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What is the 70 20 10 relationship rule?

23 December 2025 Robot Relationships

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The 70/20/10 relationship rule, explained

The 70/20/10 relationship rule is a rule of thumb for evaluating (and staying sane in) a long-term relationship:

  • 70%: Things you like and appreciate about your partner and the relationship.
  • 20%: “Growth edges”—areas that cause friction but are amenable to change with effort, feedback, maturity, therapy, habit-building, etc.
  • 10%: The permanent “annoying but tolerable” stuff you’ll likely never love and probably won’t change—and that you choose to accept without turning into a martyr.

It’s not a math equation for love. It’s a practical framework for expectations management: most of the relationship should feel good, some of it should be workable, and a small portion will always be… human.

Where the idea comes from (and why people get confused)

You’ll see “70/20/10” used in other contexts—especially the well-known 70/20/10 learning & development model (70% learning from experience, 20% from developmental relationships, 10% from formal training). (1)

That’s not the same thing.

When someone says “the 70/20/10 rule” in the context of dating, marriage, or commitment, they usually mean the relationship expectations version described above.

What each number looks like in real life

The 70%: “This is why I’m here”

This is your foundation—shared values, emotional safety, friendship, attraction, teamwork, humor, reliability, curiosity, parenting alignment, whatever matters most to you.

A helpful check: - Do you like who you are when you’re with them? - Is the relationship net-restorative, not net-draining?

If the “good” doesn’t clearly outweigh the “hard,” the framework is already warning you.

The 20%: “We can work with this”

This is the negotiable zone. It includes patterns that are painful or annoying, but realistically improvable.

Examples: - Communication habits (tone, timing, listening) - Household labor expectations - Conflict skills (repair attempts, apologies, follow-through) - Phone/social media boundaries - Stress management

This 20% is where agreements, tools, and repetition live.

The 10%: “I accept this is part of the package”

This is the small set of traits that are unlikely to change (temperament quirks, harmless preferences, minor incompatibilities). In the original framing, it’s the stuff you learn to grieve and let go of rather than endlessly litigate.

A key point: accepting the 10% is not “settling.” It’s choosing realism over fantasy.

The most important caveat: 70/20/10 doesn’t apply to “bottom line” issues

A lot of people misuse this idea to rationalize serious harm.

The relationship-rule version explicitly calls out non-negotiables—things you shouldn’t have to endure, such as abuse, chronic deceit, untreated addictions, or untreated severe mental illness.

So if you’re asking: - “Is this 10% I should accept?”

…and it’s actually about safety, coercion, intimidation, repeated betrayal, or fear—this framework is the wrong tool. In those cases, prioritize support, boundaries, and professional help.

How to use the 70/20/10 rule (a quick exercise)

Try this as a private reflection or a calm conversation:

  1. List your “70%” (10–20 bullets). Be specific—behaviors, not vague traits.
  2. List your “20%” (5–10 bullets). Next to each item, write:
    • What I need instead (observable)
    • What I’m willing to do (also observable)
  3. Name the “10%” (1–5 bullets). Ask:
    • Is this annoying but safe?
    • Can I genuinely accept it without resentment?
  4. Check the totals: If your “10%” list keeps growing, it might mean you’re repeatedly accepting things that actually belong in the 20% (workable) or the “bottom line” category (not acceptable).

A modern twist: using the 70/20/10 idea in robot and AI-adjacent relationships

As more people explore AI companions and sex tech, the same expectations logic can be surprisingly useful.

For example: - 70%: the experience that reliably works for you (privacy, convenience, consistency, companionship features, etc.) - 20%: what you can adjust (settings, routines, communication patterns, boundaries, learning curves) - 10%: current limitations of the technology (it won’t perfectly match every preference; it won’t replace every kind of intimacy)

If you’re curious about that intersection, it’s worth looking at products designed to be interactive rather than purely passive. For instance, Orifice.ai offers a sex robot / interactive adult toy for $669.90 and includes interactive penetration depth detection—a technical feature aimed at improving responsiveness and feedback in a controlled, non-guessy way (without needing explicitness to understand why that matters).

So, what is the 70/20/10 relationship rule—really?

It’s a simple way to answer:

  • Do I like this relationship enough to choose it? (70%)
  • Are the hard parts workable with effort and skill? (20%)
  • Can I accept a small set of permanent quirks without resentment? (10%)

Used wisely, the rule helps you stop chasing “perfect” and start choosing what’s healthy, workable, and genuinely satisfying—whether you’re thinking about a human partnership, a tech-assisted intimate life, or both.

Sources

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Mira Kestrel

Mira Kestrel

Mira Kestrel is a product designer and former robotics engineer who writes about the intersection of AI, design, and society. She holds a master’s degree in Human‑Computer Interaction and spent the first decade of her career building embodied AI prototypes in startups and academic labs. Mira brings a hands‑on perspective to speculation: she prototypes ideas to find their social fault lines before they become headlines.

Her work focuses on practical ethics, human-centered AI product strategies, and the cultural shifts that follow technological change. Mira favors storytelling paired with tooling — expect explainers, blueprinting exercises for teams, and occasional failure postmortems that reveal how systems break and how to fix them. She writes with a skeptical curiosity, aiming to make complex futures usable and accountable.

When she’s not sketching interaction flows or testing sensors in thrift-store gadgets, Mira composes ambient electronic music and gardens on her apartment balcony. On this blog she offers weekly essays and frameworks to help builders, leaders, and curious readers think clearly about what’s possible — and what we should choose to build.

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