How to tell if you and your man are compatible
By Love and Relationships Staff
According to the world’s favourite search engine, you and your partner’s birth dates are the most important factor in predicting your compatibility. But the key to a successful relationship is much more earthly: it’s more about how similar you are to each other.
1. Similar interests
Do you both enjoy doing similar things? Does one of you always want to go out partying, while the other is a stay-at-home type? Do you both enjoy watching similar movies, or can you at least find films that you both want to watch. While it can be exciting to meet someone who is completely different from you, if you intend to spend your life – your whole life - with that person, there has to a certain number of common interests. Otherwise, how can you spend time together doing something you both enjoy, and have some topics you can easily talk about?
Boredom is a major reason that relationships fall apart, and being able to spend time together doing something you both enjoy will help keep away the threat of boredom bought on by the hum-drum of daily life. While everything may be marshmallows now, there will be times in any long-term relationship when things are not easy. Being able to have fun together will help remind you how important you are to each other.
But don’t forget, it doesn’t mean you have to spend every single moment together. Allowing your partner to do the things he likes- spending time with his friends, playing Playstation, or hammering away at something in the shed - is very healthy in a relationship. That means too that you can do the things you love – be it shopping, skiing or catching up with your girlfriends. Cramping each other will lead not only to boredom, but resentment too.
2. Similar beliefs and outlooks
Are you an ardent believer in star signs, while your man the ultimate cynic? Is he a Christian and you an atheist? Are you total believer in fidelity, while your man isn’t? Everyone has a set of beliefs and outlooks on life, and if these are too different from your man’s, this could lead to serious problems in the long run.
3. A similar view of the future
Do you talk about the future? Is it exciting to imagine a future with him. Do you both have the same expectations about how it will be? Do you both want children, or not want children? Is it important to own a house? Is it important for you to live in the city or the country? In New Zealand, or overseas? If you have children in the future, what sort of father do you expect him to be? Should he focus on putting food on the table, or should he focus on spending time with the children. Do you want to return to work shortly after having the kids, while he thinks you should stay at home and be a traditional housewife? If one of you has to give up their dreams to make the relationship work, this will cause a lot of strain. No one can know exactly what the future will hold, but you have to be realistic about what you expect from it, and whether both of you will be prepared to make compromises to make sure that it will work.
4. Similar expectations
The expectations of how your partner will behave, and how you will behave are incredibly important in a relationship. If you are often disappointed or hurt by your partner’s behaviour, but he cannot understand why, you need to talk to him. If you can’t talk to him now, these problems could bloom in the future.
5. Does your partner listen to you and give you emotional support?
There are times in everyone’s life when they feel alone, depressed or burnt-out. At these times, do you feel that your partner is there for you? This really comes back to your expectations; when things are going badly for you, is he there in the way that you expect him to be? Perhaps he is trying to be there for you, but his way of acting is different from what you expect in a partner. If this is so, are you able to talk to him, and will he then give you the support you need?
And ask yourself- are you there for him when he needs it in the way he wants?
6. Attitudes to money
But this is love, not money. Perhaps. Money is a major source of problems between couples. If you both want to have a house, a couple of cars and children, attitudes to money are important. In a long-term relationship, there are times when both partners will not be able to live independently – how you work together and spend your money can easily become a hot-bed of dispute.
7. Similar foods
It seems so lame, but if your man is a vegetarian, and you’re a savage meat eater, this is likely to become a major issue. Think about it: as you get older, both of you are working, perhaps you have children, one of the most important times that spend together will be over food. If you hate the food you have to cook, or that he cooks, this could easily swell into a source of resentment and dispute.
8. Are you compatible physically?
And we’re not just talking about sex. Obviously it is important whether he cares if you are sexually satisfied or not, and that his sexual needs are satisfied. It also means, if you like to be hugged, to feel warm next to him in bed, to feel his arms around, but he is distant and does not give you the affection you feel you need, this will make those tough times harder. If one or both partners do not feel that their physical needs are being satisfied, it will lead to problems, and possibly the break-down of the relationship as one partner seeks to fulfil these needs elsewhere.
9. Can you be yourself with your partner?
When you meet someone you, it is normal to display your best side, but if a relationship is to work well you need to be able to be yourself with him. Does he love for who you are, as you are? Do you love him for who he is, the way he is? Do you love him despite his farts?
10. ?
So there’s nine perfectly rational, logical ways of seeing if you and your man are really compatible, leaving space for one perfectly irrational, unexplainable factor: you will just know if he’s right or not. That’s what an 80-year-old woman, happily married for 50 years, once told me.
That all sounds very ominous. The truth of the matter is that no-one person can be all that you want them to be, all of the time – just in the same way you cannot be all they want you to be all the time; but if you are really compatible, your relationship is much more likely to be long-lasting, happy and satisfying.
Maybe it’s easier just to ask him: what’s your date of birth?
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