I know, this is an odd question. I’ve seen a lot of posts of successful marriages and the ways people are similar….but not a lot on how you’re different with your significant other.
I’ve been dating someone for a couple months now and it got me thinking what areas are truly important in a relationship long term or not. Where are you guys different that really doesn’t seem to matter all that much (and conversely differences that have become struggle points)?
EDIT: And were the things you are not similar important/not important before?
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I am all about peace and she is all about justice. So much so that our nicknames are ‘peace mouse’ and ‘justice mouse’. Over time these traits rubbed off on each other.
My husband is so relaxed and easy going. I am so…not that. It actually works very well for us and we often talk about how that balance is crucial.
Things like politics, how we raise our kids, future goals, housekeeping expectations, introversion, and day to day life are basically exactly the same.
I couldn’t be with someone who needs to do all the dishes before they sleep, or with someone who goes to the gym 5 times a week, or wants people over all the time or to go out with buddies all the time. Or wants money to go to things like fancy cars vs doing things like vacations. This stuff seems little but it’s prevented a lot of arguments.
Not agreeing politically was my number 1 dealbreaker while dating. We are both involved in various political issues.
Our differences are that he’s a bit more spendy. I like thrift, he buys from nice stores. We just do our own thing here. He has a higher spending budget but I don’t feel ripped off because I buy what I want.
I like things planned and get uncomfortable with changes, he’s more spontaneous, but understands I need processing time so he’s been good about it. It caused some miscommunication early on but I can’t remember the last time now.
My wife likes to get up and starting singing songs first thing in the morning. I barely want to interact with anyone until I’ve finished my first cup of coffee.
The solution is that I wake up a bit earlier and have some alone time before my wife gets around.
He loves sports. I don’t. I am a voracious reader. He isn’t. I read when he watches his games.
I am fairly fastidious and detail-oriented. My wife is…not as much? My wife is also great at making idle small-talk with people. I have a fairly low threshold for that. I’m not antisocial by any stretch, I just don’t do well with meaninglessness. These things balance us out quite well – especially as we’ve embraced them in ourselves and each other.
My wife and I are together when it comes to core values – religion, character, politics, raising children, work ethic. We are different in personality type, but that’s what attracts us to each other. I really don’t want to be married to someone just like me! We also differ in activities, but have learned to enjoy each other’s activities just so we can be together. That also doesn’t have to be all-in, ie, she might stop on the hike 2 miles in while I continue longer.
We’re fairly compatible as housemates, which I think is actually a pretty huge one – some small differences, but the fact that we align on most parts of running a household is very helpful and cuts a lot of conflict out right off the bat. We also have the same moral alignment, and shared values, which is huge.
Aside from that, I’d say we’re pretty different. We have a few shared interests that we can do together, which is great, but each of us also has totally different hobbies, interests, activities, that we each do for our own enjoyment. It’s a good balance of connectedness and maintaining individuality.
I’m a bit spiritual and he is Mr Science.
I am positive and he is grumpy
My husband is mellow and kind. Nothing really phases him. He is a very chill, no worries kind of guy. I am a super high strung anxious bitch. I know this, he knows this and our kids know this.
We joke that he’s probably the one person who could get absolute power and stay a good guy, while if I got absolute power, I would immediately smite all my enemies and take over the world.
We’ve been together so long that we just know how each other operates and we can adjust our behaviour accordingly.
She has a lot of tattoos. I have none.
Our preferences in music have always been different. Over the years they seem to have gotten far and farther apart from each other.
Friends: We used to mix our friends and had pretty much all the same friends. Now? She spends her time with a few close to her frineds. And while I know them, I have not enough in common with them to want to spent time with them. Meanwhile, I have several friends she’s somehow never met.
My wife has what I call “the capacity to ignore.”
She can ignore when our youngest is throwing a fit over nothing. I can’t. I want the screaming to stop immediately. I am very much a logic based problem solver. If there’s a problem I make a plan to solve it as quick as possible. This leads to a little conflict when she just wants to complain about something minor
* I’m a morning person, she’s not.
* When arranging cabinets or shelves, she’s form over function, I’m function over form.
* She will cut people that wrong her slack, I’ll cut people out in a heartbeat.
* But the #1 dealbreaker for us has always been that she’s a *Jif* person and I prefer *Skippy*.
He’s a morning person, I am not. He’s laidback, I’m in a constant state of anxiety 😅 We balance each other out well.
We agree on all the important stuff. Politics, religion, the size of our family and raising kids. We’ll have the same front with drugs sex and rock and roll with our kids when they’re older. We hate sports and don’t love crowds and we both love a good night in. We like the same ice cream. We want the same amount of blankets on the bed
My husband and I don’t love the same foods. We have lots of foods in the ven diagram that we like just fine but he hates my favorite food and I don’t love his. We compromise by getting takeout from separate places and cracking open a bottle of wine or a couple beers and watching a movie together for date night.
He is a musician and music is a huge part of who he is. Music has never been something that has been a big part of my life. I grew up in a large household and have more introverted quiet methods of expression. We’re in agreement that our house will be full of instruments for our kids to experiment with and we’ll encourage it.
He needs 32 alarms to wake up and I’m a one alarm person.
We don’t have the same favorites with tv or movies. He like action and drama and adventure I like true crime and cooking shows and ghost adventures. Again, a ven diagram of things we can enjoy together and then things we only enjoy separately.
We don’t have the same love language. I’m quality time and we’ve had to compromise because he needs alone time so we schedule hangout time and he has shifted his priorities to value time with me rather than see it as chore. His is physical touch and words of affirmation, neither of which come naturally to me. I push myself to meet his needs and make him happy and it brings me joy to make him happy even if left to my own devices I am too sarcastic to be nice and would probably go a year without hugging someone and not even notice. I like his hugs and I like making him feel good by saying nice things to him so I have relearned that for him.
We don’t like the same cars, which is a shame as we’re a one car family lol.
We have different hobbies. He’s very handy and talented in that department and I am NOT. I am good at coordinating colors and finishes and he has the taste of a landlord in 2006. We defer to each other a lot in those areas as we renovate our house right now 😂
I’m a morning lark and my husband is a night owl.
He’s more a pro gamer but I’m casual. I like games I just feel bad playing them for 6 hours, even if it’s a weekend.
I’m a Trekkie. Husband likes Star Wars better (but we like both franchises).
My husband is way better at cleaning and I’m way better at cooking.
My favourite sweet is chocolate but my husband likes cake a lot more.
I’m much more musically inclined, and creatively inclined but my husband was a lot more active than I was growing up and was a great competitive swimmer (he still could compete probably). I do exercise but it’s a lot more “fitness oriented” (long walks and workouts).
For me, I couldn’t be with someone who didn’t allow me my own personal time and space, I don’t like to be given a time to be home or cook or whatever.. I’m my own person. I couldn’t live with someone who was a neat freak
Before I met and married my husband … I thought it was normal for a man to stay gone 2-3 days .. my husband has never not came home..
My husband is a fairly calm, laid back guy. It takes a lot to make him angry and even then it doesn’t last long (maybe an hour at the most). He’s not very expressive emotionally and in the beginning I often took his calmness for lack of caring/interest. I have learned over the years that nothing could be further from the truth.
He’s not traditionally “romantic” but expresses his love in other ways. Like making sure the fridge is always stocked with my favorite energy drinks. Buying my favorite candy or soda whenever he stops to get gas. Putting up with my K-pop obsession and much more.
I, on the other hand, am extremely emotional and anxious. It doesn’t take a lot to throw me into an emotional tailspin and it takes me a couple of days to get past it. I’m definitely more obviously affectionate whether that be through words or touch.
I tell everyone that my husband is everything I never knew I always needed. We balance each other out. Where I’m weak, he’s strong and vice versa. We bring out the best in each other and genuinely enjoy being together.
He does everything in the most difficult way possible. I used to correct him or just do it for him. Now I’ve realized that I can just let him do it the hard way and it’s fine. It gets done. It’s not a big deal.
I’m highly sensitive and anxious about the most obnoxious things and he’s just so chill. It works. He mellows me and I can get him to care about things a little more.
My husband and I seem like we don’t have a lot in common. I watch sports, he doesn’t. I craft, he doesn’t. We both are musicians but he performs and I don’t. He travels a lot more than I do. I cook, he does not. I’m religious, he is not.
But we have the same values and share most political opinions. We agree on how to raise our child. We agree how to share and save and spend money. We agree on where we should live. We agree on the amount of autonomy we should have in the marriage. We agree on respecting each others’ privacy. We agree on what we should provide for our child in terms of college money, etc.
We compromise and do things with each other that we know our spouse enjoys such as music, movies or shows.
My husband loves sports, especially football. His side gig is sports broadcasting. Sports are not my thing but they make him happy and we have made the agreement that the fall is for broadcasting. I also try to go to games with him on occasion. He in turn does plenty that I want to do. He has many other interests and we have dates at least twice a month too.
If all he did was sports, it would be an issue but it’s not and we communicate and plan around his schedule in the fall.
We cannot agree on movies or tv shows for the life of us. We rarely watch tv together and alternate choosing movies and tolerate the others choices.
On the plus side we rarely spend time watching tv, most evenings are on our deck with a bottle of wine just chatting and hanging together.
He is artfully snarky, though he keeps it well hidden most of the time. And he loves loves loves kids and will get right down on the floor with them.
I am defiantly hopeful, naturally cheerful, and completely lost when dealing with tiny humans.
He’s more anxious than I am, I don’t find the day to day of life quite as draining/worrisome. I am more emotionally connected and “needy”, but he’s really worked to learn the importance of this for me. I used to love sports and he did not at all – still doesn’t but he’ll sit through any baseball game I ask him to because he loves me. I can’t identify any song to save my life even though he’s a music/audio guy. But I bought him a guitar. I love to cook where he finds it exhausting. He’s incredibly handy and can build anything, just don’t let him pick a paint color. I need things clean, he does not. He dislikes holidays and birthdays and I enjoy them. I’m more of a get-rid-of-it person and he has T-shirts from when he was 4.
My husband and I are polar opposites, he’s an introvert hard core crazy fit competitive athlete who hates people and loves animals, I reluctantly go to the gym, have 1000 friends and there isn’t a club I won’t join. I’m an extrovert that loves almost everyone. We have the same faith, politics and agree where we want to live and where to send our kids to school. We like each other quite a bit, love each other a lot and and have very independent lives from each other, and that’s how we like it