis, a colicky newborn, or the death of a parent. It isn’t the jawline. It isn’t the size of her waist or his height.

High-voltage chemistry is volatile. It requires maintenance. When you marry for the “spark” you get with a 10/10, you are investing in a depreciating asset. Gravity comes for us all. If your relationship is built on the thrill of landing a prize, you are going to resent the prize when it starts to age.

The couple on Reddit admitted they imagine Pirates of the Caribbean during sex to get by. Is that bleak? Maybe. But is it any bleaker than the couple who started with fireworks, realized they had nothing in common once the lust faded, and now sit in silence at Applebee’s?

Marrying your equal means accepting that the “boring” parts of life — the logistics, the parenting, the silent companionship — are actually the whole game. If you can find someone who matches your pace, your intellect, and yes, your level of attractiveness, you stop worrying about the wrapper and start enjoying the contents.

Safety is Not a Dirty Word

We have demonized “settling” to the point where people would rather be miserable and alone than content with someone “average.” We equate safety with boredom. We think that if we aren’t feeling the highs and lows of a telenovela, we aren’t really in love.

But that wife’s comment — “You’re as ugly as I am. We match” — is the ultimate expression of safety. It means: I see you clearly. I am not projecting a fantasy onto you. I am not waiting for you to become a project. I accept that we are both flawed, weird little potato-people, and I’m good with that.

There is a narcotic relief in being with someone who doesn’t intimidate you. It frees up an enormous amount of mental bandwidth. Instead of spending your energy worrying about your desirability, you spend it building a life. You buy a house. You raise kids. You develop inside jokes that are indecipherable to the outside world.

Sanity isn’t sexy. It doesn’t make for a great rom-com montage. But at 2:00 AM on a Tuesday, when the baby is puking or the basement is flooding, you don’t want a supermodel or a mystery man. You want a partner who is in the trenches with you, looking just as disheveled as you are, handing you a towel.