Relationship Compatibility

One thing that helped me survive the last four years was having a partner and family members who are aligned with my political beliefs.

“Love is love is love is love.” Lin Manuel Miranda.

I identify as a Caucasian female and date out of my race/ethnicity. To me, there is beauty everywhere, in everyone. The real connection is more than skin deep.

One of the most important things for me in my marriage was realizing that love is more than simply attraction; it's willing the good of the other. If you have a marriage where both people are all in on that idea, then you can weather a LOT of differences and hardships. I do think there is such a thing as general compatibility, and culture, religion, beliefs may play a part in that, but even if you're super compatible, there will be hard times and challenges.

I actually converted to my husband's religion, not because of him (although he did play a role by introducing me to it), but even before I believed the same things we had similar attitudes on a lot of other non-religious things. Besides the fact that I thought he was incredibly handsome, that appealed to me. I wouldn't have been interested in dating a man who had different ideas about fundamentals that were very important to me, no matter how attractive he was. He felt the same.

Some of our attitudes have changed about some issues, some have stayed the same. We agree on some of the same things and disagree about others. Or we came across issues we never thought about but now had to form an opinion about. But what hasn't changed is that we both believe we're in it together for the rest of our lives no matter what.

Even in one household, where everyone is biologically related, there can be a huge difference in things like natural temperament. Some types combining would probably make for harder marriages than others, even when there's agreement on a lot of the essentials!

ETA: One other thing that comes to mind: If you don't feel like you can be safe or "be yourself" with the other person, then it's probably not a good relationship. Sometimes people think "being yourself" means not having to be respectful, or the ability to be rude, at all times, but that's not what I mean at all. For example: if a man and a woman are newly dating, and disagree strongly about appropriate gender roles, and can't even begin to understand the other person's view (or only one doesn't), that's probably not going to be a happy match. But if you agree, or are flexible (or both - sometimes life happens and you both have to adjust!), it's more likely to work out.

I wouldn't recommend faking flexibility to get dates, though. It's OK to have non-negotiables.

Compatibility in many areas are not necessary. If I wanted to date someone exactly like me, I'd just be alone.

My bf is Asian and he is really strong on areas where I am not so strong and vice versa. And a big part of that is his culture and how he was raised. He is incredibly successful careerwise and I am more of the whimsical type. I'm really good at thinking out of the box and he is really good at knowing when we need to stay in the box lol.

Differences aren't actually a bad thing. We don't have to assign morals to differences.

I had some friends who were Mexican and always late to everything. It annoyed me because I assumed they were irresponsible and not honoring my time. What I noticed after a while was that they were taught to honor the moment and not rush things because of a clock. If someone interrupted them on the way to my place, they took their time to be fully in that moment with that person rather than rushing them off.