Someone can love you without thinking you're perfect. Your parents probably love you while still recognizing you make mistakes. I think a wife is the same way.

I don't think you can go into marriage, or even dating, with a unconditional love complex. If you want unconditional love-get a dog. Of course, even that dog will expect you to feed him, walk him, pet him.

I plan on "settling," as you say, or "putting up with" my future husband (whomever he may be) because guranteed he'll be "settling" and "putting up with" me! I am not bone-achingly beautiful, I sometimes misuse words and talk too often-the man who marries me will have quite a bit to "put up" with. But I hope he'll love me, in spite of the flaws. I hope I'll have my reason will be enough to convince me that a 5'5"-5'10" man with brunette hair and a slightly-lanky-but-not-too-lan­ky frame who speaks Japanese, Chinese, and Korean fluently, and who enjoys the works of CS Lewis but isn't TOO Christian, wants to travel but wants the stability of a family, and can cook.... may not be a reality. Or may not be a reality I'll ever experience (maybe my vision of the perfect man is the same vision as another woman, and there's only one of em in the continential US and she got to him first...)

See with the talking too much? Point is, never tell yourself that your wife is "settling." It's an ugly word for it. I hope you find a girl instead who says "You're not perfect, and there just might be someone else better for me... But you are very worth the risk of never finding out."