11 Unfortunate Signs You Picked The Wrong Person To Settle Down With
Are you with the love of your life or just the first person who felt practical?
Josep Suria | Shutterstock Alongside societal pressures to find the "perfect partner," many people lose sight of their true standards, settling for people that fit well into their lives and future goals without considering the subtle details that support a truly healthy partnership. To find the right person takes work, but maintaining a relationship through conflict, life changes, and personality shifts takes the same, if not more, commitment.
While they may be subtle and only appear in the face of uncomfortable emotions or uncertainty, there are unfortunate signs you picked the wrong person to settle down with. From feeling unheard to being unable to resolve conflict, acknowledging these signs can be hard to come to terms with. But if you're not able to find a healthy balance with your partner, why are they in your life?
Here are 11 unfortunate signs you picked the wrong person to settle down with
1. They disrespect you
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Being around a partner who is consistently disrespectful toward you can harbor intense feelings of resentment in a relationship, but it can also sabotage your personal well-being, sparking feelings of self-doubt and encouraging your self-worth to plummet, according to psychologist Sabrina Romanoff.
While this disrespect can look different in every situation and couple, from dismissing your thoughts, to criticizing your choices, and speaking poorly about you behind your back, it all comes down to trust. How can you trust someone who doesn't even have the decency to meet your bare minimum expectations and need for respect?
To have healthy conversations, envision a future together, and maintain love and commitment in a long-term relationship, you have to respect each other — not just in theory, but in practice.
2. You're constantly bickering and picking fights
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While it's normal, healthy even, to have arguments in a relationship and resolve conflict together, constantly bickering, criticizing each other, and being unable to have a healthy conversation should be a red flag that you might have picked the wrong person to settle down with.
A healthy partner actively listens, even when they don't agree or have something to say, in every conversation, making it a point to support their partner's emotions before proving a point.
On the other hand, someone with self-serving tendencies and unhealthy relationship standards may quickly resort to disrespect or anger, feeling uncomfortable with vulnerability and masking it with a misguided sense of superiority.
3. You can't envision the future of your relationship
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If you envision a future with your partner, excited or healthily nervous about sharing your life together, chances are you've picked the right partner.
It's natural to feel a bit anxious about the future, especially alongside other chaotic life struggles and hurdles, but if all you experience is uncertainty or a physical knot in your stomach at the thought of a future with your current partner, that may be one of the unfortunate signs you picked the wrong person to settle down with.
You should never dread the future of any relationship. Not only does it add pressure to the present moment, encouraging people to lash out, pick fights, and build resentment, it keeps you from enjoying and building towards a future you're both looking forward to.
4. You don't feel heard in conversations with them
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Feeling heard is not only the foundation of healthy, honest, and open conversations, it fuels the stability of long-term relationships as well, according to a 2023 PLoS One study.
From actively listening, to being present rather than distracted, and making an effort to respect one another, the healthiest couples make it a point to support their partners before trying to prove a point or "win" an argument.
If you consistently don't feel heard or understood in conversations with a partner — whether they're arguments or not — it might be time to set some new expectations around communication.
If they're receptive and open to it, there's a chance you can find a healthier baseline, but if they're not, consider how you're going to advocate for a safe space to feel supported.
5. They dismiss your concerns and emotions
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The practice of being open and willing to support your partner looks different for every couple, especially depending on what their attachment styles, emotional needs, and personalities look like.
As a study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science explains, partners who have different attachment styles, like an avoidantly attached person coupled with an insecure one, may struggle to maintain healthy communication if they're not open to learning how to best support each other.
One of the unfortunate signs you picked the wrong person to settle down with is their inability to acknowledge this basic relationship need. In order to communicate and love someone, you have to understand what they need. For example, a person with an insecure attachment may need more words of affirmation or quality time to feel heard and loved, while an avoidant person may need to prioritize quality alone time.
At the end of the day, you should feel not just heard by your partner for expressing your needs and emotions, but celebrated and empowered to continue doing so.
6. They never take accountability for their mistakes or actions
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One of the unfortunate signs you picked the wrong person to settle down with is the tendency for them to shift blame to you, even when their actions or words were hurtful.
Outside of constantly playing "defense" against their emotions and discomfort, many partners who avoid responsibility will shift blame and paint themselves as the victim in their relationships to avoid taking accountability for their actions.
Coming to terms with their flaws also means giving up control, something that most toxic partners desperately need, even at the expense of their relationships.
7. You frequently catch them in lies
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Despite over 92% of partners admitting they've lied to their spouse at least once in their relationship, there's a general consensus that to build the trust necessary to sustain a healthy partnership, deception has to be limited.
To ensure you feel safe and secure in a relationship, you have to sustain trust with your partner — believing that they not only have your best interests in mind, but that they would never do or say something to sabotage your well-being.
While there's certainly "white lies" and circumstances where people lie to protect their partners' feelings and the well-being of a relationship, the majority of lies stem from deceit, often cultivating emotional manipulation and distrust, even in the seemingly healthiest of partnerships.
If you catch your partner in a lie once or twice, that might be grounds for a conversation about expectations, but if it's a common occurrence, that could be one of the unfortunate signs you picked the wrong person to settle down with.
8. You don't talk about your needs or boundaries
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The practice of open and honest dialogue should be a daily practice for couples in long-term partnerships. Whether it's discussing your emotional needs or setting boundaries to protect each other's well-being, a partner in a committed and healthy relationship is willing to put in the time, energy, and effort to learn the best ways to support their spouse.
If your partner or spouse is doing the opposite of that — dismissing your pleas for support and putting restrictions on what's supposed to be unconditional love — that could be one of the subtle and unfortunate signs you picked the wrong person to settle down with.
Of course, it's never too late to make your expectations in a relationship a priority, whether you do so with a blunt open conversation or make the decision to step away.
9. They were unfaithful or cheated on you
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While experts from the Mayo Clinic argue there's a way to mend trust and rebuild a relationship with an unfaithful partner who cheated or emotionally betrayed you, it's important to return to your own expectations and boundaries before making the decision to work things out.
Do you feel like they're apologetic and receptive — not because they're being confronted with a fear of losing you and the stability of a long-term relationship, but because they truly recognize they've done something wrong? Is past infidelity something you can live with, even if your partner does all the necessary work and commits to a future together? Is it possible to rebuild trust without holding onto resentment?
If you're personally comfortable with continuing a relationship with someone who simultaneously poured energy into another person while dismissing and invalidating your feelings, that's your prerogative, but there's ways to do it in a healthy manner.
However, if you're uncertain about the future or continue to feel disrespected by your partner's response, it might be time to consider the reality that you picked the wrong person to settle down with.
10. You feel like you have to walk on eggshells around them
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Many people in uncertain relationships with an emotionally unstable partner take on a constant feeling of anxiety — stuck in "fight or flight," worried about how their partner will respond to any conversation or action they do.
In conflicts, they're forced into people-pleasing behaviors to protect their partner's comfort. When they try to advocate for their needs or assert a boundary, they're met with constant criticism, made to feel like a perpetrator in the face of guilt-tripping behaviors.
Although they may take on a generally emotionally detached mentality in your relationship, like clinical psychologist Matt Boland argues is incredibly impactful for relationship health and personal well-being, uncomfortable emotions encourage them to resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms and toxic behaviors that leave you constantly on edge.
11. They try to control you, rather than collaborate with you
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A partnership should be exactly that: two people working together towards a common goal — in this case, a healthy and loving relationship. When one partner uses emotionally manipulative tactics, harmful language, and a misguided victim mentality to wield more power over another, the healthy baseline that allows long-term relationships to thrive is subtly sabotaged.
In a relationship, doing things for each other and holding a shared sense of responsibility over the relationship's well-being is part of the collaborative nature that makes each person feel heard, loved, and understood, according to the Insights Counseling Center.
If you're consistently not feeling like a partner, but like a pawn or even a child toward your spouse, chances are you've picked the wrong person to settle down with and it's time to advocate for yourself, your autonomy, and the respect you deserve.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.