# "Opposites attract" vs. "You should marry someone like yourself"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [May 9, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645 "2015-05-09T19:53:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/1 "2015-05-09T19:53:52Z")
This isn’t so much a thread about the merits of these two philosophies - although, of course, that can be discussed and debated in this thread - but rather, more of a survey.
For those of you who are married, did you end up marrying someone who was very much like you (habits or personality, etc.), or someone who was quite different, perhaps even opposite?
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### Author:  [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/2 "2015-05-09T20:32:25Z")
What’s the standard for judging whether someone is “someone like yourself” vs an “opposite”? People tend to exaggerate/focus on relatively small differences and people will be alike in many aspects and different in others.
As far as I know the research shows that similar people tend to do better than opposites. But I still see many examples of people who don’t seem to have anything in common except their address and their kids.
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### Author:  [@funky\_little\_lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funky_little_lee)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/3 "2015-05-09T20:47:43Z")
I had the experience of “opposites attract” with my first serious relationship. Fortunately I broke it off before we got married. It would have been a total disaster.
I married someone similar in most ways, but just different enough that we endlessly fascinate each other. Twenty-five years now and never a doubt in my mind that I was right.
Opposites attract might be fine for Harlequin Romances, but Like Attracts Like is a way better deal AFAIC.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/4 "2015-05-09T20:53:44Z")
I married someone who is very different from myself in many ways - I think I’m more practical, he is sometimes up in the clouds; he is creative, volatile and light-hearted, while I tend to like routine, to be somewhat phlegmatic and dour. We are both somewhat shy with strangers, but he can talk for hours to friends and relatives while I am more the silent type. I’m the handyman type, he can cook and clean. So in these and other senses, we complement each other, and each of us brings some useful things to the relationship.
Just before the two of us met, I had put in a personals ad looking for someone (this was 1992), describing myself and seeking to meet someone like myself. I did meet two or three people rather like myself, and in all cases we bored each other to death. Two of me would not work. Two of my spouse would not work either, they would run through all their money and bills would not get paid and stuff like that.
I think this arrangement works with people who are not especially well-rounded personalities. If you are more whole than I am, another person like yourself would probably work fine. In our case, each of us fills in some of the holes in the other person’s personality and skillset.
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### Author:  [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/5 "2015-05-09T22:22:44Z")
I married someone that was similar in many ways… lasted about 15 months.
A complement is more important than being the same or the opposite. Being very similar can cause issues if you both share the same weaknesses. Being very different can lead to conflict as well if it’s an area that’s important to you both.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/6 "2015-05-09T22:25:51Z")
First wife, very different, marriage finally failed.
Second wife, much more alike, I’m sticking with her.
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### Author:  [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2015, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/7 "2015-05-09T23:10:05Z")
The question as phrased is not very helpful. This is a case where going to either extreme is likely to be unsatisfactory. In my observation, the best relationships involve people who have some things in common as well as some differences. Some of the things in common are critical, some of the differences help compensate for each other’s weaknesses.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2015, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/8 "2015-05-09T23:51:32Z")
I’d say my wife and I are more than 50% different. How much more is hard to say. More than one person has said we complement each other, and I think that’s a reasonable explanation for how we’ve managed to stay together all these years.
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### Author:  [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/9 "2015-05-10T00:06:09Z")
I lived for several years with someone who was depressed and I was also depressed. We nearly ended up dead, I think. It was not good for either of us. We really brought out the worst in one another.
Now I am married to someone who is not in the least depressed and he makes sure that I take care of myself to keep my depression under control. He also takes things a great deal less stressfully than I do; tends to take things as they come. I would like to be more like that and I think he’s an excellent influence on me. I’m not sure what I do for him, but he seems very content.
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### Author:  [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/10 "2015-05-10T00:42:10Z")
I am not currently married but I am most attracted to my opposite. Sadly, that is the type of woman least attracted to me.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2015, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/11 "2015-05-10T05:31:41Z")
My partner and I are opposites in so many ways. People who see us together don’t identify us as a couple. We’ve been together over 27 years.
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### Author:  [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2015, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/12 "2015-05-10T10:26:32Z")
Never been with someone like me, but I was most unhappy in a relationship with a woman most like me. Opposites didn’t work, either, so it’s down to compatibility, as others have noted.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2015, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/13 "2015-05-10T10:39:03Z")
> [@kayT](#):
>
> I lived for several years with someone who was depressed and I was also depressed. We nearly ended up dead, I think. It was not good for either of us. We really brought out the worst in one another.
I could almost have written that myself. Except the nurse I was involved with was more psychotic than depressed, plus I’ve never been depressed. But that psycho bitch represented the worst period of my life. I could see her doing a murder-suicide number on me.
Despite my being a white American man and she a Thai female, my wife and I are alike in so many ways. We’re a perfect fit.
I’ve always heard the world would be boring if everyone were like me, but I don’t subscribe to that view at all.
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposites-attract-vs-you-should-marry-someone-like-yourself/719645/14 "2015-05-11T01:13:24Z")
> [@Toxylon](#):
>
> Never been with someone like me, but I was most unhappy in a relationship with a woman most like me. Opposites didn’t work, either, so it’s down to compatibility, as others have noted.
I’m guessing you can most understand someone like yourself, but that makes the commonly-shared-flaws more aggravating, too.