What significant differences do you think are least/most damaging to a romance?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Not always, but sometimes they are. Marriage isn’t always 50/50; on any given day it might be 20/80, or 60/40. My husband and I are diametrically opposed on nearly everything. He’s a Republican; I’m an extremely liberal Democrat. He’s Catholic; I’m not even Christian. We don’t like the same types of movies, or books, or food, or vacations.

So sometimes, I tolerate his Bush propaganda, and he didn’t pitch too much of a fit when I put a Kerry sign in the window during the last election. During Lent, I cook meatless meals on Fridays, out of respect for his Catholic beliefs, and I pack a meatless lunch for the kid who goes to school. No big deal – it’s a tuna sandwich. He doesn’t ask me to attend Mass on Easter or Christmas Eve, but he’s more than welcome to take the kids if he wishes. I have my movies on DVR or DVD, and he has his. We do have some lively conversation over the kitchen table, debating politics, film, religion, music, etc. The kids seem to enjoy it and learn a little something here and there.

I suspect differing ideas about money would be problematic, though. I’ve read that that’s what causes more marital/relationship problems than anything else.

22

I think my marriage is a good example of introverted/extroverted. My husband enjoys computer gaming (Wow), I enjoy going out with my friends. Most of the time, I go out with my friends without him. I’ve always wondered if this is a Bad Thing, as many of my married friends always go out with their partner. In general, though, he doesn’t mind me going out, and I don’t mind him not being with me when I go out. I think that’s less a compromise than just both of us doing what we like.

I have to agree that age is probably difficult to deal with because of the power imbalance and because the two people may be at different stages of life. If both are older, this isn’t a problem, but I think both people being older and still having a large age difference is probably more the exception than the rule.

Financial differences seem the most surmountable to me. Taking care of your finances is something you can train in fairly easily, so if it’s an issue, it’s easy to change. If one of the two isn’t willing to change their thrifty/big spender ways, then I’d say that’s a different issue altogether.

23

What significant difference do I think are most damaging to a romance? How about: Sexual preference. One person is heterosexual while the other is homosexual. Think “I am a gay American.”
Okay, maybe that wasn’t in the vein of what the OP was asking, but I couldn’t resist. I think a lot of what makes people compatible comes in the intangible “goals” catergory. It doesn’t matter if the couple is over 20 years apart in age, as long as maybe both of them have decided not to have kids and are happy with their way of living. Two people can have opposite views of religion, as long as they both wish to raise their children to be respectful, albiet curious, about religion. One person can be a genius while the other a dunce, as long as both of them enjoy learning.

But I also think murdering your SO’s pet fish is damaging to a romance.

24

You don’t want the same things.There’ is out and out abuse. You’re better off freiends… But mostly stuff that shought have be addressed beforhand.

25

Whoops. Meant to put my quotes outside of his… :o

Fix?

26

This one will creep up on you. I don’t think it’s a significant issue at the lower end, provided both are over, say 25ish. But at the other end, you’re going to run into issues. I remember joking with my ex (12 years older) about the lovely male nurse I planned to hire for us in his dotage.

Dealbreaker. I can’t imagine why I’d ever seriously date someone I couldn’t relate to intellectually.

Thjs strikes me as one of those things that would be a dealbreaker at the first date stage, *if * it’s important to either of the people involved, and a non-issue otherwise. Of course, that refers to their respective backgrounds. In terms of *current * situtations, it’s most likely to work if they enjoy a relatively similar standard of living now. “Middle-class” covers a lot of ground, and a difference, (even a significant difference) in means, can work if they’re understanding and accepting of each other’s situtations, and have similar expectations of what their relative financial responsibilities would be in a relationship. But let’s be real here, most people aren’t going to drive their Lexus to the projects to pick up their date.

Wholly dependent on attitude, I’d say. If either one is invested in having scorn for the other’s background, it’s not gonna work. But that’s because of the small-mindedness, not insurmountable cultural differences.

Eh, who cares. If I’m with someone, presumably I’m attracted to him. Whether other people understand why I’m attracted to him is of no concern to me.

This one is tricky. It depends on each person’s expectations and willingness to compromise, and the relative extents of their in or ex trovertedness If one person ALWAYS wants to go out, and the other ALWAYS wants to stay in, that’s clearly not going to work. If the innie perceives the outie’s extrovertedness as flirtatiousness and is threatened by it, that’s not going to work. If the outie perceives the innie’s desire to stay in as sulky and controlling, that’s definitely not going to work. But in between these extremes, where most of us live, there are a million ways to make both of these people happy, if they *want * each other to be happy.

Speaking of a million and one variables! But I guess the bottom line is that if each party is content to let the other be, it can work.

My guess is that of these, the biggest problem would be the intellectual incompatibility. Why would anyone want to spend their life with someone they can’t have a meaningful discussion with?

But in general, I think the three biggest obstacles to a good relationship are:

Financial incompatibility - Not means, but mores. Different amounts of money can be worked out. Different attitudes toward money are *much * trickier.

Sexual incompatibility - Different sexual expectations and needs are a dealbreaker for me. In a serious relationship, I expect monogamy, and I expect frequent, howling, toe-curling sex, and this is not something I’m willing to compromise on.

And the biggie, the truly insurmountable…
Ethical incompatibility - If you have different ideas of what constitutes ethical behavior, run. Run far, run fast, don’t look back.

27

I think the two “worst” are 1) sexual incompatibility; and 2) if one partner wants children and other does NOT, ever. It’s cruel to both parties to stay in a relationship if there are differences in the latter in particular.

The other stuff I think can be worked out if you try hard.

28

I believe that all of these examples can be overcome if there is good communication and acceptance of the other’s views with a willingness to make compromises from BOTH sides.

That being said, one of the worst relationship killers i’ve seen and experienced is a difference in political views. Hardcore liberal vs. hardcore conservative. I believe that this attribute forms that way one thinks about almost every issue out there.

29

IQ:

according to this study in 2004 women are 40% less likely to marry for every standard deviation increase (about 16 IQ points in this case) .

Men, OTOH, were 35% more likely to marry for every SD gain.

I also saw another study that said people tend to marry people with similar high school GPAs.

And on my part, I’ve broken up with more than one man solely due to his intellect. Not native IQ or education so much as thirst for knowledge. If you haven’t read a book for pleasure in the past year it’s a huge turnoff for me.

30

I’d have to say; honesty and integrity.

Any kind of differences between people can be no problem when each party is honest and up front about who they really are and what they really want and expect.

Of course, integrity is clearly a part of that, I need to know and trust you will ‘walk the walk’ not just ‘talk the talk’.

My and my SO are different in so many ways, but it works for us. Largely because we share a similar understanding of, and expectation of, integrity. And we’re both all about honesty.

31

What is it keeping you together? Anything you can explain? Seems as tho “diametrically opposed” as you put it means “nothing in common.” Did you have an excess of compatibility in your dating life and find it dull and predictable? :slight_smile: Or maybe you’re more conservative in your ideal of gender roles than in your politics and find something more manly in conservative, religious men?

I would expect he’s a moral absolutist and you’re more of a secular humanist, and that raising and disciplining children was unusually difficult because of that. But that’s just me talkin’.

32

I would say a major relationship-ender is expectations. Primarily as to where the relationship is headed. I think most other issues can be resolved/ignored, but it seems like every relationship I’ve ever ended is because they are headed towards more committment than I’ve been prepared to deal with. Or vis versa.

Several of my friends have ended relationships because they were headed different directions in life, and weren’t prepared to compromise to be together. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that…I dumped a boyfriend once because he was preparing to make a bad career move for me, and I just wasn’t that into him. He was a nice guy, we got along fine, but I wasn’t ready to commit and it wouldn’t have been fair of me to keep him around at the expense of his career.

Another problem I’ve had, is when one person is more invested in the relationship than the other. Maybe I’m just repeating myself, but even when dating “for fun” if the other person is much more interested (which I’ve found often leads to clingyness) I will be very turned off and I just feel awful that I’m not as anxious/excited to be together.

33

Difficult to pinpoint, exactly. We do have compatible, although dissimilar, goals in life, and we have similar ideas about child-raising, which helps. We agree to disagree on a lot of topics, with some friendly debate.

Our differences seem to complement each other…That’s it. We balance each other out. And we’re madly in love.

34

And they said it couldn’t be done… :wink:

35

Back in the 1970s when the transactional analysis fad led inevitably to the pop psychology of “I’m Okay, You’re Okay,” the overhelming arc of the system was that people live their lives through implied social contracts, and that those contracts can change over time.

For “implied social contracts” read expectations.

The one absolute deal-breaker in a marriage is when one person wants to change something, and the other doesn’t. One may decide they want kids, while the other doesn’t; one may want the other to work harder and earn more money; one may decide the other’s “strong and silent” personality has become "rigid and uncommunicative; in one case I know, one had significant health problems and the other wasn’t ready to become a nearly full-time nurse.

The most damaging thing to a romance is the parties’ ability and willingness to deal with what happens next.

36

One that hasn’t been mentioned is sense of humor. It makes things real easy when you both laugh at the same jokes, and certainly puts a strain on things when you don’t.

37

Absolutely.

My mother dealt with differences between her and Dad by slipping herself under him; often, she did this for things that hadn’t even come up in conversation (for example, she never talked to us in Catalan and still can’t bring herself to talk to me in Catalan, my brothers don’t speak it).

Her parents dealt with it at the top of their lungs; they would later make up when the kids weren’t around. While this was no good for said kids, it certainly worked for them - and at least they got to talk, even if it was yelling!

I find it difficult to bring up complex issues and have problems interrupting others (except for “confirmation interrupts” like “aha” and “I hear you”); the reason I didn’t marry the one bf I was closest to marrying is that, whenever I brought one of these up, he’d cut me off with a speech about how well he understood me. Damnit, I haven’t finished explaining, how can you understand?

If they can talk about differences and find a way through them together, they’ll be fine. If they can’t talk, then even if they’re together 40 years later they’ll be far from fine.