It would be a modern sitcom. Whether they are funny, I will that as an exercise for for the reader.
I’m not willing to say it’s impossible - of course it is logically possible. But I do have reservations…
I have a PhD in Philosophy and and am a family doctor. I think I’m fairly bright. A year ago I met my partner - he dropped out of high school and works as an iron worker. Before committing to him, and good grief do I struggle with commitment in general, I especially struggled with the educational and intellectual disparity between us. I was not intellectually sated or stimulated by him from the very beginning and I knew that I never would be. But he provided me with all the emotional things that I’d never had and I was very sexually fulfilled by him. I decided that given we can not expect to have everything from one single person, that I could live with the lack of intellectual compatibility - I can get that from friends, right?
Here’s the problem, a year later we are living together and every argument is a nightmare. I prefer to reason, to deliberate, to negotiate and move on. He is guilty of every logical fallacy known to humankind. He argues with his heart and subsequently says incredibly hurtful things. Insofar as arguing is inevitable, I try to view it as an opportunity for growth. I underestimated the importance of intelligence to healthy and productive arguing.
He has tried. I know he has. And I love him very much. I know he loves me. But all of this has me wondering if intellectual compatibility is indeed one of the fundamental necessities. I feel like a privileged bitch for even thinking it, but I feel I need more. I can’t help but wonder if secretly, most people feel this way about their loved ones who are intellectually less honed.
S
My wife and I get along fine in spite of my being a super intelligent Godlike leader also capable of marvelous feats of dexterity; like opening doors.
Well . . . . that’s how I think my dog feels about me.
Gee, it almost sounds like people are really complex things and can relate/not relate on many different planes, and trying to make a rule about which relationships will work based only on a narrow slice of personality might not be a really good idea.
Who knew?
You married your dog? How’s that working out?
I think it will work fine so long as both parties get to feel like they contribute to the relationship, and are needed by the other person. I guess the stereotype here would be an introverted ivory tower academic married to either a social butterfly who brings joint friends and activity into the home, or practical person who gets stuff done.
As long as both are humble in regards to their strengths, and neither makes the other one feel inferior, than it’s no different than any other difference.
And of, course, having other stuff in common is good too, and an academic disparity doesn’t prevent that. Both people can have a deep interest in, say, restoring historical houses (you can come to that from both the academic or the handyman perspective), shooting pixelated zombies, raising a family, hiking etc.
Everything I read or am told tells me that arguing by “reason and logic” is the exact wrong thing to do. (This was/is my style also, I’m slowly learning, it’s taking longer than this website has been fighting ignorance).
Typically the issue is about feelings and you seek to understand and empathize with the other person’s feeling and work through the issue that way. You don’t have to agree that the feelings are logically supported, that’s not the point, the point is to care about their feelings regardless of whether they are logically supported.
It sure the fuck helps if you can logically and reasonably discuss your own emotional state and the factors that contribute to it. I agree that you shouldn’t try to logically explain to someone how they don’t have the right to be angry. On the other hand, it’s not acceptable to just be a big ball of emotions all the time, and the person who is expressing more emotions gets their way.
It’s true that emotions are extremely important. Lack of validation of feelings is a huge pet peeve of mine. But at the same time, while we can not control our feelings, we can control how we react to them and it is important to realize that feelings may not always be reflective of reality. Toward that end, a healthy capacity for reason and logic sure helps.
P.S. I’m certainly not Ivory Tower material. I grew up in a household of not-even-high school educated parents who grew up in small towns in the south of Italy. I am a poor Italian peasant girl at heart.
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Echo
I have a 120 IQ. My wife has an IQ of about 90. Any conversation about psychological motivations behind our behavior is one-sided.
For example, we both have bad days at work, and we talk about irritating co-workers and clients. After I complain, I will say something like “well, stupid clients keep us in business. To doctors and mechanics, all of us must look like idiots.” My wife gives me a blank stare. She is an office manager, yet she takes many days off to work a side gig doing hair. Still, she complains when her coworkers do the same and cannot see a relationship when I point it out (not critically) .
She is not interested in politics, and has no firm positions about anything. I have read 20 books on her culture so that we can have something to talk about; I knew I could never expect her to learn more about MY stuff. The result is that I know more about her country of origin than she does, and we still can’t talk about it. She hasn’t read one book about her culture.
I am curious about everything, and more educated since I have an M.S. Also, I virtually put my wife on my back to help her complete the work an A.S. and B.S. degree. Still, her analytical ability is low.
Her primary interest is in appearing competent and successful to others. She speaks four language fluently and has a good job. She is kind and disciplined, and she cooks, does housework and is a good lover. As long as she does these things, she feels she is being a good wife. My attempts to stop her from cooking and explain that I am not looking for a mother have been unsuccessful.
So I am basically left with a 1950s wife (who works), and it is boring as hell. I know I should join a club or something, but It would be nice to be able to explore this world with the woman I married.
I can’t deal with men who are dumber than I am, and the ones who aren’t tend to be a lot more handsome and financially successful and thus expect a wife who is more attractive. This generally poses a bit of an issue.
I can set my watch by my sister’s griping about how her husband’s lack of intellect drives her nuts.
I took an IQ test in high school and scored a 122. While in high school and college I dated many above and below. One I dated has an IQ of 145 and got her doctorate at Berkeley. The person I married, now divorced, has an IQ of 94. We both played college sports and at that time it was great but that was one of the only things I could talk with her about. I am currently dating a lady with a 135 and I have told her to let me know when I sound like an idiot, I have a math degree/minor in geography. There have been a few times where she has said some things where I replied with I should have added that and a few times where I wish I would have also known that and a few times where I asked myself how do people know that. I have read the study that says you marry 10/15 IQ points apart. Yet, I also know someone who married 30 points lower and they still have, my observation, a great marriage.
Come to think of it, I usually date smart women (smarter than me) but shack up with average ones. Of my pre-marriage relations, I think I beat them all in scores but personality and character’s another thing. I often lose on that and often it’s the girl who manages the relation.
My wife? I’m better as far as the numbers go but she has her own repertoire of talents I don’t have. One is sizing people up, another is humanities and aesthetics.
I have no idea of the IQ’s of anyone I’ve ever dated - serious or otherwise, and only have a vague sense of what my own IQ is. I’ve never taken an official anything but a mensa app pegged my IQ at anywhere between 125 and 144 so I assume I’m above average. I read some swiss article a while back saying the happiest marriages are those where the woman is 15% more intelligent.
That would be the normal state of things.
Filipina ?
I’m a member of Mensa so I have a pretty healthy IQ. My wife is intelligent but probably not near the same number of IQ points as I. However she is much ‘smarter’ about many things and in many ways a much nicer human being. We’ve been together for 38 years and make a good team.