The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule is a way of understanding that no matter who you fall into a relationship with, they will never be that full extraordinary 100. Instead the most you will find is 80, which to us should be amazing, right?

I remember when I first heard of the 80/20 rule. I thought it was absolute rubbish, maybe because I was so wildly in love that I believed that the man who stood beside me was in actual fact EVERYTHING I needed and wanted. What could I possibly want to change and with WHO?

We, as women (and of course men), can be so blindly infatuated with what is set in front of us that we experience tunnel vision- our partner is basically flawless in our eyes. It’s only after this “honeymoon stage” comes to a halt that we start to pick at our partner’s flaws, concentrating on their imperfections and what needs changing. It’s as if we suddenly start to see the REAL them, realising how cloudy our initial judgement was.

Have you ever felt like the person you were dating wasn’t everything you wanted? After all, nobody’s perfect. Or would they be, if you could replace a certain attribute of their’s with someone else’s?

The mistake a lot of us women have made whilst being committed is falling for someone else outside of our relationship. Someone else comes along doing all the things we wish our partner did, and just like that, we’ve fallen for a 20, subcontiously feeling like they’re generally that 100. Nope, WRONG.  You’ve just fallen with what stood out to you and that ONLY.

What about the men though huh? Men love what the eyes see on some occasions, not that I condone it or find it acceptable, but they cheat. However, they still want to be with their loyal/wife or girlfriend? *cough* Dwayne (cheating-ass-bastard-didn’t-even-use-a-condom) Wade for example.

Not that all men result to cheating, but like women I’m sure they have thought “If only my girl cooked like xyz*” or “if only she had ‘a bigger ass/smaller waist/bigger breasts’ etc etc,” forgetting what made them so attracted to her in the first place.

You may have stopped giving her attention and also stopped doing the ‘little things’ you did before, such as encouraging her, helping her with her assignments, her job hunting, or just simply listening.

But is the grass always greener? Are we too busy looking for perfection that we forget to make what we have stable, so instead look elsewhere constantly? Or are we trying to fill an empty void that we didn’t know needed filling till this 20 showed up? Can these be one of the many reasons relationships don’t always work out? Has our generation become obsessed with trying to make it work, only with others…. OUTSIDE their relationship that 20’s have become the new 100?

How do we know we’re not making love and in a relationship with a 20 instead of a 80?

We don’t know in all honesty. All you can do is weigh out your options & ask yourself could you really imagine yourself leaving your partner for someone new that came along or would you much rather BUILD, talk, support each other and work things out?”

After reading many articles outlining the 80/20 rule, it dawned on me just how some of us try to look for something that doesn’t exist – 100. No-one is perfectly compatible with their partner. Not even Beyo…. Barack Obama and Michelle. Most of us are too busy trying to find completion in someone else that we don’t look at or try to improve ourselves and more importantly the ones we share a bed with at night.