Do you have a partner on the back-burner in case it all goes wrong in your current relationship?
Ever been guilty of keeping a potential partner waiting in the wings while in a relationship with someone else? Well, turns out, you’re not alone.
If you’re like the average young adult, chances are you’ve been keeping in contact with other potential partners, or back- burner options. Don’t get me wrong, these aren’t people you’re cheating on your partner with. Instead, they’re prospects you keep in touch with just in case your number one option falls through.
Over half of people in committed relationships have back-up relationships
Dibble et al. (2018)surveyed 658 college students about their technological communication, relationship status and number of back-burners.
According to the study, most of the students — 73% — said they maintained communication with at least one back-burner. Even among those in committed relationships, a little more than half — 56% — had back burners.
Single students had about six back-burners on average, compared to those in committed relationships who had about five on average.
The fear of being alone
Keeping a back-burner is a simple way of dealing with the risk that comes with having a lot of dating options. Once you commit to one person, you eliminate all other options for yourself. However, if your current relationship doesn’t work out for any reason, being alone is the terrifying reality for some. Keeping the second best person as a backup plan therefore can come from that fear and insecurity of being alone.
The thing is, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re unhappy in our current relationship — it just means we’re doing a kind of damage control for our future selves.
Evolution, evolution, evolution…
Romantic Partner Insurance As a Mating Strategy:
From an evolutionary perspective, the fitness of a person is measured only by the number of children you can have. Because of this, it’s clear that having a back-up partner would be prudent. If anything were to happen with the current relationship that meant it were to end, raising children alone would be pretty hard. Having a back-up plan for your love life would increase the probably of genetic success.
Why it’s so harmful for your relationship
Regardless of your relationship status, keeping people on the back burner can be really detrimental to your dating life.
It can result in comparing your current partner to your back-burner partner. Particularly if you are going through a stressful time in your current relationship, it can cause a grass-is-greener mentality.
[Read: Has The Internet Broken Dating?]If you’re single, keeping back-burner relationships can stop you from actively pursuing meaningful connections in the present. Having someone as a potential fall back option can stop you from actively trying to meet quality people and then fully committing to them. For those in relationships, it has the same result. By having a perpetual back-burner option, you’ll never be able to fully commit to your current partner.
At the end of the day, your current partner doesn’t deserve for you to ‘hedge your bets’ on the success of the relationship by keeping a back-burner around. You should either commit to him or her or let go. Second, if you keep your back-burner around, it also makes him or her think he or she has a chance at dating you. This is really a form of ‘benching‘ and it’s unfair to give your back burner this hope. Keeping someone around who has feelings for you ‘just in case’ is ultimately pretty cruel.
[Read: Is Benching The New Ghosting?]So statistically, over half of us in relationships have one or two people they want to keep as a back-up plan, but even though this idea seems appealing – it’s really detrimental for our current relationships. Avoid the grass is greener mentality, and remember that your partner deserves your full attention.
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