If You And Your Partner Are Ducks, You're Totally Winning

"Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but paddling like the dickens underneath." - Michael Caine

My husband and I are ducks. Together ducks.

We're not the kind of couple who will tell you our plans until they're set in stone.

We're not the kind of couple who will tell you we are working towards something impossible until we've achieved it. We're not sharers in that way.

It's not that we're private people, per se. We're not acting like calm ducks as a cover, to avoid sharing parts of our life.

But over the ten-plus years of our relationship, we've come to see the value in keeping plans, ideas, and developments within our relationship private until they materialize. 

We've also been careful not to portray anything that could come across as permanent. We don't advertise one fight in case it turns into a rumour we're splitting up.

We've seen the perils of maintaining a somewhat public relationship. We've had people's input, opinions, and unsolicited advice when we didn't want or need it. We've had people put us down before we've even finished a task or reached a goal.

And the day we became fed up with it, we decided to be more like the duck. We decided that we would have more control over what people knew about our lives.

Like the duck, we decided to stay calm on the outside, not giving away anything we didn't want people to know.

Things were happening under the water. But like the duck, no one else saw it.

Though this way of being in a relationship doesn't make us better than anyone else, I can say we're happier than ever before being ducks.

Why? Let me tell you.

Your relationship avoids scrutiny…

Everyone has an opinion on what you and your partner should do. And what you shouldn't do. 

I remember when we were planning our wedding. 

Every person under the sun had input on what we should do; from flowers to dresses, to the music we play. Some even chimed in about the napkins on the table. 

Napkins?! Are you serious? Who cares that much? 

Well, when it comes to your relationship when someone is looking in, they love to care. A lot.

We learned from that experience not to share in some of the stressful and important planning decision processes with the people in our lives. Or, if we do share, we only share decisions set in stone.

When we bought our house at the end of 2021, we didn't want to tell everyone we were house-hunting. Or seriously house-hunting. And then one day, we sent our loved ones and closest friends a message to say we bought a house.

Sure, they were shocked. But their instant reaction was offset by the months of peace and quiet as we worked through this time in our life.

If people don't know what you're up to, they can't judge.

…Well, at least to your face.

Sure people might be talking about us behind our backs. We can't avoid that happening. 

The way we see it is that people are going to do that whether we tell them things or not. 

Therefore, if this system works better for us, we will keep doing it. Either way, the outcome is the same, too. At least this way, we can sleep at night knowing we've shared what we want to share.

You cement the reason you're together

It's just you and them. The dream team, right? Then if it's such a close and intimate relationship, why do you need the opinion of others? 

Why do you need every person's input to help you make a decision?

Being like ducks does something wonderful for your relationship. It helps you remember why you're a partnership in the first place. 

It cements how you want to get from A to B together. It reminds you how you chose each other to work through life's problems as a team. 

You didn't sign up for this team to include other people.

It's also healthy to have secrets, parts of your life that are just for you and your partner. It brings you closer together with the knowledge you have something no one else has. 

And it's not like these are harmful, illegal secrets either. It's more about what goes on behind closed doors that you only share when you're ready to.

You get rid of outside obstacles to getting from A to B

When all the outside opinions and voices come into the mix, you don't get any closer to your goal. Though people say that two minds are better than one, this is where the mind counting stops. 

The extra opinions don't help you move forward. In many ways, they hold you back. 

Extra opinions only lead to:

• You and your partner doubt your decisions.
• You and your partner procrastinate because you hate the process from too much input.
• You and your partner become paralyzed with optionality. Too many options and you find yourself unable to commit to anything.
• You and your partner arguing over someone else's two cents that never mattered until they said it.

Problems shared aren't problems halved.

People think that more input they have from others leads to better outcomes. 

In a relationship, this isn't the case. Other opinions tend to overtake what you both believe. They can devalue the values you have as a couple, which then leads to bigger issues between you.

For most people, there's a reason it's just two of you in a relationship. Two people are enough, and when you're the duck, those are the times you appreciate that.

You don't portray an image that isn't true

You can cause greater problems by sharing your issues and involving people in your relationship. 

And by not staying calm on the outside. 

When you're constantly involving others, what you involve them in is all they think of your relationship.

For example, if you constantly talk to your friends about your sex life and how to make it better with your partner, your friends think you have bad sex. It might not be the case. 

It might be a half-truth. It might be something you haven't discussed with your partner yet. It might be a fleeting feeling. 

Yet, your friends think this is a fair assessment of your relationship when it might not be.

Though it's not about keeping up appearances, is that what you want other people to think about you? 

Do you really want them to think your relationship is having issues when it's not? Is that impression you want the world to know?

What this boils down to is being too rash with what we tell people. We often tell others temporary emotions we're feeling, something that's fleeting that doesn't last. 

Those temporary emotions are what's happening under the surface.

What we've found works better is letting people see only the permanent decisions. Everyone sees the rational side of us, not the emotional, short-lived side.

You avoid having to continually explain yourself

Couples are no different from singles. 

People want answers from you. They want to know why you made a decision, what's happening with this idea, and everything in between. 

Sometimes when there are two people to harass, there is more explanation demanded of you. People think it's ok to demand answers from a team than a person on their own. 

For some reason, it seems less threatening, when it isn't.

When you're living your relationship continually sharing every part of your life, people feel they have the right to ask you to explain yourself.

They feel involved in your decision-making. And therefore they need justification for decisions you've made without them. 

It's like social media stars and celebrities. They constantly apologize and explain themselves because they have an audience making them accountable. 

The same goes for your relationship.

It might be as simple as making you explain a change of mind. They thought you were going to do X and then you end up doing Y. 

This questioning is less likely to happen if you don't tell them about the choice of X and Y.

A little privacy never did anyone any harm

The duck principle bucks the technological development we've been enduring for the past decade; social media. And the onslaught of changes social media has brought to the way we live life.

Everything is so public now. You sneeze and someone puts it online. Thanks to this changing attitude, there is very little privacy we can enjoy in our lives.

Being ducks helps remind you some things in life don't need sharing. 

It helps cement that privacy is a commodity we can value and have within our lives. We don't need to ask for privacy, we can simply take it.

And it reminds us that not everything we do needs to become public knowledge. Everyone can live happily and grow as people without sharing everything that happens within a relationship.

Give being a duck a try. I recommend it.