The Relationship Escalator Audit
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Hannah Witton describes culture as a 'relationship escalator': date, move in, marry, have a baby — a fixed sequence of stages set by media, tradition, and even legal rights and benefits, which couples ride without ever choosing it. The audit is a decision rule applied at every stage rather than a one-off conversation. Before taking the next step, the couple stops and asks where the desire is actually coming from: is it a genuine want for these two individuals and for them as a unit, or the next logical step people are simply supposed to take? She frames it as the same 'ask yourself why, again, and again' discipline used in work goal setting, applied to personal and relationship goals. External motives like pleasing parents are named rather than hidden, then consciously kept or discarded.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Name the escalator you're standing on
Write out the default sequence your culture, family, and media assume: dating for X months, moving in, marriage, kids. Seeing it as an external script rather than an inevitability is what makes it auditable.
Pro tip Include the legal and financial benefits attached to each stage — those are real incentives that quietly push you upward.
- 2
Stop at every stage, not just the big ones
Treat each transition — cohabiting, engagement, marriage, children — as a decision point that requires an explicit conversation, rather than assuming consent from the previous step.
Watch out Momentum is the failure mode. If you only pause at the wedding, you've already ridden four stages unexamined.
- 3
Ask where the desire is coming from
For the step in front of you, ask: is this something we feel we should do because it's the next logical step and what people do, or is it something that matters to us? Keep asking why until you reach the real source.
Pro tip Repeat 'why' at least three times, exactly as you would with a work goal.
- 4
Separate the individual answer from the unit answer
Answer twice — as two individuals with your own lifestyles and preferences, and then as a couple. A step can be right for the unit and wrong for one person, and that gap is the useful information.
- 5
Surface the external motives and decide on them consciously
Some of the answer will be 'it will make my parents happy'. Name it out loud. You can choose to listen to it, but you can also choose to ignore it if honouring it would make you miserable.
Watch out Unnamed external motives don't disappear; they just get mistaken for your own desires.
- 6
Re-check the roles you've drifted into
Periodically ask whether the division of labour and behaviour in the relationship was chosen or copied from the examples you were raised on. Ask: are we just playing house, or does this actually play to our strengths?
Pro tip Awareness of gender roles doesn't immunise you against them — Witton notes she still catches herself slipping.
In the wild
Witton describes having followed the conventional path — long-term partner, marriage, pregnancy before turning 30 — while refusing to ride it passively. At every single stage, she and her partner had deep conversations about where the desire to take that step was coming from: whether it was the next logical thing couples do, or something genuinely important to them both as individuals and as a unit. The outcome is the same visible sequence as an unexamined relationship, but each step was chosen rather than inherited.
→ The same conventional milestones, but each one deliberately chosen rather than defaulted into.
Despite considering herself well-informed about gender dynamics, Witton noticed her and her partner sliding into traditional gender roles in daily life. Instead of letting it settle, they stopped and asked whether they had chosen this arrangement or fallen into it because of the examples they'd seen and how they were raised. She compares it to small children mimicking adult behaviour — she describes herself, almost 30 and pregnant, as copying other pregnant people and people in their thirties because she doesn't otherwise know how to act.
→ Division of labour re-examined against actual individual strengths rather than inherited defaults.
Common mistakes
Only auditing at the big milestones
Waiting until marriage or children to ask why means several unexamined stages have already locked in expectations. The rule only works applied at every transition, including small ones like moving in.
Treating 'it's what you do' as an answer
Stopping at 'that's the next logical step of our relationship' is the escalator talking. If the why bottoms out in convention, you haven't reached your own motive yet.
Assuming awareness prevents drift
Witton considers herself alert to gender roles and still catches herself slipping into them. The audit has to be repeated, not passed once.
From the transcript
“Where it's just like you start dating someone, you get on the relationship escalator together, and then you're just riding it, like you're not actually…”
“Or is this something that we as individuals but also as a unit like is this something that's important to us? And like along the…”
“And there will be an element of like, oh well, it will make my parents happy, right? And you can choose to listen to that,…”
From the episode
Snippet 9: Why True Love Doesn't Exist - Hannah Witton
Hannah Witton