For those of you in love with someone at the moment, remember what your relationship was like when you first met. If you are not in love at the moment, can you remember a time when you had newly fallen in love or were in love? You had found your perfect life partner; someone who was just like you; your soulmate; who laughed at the same things, thought you were constantly fascinating; had similar interests - in fact , was your other 'half'.
Everything is fabulous until a few months later. Until the blinkers of infatuation and lust and superficial love have worn off!
And it dawns on us over time or with a sudden nasty shock, this person is not 'just like us'; they are not our identical twin; they have different ideas, and thoughts, and feelings and don’t always agree with us! Oh no! And what’s more there are things about us that they want us to change!
Reality has hit us with a big thump! If we want the relationship to grow and mature, we have to realize that the person we thought was our exact mirror is in fact an individual , from a different background , with different experiences and beliefs and opinions.
Our real challenge starts when we notice and acknowledge these differences and ask ourselves 'can I live with this person, who is so different from me?'
This is where compatibility kicks in. You might be madly in love with this man or woman whom you have known for 3 months, they have swept you off y our feet, but the truth is that in 3 months it is almost impossible to really, really, get to know someone at a deep level. It takes time to really understand someone else, time to see them in all sorts of situations; time to see how well you handle differences; time to see what values you share or don’t; time to see how trustworthy they are or are not. Grown ups are very complex and usually carry a reasonable amount of ‘baggage’ - it takes more time to find out about that baggage as it is often pretty well hidden, not just to you, but to the grown up themselves!
As you learn about someone , you can make a conscious effort to see how compatable you really are. If you are searching for a compatability comparason, you will find out a great deal more to help you make decisions about whether this is a good relationship that supports and nurtures you both, or not.
To try and come up with some compatability check marks for you, I added to my own ideas by asking 20 couples what they thought were important aspects to know about each other to help assess your compatibility:
You need to know yourself. It’s in the Bible and is the basis of pretty much everything, but most of us don’t! Because it is easier said than done!
It takes some soul searching to know what values, beliefs, and behaviors are important to you in life and to know what you think about what is important in relationships and the sort of relationship you want to have. Take the time to work out what attributes can you bring to a relationship - what would your strengths and weaknesses be?
What you want in someone else? What sort of person do you want - what behaviors and beliefs do you think you would like in someone else?
(Hint, after years of being with all sorts of different people, I finally worked out that one of the key components for me was to look for someone who was kind. Kindness is a MUCH underrated quality. My fiancee is the kindest person I have ever met….not to mention everything I ever wanted in every other way! And we took 2 years to get to know each other first, longer than I have ever taken before, but boy, was it worth it!)
Think about as a couple - or potential couple -
Do you have the same values about life? Values are the things that drive us - the benchmarks by which we judge things that happen to us in life or determine the ways we behave in life. How do you feel about trustworthiness, honesty, security, love, humor, learning, fun, integrity, fidelity, environmental awareness, balance in life?
What other important issues need to be considered here? For example, how much do you believe that you do the ‘right’ thing in all circumstances? Howe important is it that you are with someone who does the same thing or feels the same way? Do you both have the same idea about what the ‘right ‘ thing is? Look for character, the best definition I have heard of character is ‘someone who does the right thing even when nobody else is looking!” This little section could take you years of exploration in another!
How do your family backgrounds compare? Did you have similar socio economic backgrounds? Was your schooling similar? Did you both have similar education levels? Were your parents happily married, miserably married or divorced? Was there abuse in the household, of any sort? Physical, sexual , emotional? They are all critical to know about as they almost always leave scars no matter what anyone says. (Unless that person has worked on themselves for years.)
Is your new prospective partner divorced or single? Have they been that way for long? Are there step children involved? (It will be very difficult for a parent with a good relationship with their child to put anyone else first if there is a battle between the a child and a partner!) Are they very set in their ways? Will they be flexible and accommodate your needs?
Do you have good relationships with brothers and sisters?
All these aspects deepen your understanding of another and give you more choices in how you handle each other, or information on whether you are really compatable or not.
How do or did your parents handle conflict? How do you handle conflict and how did you as a child. John Gottman, an amazing expert on how to have successful relationships says that it’s how we handle conflict that often determines the longevity and happiness of a relationship. Yet, it’s not often something we give conscious thought to before it’s too late!
How did you behave as a child when you were angry - how about as an adult? (Hint, look at how your parents handled anger and you may see yourself!)
Does the family hug, talk about issues, get on well? Or do you all keep your own council and feel that you are intruding if you get too personal. Differences in these areas are MAJOR! And may not show up until you have been together for some time.
How well do you get on with each other's family? What are your ideas on family and what makes a family unit, and what’s important in a family?
What are your beliefs/desires on children and raising them? How should it be done, should you both work? What number of children if any were you thinking of?
How many friends do you and they have? If you meet someone with very few friends, you may ask why? There might be something there or they might just be someone who only wants to have a few very close friends and they are not interested in socialising with people they are not close to. This is a real problem for someone who is a ‘social butterfly’! Opposites might attract initially, but at the end of the day, opposites take a lot more work to have good day to day relationships!
How committed are you both to having a long term relationship at all and especially , at this time? Is it an important value? Are you willing to do what is necessary to preserve or enhance long term relationships? What are your ideas on fidelity? Religion? Spirituality? Are you both willing to learn more about and study relationship skills? To read books about personal growth or do courses or just be interested in making a conscious effort to grow and develop as a person.
Are you both optimistic or pessimistic? It's a challenge if you are generally optimistic and you live with a pessimist - or vice versa. It's OK in the beginning but becomes very wearing and destructive with time. Living with a pessimist can suck the life force out of an optimist! And murder becomes something a pessimist considers when living with an optimist!
How do you both value time - is one a human alarm clock and one perpetually late? Although this may not be a problem initially (when everyone's making a huge effort!) , it can blossom into a major source of conflict.
What makes you both laugh? How do you like to play, unwind and relax?
Do you like to lie about and do nothing or be wildly active or travel to 24 countries in 5 days! Do you prefer the beach or mountains? What about vacations? What ideas do you have for a perfect vacation? How important is laughter to you ?
Can you and your partner laugh at yourselves - and with each other? People who take themselves seriously can be exhausting if you come from a lighter perspective on life. Grown ups tend to become very intense if all they do is focus on work, work, work !
What about life balance? How balanced is your life and your partners life? What does their behavior tell you, are they workacolhics or do they really have a balance in their lives?
What activities do you like to do? Are you both into outdoor pursuits or both bookworms? Do you love sport, reading, learning, movies, opera, music, horse races - or hate them? What relaxes you, resting or being active? Would you rather watch sport than do it?
And what hobbies do you both have - or would like to develop?
How do you both behave when you are tired; upset; anxious or stressed? What's the best way for you to calm down? What brings out the best and worst in you both?
Remember, you can’t talk your way out of a problem you behaved your way into!
And now for the BIG one! According to John Gottman, author of What Makes Marriages Succeed or Fail, (an excellent book I recommend everyone reads) the greatest predictor of whether a couple will survive the rigours of modern living is how well they deal with conflict.
How well can you communicate with each other - especially under stress? How do you resolve differences? Or fights? Are you able to agree to disagree? Can you talk together ? And more importantly can you listen - really listen, to the other person? And hear the feelings behind their words?
This is only a short list of some of the aspects of each other to explore before you commit to a long term relationship. Unfortunately, we often don’t even think about these things while we are in the throws of first love and infatuation, but long lasting love and the ability to spend your whole life with someone else is not just dependent on how much you love them in the first 6 months of knowing each other!
It is dependent on how compatable you are and how well you can resolve the conflicts that will inevitably occur, unless of course you marry your clone!
What else do YOU think contributes to a couple being compatible? Perhaps it would be useful to use this article as a starting point for a discussion - with each other or with your children - it's certainly not part of the school curriculum - but might be useful if it was. You may save your child years of heartache and it may be something that bonds your family even more closely.
Summary:
Know yourself and know them!
What you want in someone else?
Do you have the same values about life and living?
Family backgrounds, how do they compare?
How committed are you both to having a long term relationship?
Are you both optimistic or pessimistic?
How do you both value time?
What makes you both laugh?
Life balance? Do you have it or need it?
What activities do you like to do?
How do you both behave when you are tired , stressed or anxious?
How , and how well do you both deal with conflict?
Anything else you can think of!
PS for those of you who are interested, we will soon have a new ebook available..it’s called Conversation Kick Starters for Couples! And it covers many of the aspects outlined here and many more.
If you think you or your partner or your children don’t talk as much as you used to..or if you find yourself struggling to think of things to say that do not concern financial or other problems; if there are uncomfortable silences that are appearing more regularly in your relationship then invest in this book!
If you are dating someone and want to find out more about each other and uncover much deeper values and information than most conversations, it is a useful tool. It is also fun, make it a game that you can play, if your partner thinks the idea sucks, hmmmm, you may want to reconsider things!
It’s short and useful for car rides, dinner tables, on your weekly date (ha ha, with each other, of course!) and just instead of watching the TV every night. (INSTEAD OF? Yes…I mean turn the TV off!!! And re connect with each other every so often)
You’ll be amazed at how much more you learn about your partner /children/friends or workmates when you slip these little questions into your conversations or into dinner conversations! It’s fun and very rewarding, not to mention eye opening! Even if you think you know everything there is to know about your partner/ child or friend, you might be very surprised!!
