243 - How Compatible Are You Really?
What is compatibility?
“Compatibility usually corresponds to the long-term potential between two people.”
Mark Manson
Compatibility can mean different things to different people: how much your values line up with another person’s, how much another person’s quirks don’t bother you, how well you get along with another person in day to day life; any number of different things.
According to Dr. Gary Chapman, though, there are clear signs of incompatibility in a relationship:
Conflict is the center of the relationship. Disagreements aren’t resolved quickly and are a defining part of the relationship.
Humor and fun aren’t key components of the relationship.
Desires and plans are vastly different from each other.
When it comes down to it though, even though people generally gravitate towards similarity, having differences with your partner isn’t necessarily a bad thing, nor does it always mean you’re not compatible long-term. Sometimes the differences are fun and keep things interesting, and the gravitation towards similarity was perhaps more important when humans were still in the early stages of evolution. What’s important is to be clear with yourself what kinds of behaviors and differences enhance your relationship rather than hurt it.
Listen to the full episode for some more in-depth exploration on different studies done surrounding compatibility!
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the multiamory podcast, we're talking about compatibility in relationships. Many of us have heard the relationship advice that compatibility is the key to success in a relationship, and people tell us when the new relationship energy wears off and the passion settles down, many relationships continue to flourish because of compatibility, but is that actually true? How important is compatibility really, and what is some of the science behind those claims?
Emily: So we're going to start off today with a nice little quote by Mark Manson. We've talked about him. What is he in the art, subtle art of not giving a fuck, he is that guy? Yes, he's that guy.
Jase: Yes. That's his guy.
Emily: Correct, that's his guy. He said compatibility usually corresponds to the long term potential between two people. I thought that was really interesting. I wanted to start off with that because I don't know if I-
Jase: This is a working definition?
Emily: Yes, I guess I'm not quite sure if I actually agree with that. The long term potential between two people.
Dedeker: How would you define it? If I came up to you on the street and shoved a microphone and a camera in your face and I said, "Define compatibility, what does that mean little girl?" What would you say?
Emily: I hope nobody would say that to me.
Jase: I also would.
Emily: red riding hood.
Dedeker: I'm wolf doing man on the street reporting and you're a delicious little red hooded girl, but I really, I'm hungry for your opinions about compatibility. What does that mean?
Emily: Fascinating, I suppose I would say before looking into this episode, I would say something along those lines. Just something like, I think compatibility is involved with how much people's values align with one another.
Dedeker: Very interesting.
Emily: Values and in a variety of different ways, because values means like to, I think to some people values means like, "Oh, you're intrinsic." Values of like right and wrong as a person or what you want your life to look like, but it's also maybe how you were raised and, I don't know, what kind of things you are or you're interested in. That's probably what I would say to-
Dedeker: Thank you very delicious looking red hooded little girl. Now, what about you, huntsman Jase? I'm hungry for your opinions as well.
Emily: Who is the hunting? It was one of the Hemsworth.
Dedeker: No, I'm talking to Huntsman Jase. I don't care about the Huntsman trio, duo, whatever they are. Huntsman, Jase. What's your opinion on what compatibility is? I'm going to shove the microphone in your face too.
Jase: Yes, I think that my answer would be something along the lines of the compatibility has to do with-- Actually, I like Emily's answer a lot about how well people's values align with each other. Or if I was feeling more cynical that day, I might answer it, something like, compatibility is when another person's quirks bother you less.
Emily: Whoa, okay.
Jase: Compatibility is when another person's quirks or challenges or things like that are things that you can live with, are things you're okay with to approach it from a more cynical side.
Dedeker: Very interesting, I turned to the camera. There you have it folks.
Emily: No, I want to hear what you have to say.
Jase: What about you, wolf?
Dedeker: What does a wolf think about compatibility? I feel the most compatible with the people that please my palate the best and I'm just going to leave it at that.
Emily: All right, fine.
Dedeker: No, okay. That was a weird bit. That was not how I was expecting to open up this episode to say.
Emily: Not at all, but I do like that. I do that we started off with kind of what are ideas of compatibility are.
Dedeker: Or do you want to share mine though, not as a wolf though?
Emily: Please, I thought that maybe you were not lying there, but apparently, you are so, tell them the truth, wolf.
Dedeker: Okay, how would I define compatibility? A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. I think going off of what Jase said about quirks not bothering you as much, that for me, my brain goes to your compatibility is essentially how well you get along. I think, get along, not in the sense of how good the sex is or how in love you are with each other, but just how smoothly you're able to live together. That doesn't necessarily have to be literally living in the same space together, but just how smooth of a ride it is, I suppose.
Emily: That goes along the lines of what Jase said in the opening, which is, when it's not all about the sex eventually, then what do you have after that? You do hear of people who spend a long time together and they're very happy with one another and it does turn into like a companionship thing to a degree. Maybe sex is still a part of the relationship, but it's also a lot about how much you care for one another and how connected you are in that way, I guess. I think that there is the other side of that, that when the sex wins and you're just left with a person that you don't really like that much and that's not compatible.
We'll get into more of that, but I did first become interested in compatibility and this idea of all of this, because I had realized, we never did an episode on this and 240 plus episodes, we haven't really talked about compatibility specifically own way. It definitely shows up, but I was researching a couple of episodes ago, the five love languages and so God, Dr. Gary Chapman had another thing about compatibility. He was discussing it in an article and he said that if couples don't have at least some compatibility, then the relationship will really be an uphill battle.
Dedeker: Yes, good old guy, Dr. Gary Chapman, he argues that compatibility and chemistry are not the same thing, even though at first it may seem like it. He says, "Compatibility involves personal desires and preferences and chemistry is related to our physiology and can dramatically affect our feelings and the way that we respond to people in situations." Will the two of you agree with that distinction?
Emily: Yes, I guess a little bit. I think, chemistry. Sure, it may be at least initially. Again, we've talked about like your brain on love drugs and that a lot of times it's just your brain being really happy and excited and serotonin and dopamine and stuff going haywire because you're having sex a lot and it's awesome, but compatibility interest in personal desires and preferences.
Dedeker: I think it definitely seems like the thing that-- Okay, let me see if I can put this together. It's like a little bit of a logic puzzle that compatibility, you can have both compatibility and chemistry with someone, but maybe not necessarily both at the same time.
Emily: You could have it all, but you can't have it all at once.
Jase: I don't think I agree with that at all. No, I'm going to go on.
Dedeker: Go on, tell me. I was just throwing this out there. Tell me what you think.
Jase: Well, okay. First of all, I think his definitions of compatibility and chemistry is a little bit confusing because I think usually when someone says at least colloquially, the chemistry that I have with this person or the chemistry these people have together, I think that tends to be related to attraction and how physically we feel drawn to each other versus compatibility, which tends to have more of a meaning of intellectual or emotional or communication styles being aligned with each other or at least being acceptable to each other.
I guess that's what I mean, but again, about before with the people's quirks being acceptable, that they're not deal-breakers, that their beliefs and preferences are not deal breakers for you is part of compatibility. I guess maybe that's just looking at the negative. Then on the positive side is, oh, maybe you think about things differently than I do, but I like that. I
see the value in that as opposed to you think different than I do, and it frustrates me. I'm sure there could be a little bit of each but more of the former and less of the latter.
Dedeker: However, I do agree with him making the distinction at all because, I have experienced that when you're at the beginning of a relationship and you have high chemistry with someone that it can be very easy to think that also means compatibility-
Emily: Oh, hell, yes.
Dedeker: - right? Its-
Jase: 100% agree.
Dedeker: - a well-documented phenomenon that when you're in the throes of NRE, it's very easy to think, "Oh my God, we're just so compatible. We agree about everything-"
Emily: "I'm going to marry this person."
Dedeker: - we like all the same things. We finish each other into which is good. I also think-
Emily: Don't sign anything in the first year because of this very thing?
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Yes. What I was going to say before that Dedeker has said, I disagree that those two things are mutually exclusive. I just think that, yes, that chemistry or attraction and NRE can trick us into thinking we're more compatible than we are.
Dedeker: 100%.
Jase: He also says that there are clear signs that people are compatible in a relationship. These three keys here I, actually, really like. One is that conflict is not the center of the relationship.
Emily: I like that a lot.
Jase: When problems do arise, the couple is not immediately on edge because of just some small thing that disagreements tend to dissipate quickly, conflict tends to get resolved very quickly, right? Conflict is not a defining characteristic of that relationship. Another one is that humor and fun is a key component of the relationship. This is something that also comes up in the Gottman's research as well.
They find that specifically play is what they call it, but humor and lightheartedness and play together with a partner is also part of happiness and a longer-term relationship. The last one that we want to talk about for this is that, your desires and plans are similar to one another. This one is also related to something that we talked about a little while ago when we were talking about the Gottman's research in epic-- You wrote it down earlier, Dedeker, episode about repair-
Dedeker: Yes, 234.
Jase: - or shut the repair shop. 234, episode 234. We talked about where they framed it more about looking at what are deal breakers versus, what are just things where you have different beliefs or values than each other. I think that this one here, God Dr. Gary Chapman is just talking about it in a simple sense of your desires and plans are similar to one another. I think that Gottman's dived a little deeper into that where it's like, they don't have to be similar all the time. It is important that they're similar in the things that are important.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: Just a little bit of thinking, a little bit , yes. What do y'all think about that? I mean, have the two of you had experiences where it was very clear you, "I feel really compatible with this person." Or, "I feel not so compatible with this person." Were there times where you were caught up in the chemical rush of NRE and that led you to believe that you were more compatible than you were? What have been your experiences?
Emily: Absolutely. I think it's interesting when you're in college, for example, and you're dating people that might be a couple of years older than you or a couple years younger than you. You two are just in different places in your lives. That makes itself known as-- Potentially you reach a breaking point or a moment in your relationship where it's like, "Well, we can continue dating, and I'm going to be maybe in a different state while you're still here," kind of thing and you need to move on in your life in one way or another. I think that's just married of incompatibilities in stages in your life.
That definitely happens. Also, if you want to be a person who travels a lot for work or even the two of you, I mean, you travel all the time, and whoever dates you has to be aware of that and has to be okay with that, I think in a sense. I traveled quite a bit as well. We're all three very committed to our work. People have to be okay with that with maybe sometimes seeking a backseat. I think that is challenging and maybe sometimes becomes challenging for people who are in relationships with any of us. In a flip side, if somebody really wanted to be a parent right away, then I don't know, we may not be compatible with them either.
Jase: Right, I think that those things are so key. I've shared this story on the podcast before, but like a relationship that I had that felt really good and felt very compatible, and then all of a sudden, when we found out that we wanted very different things in terms of building a home together or not having that type of life, that it was just as soon as that incompatibility was discovered, it basically was over within weeks. It was so key, it was so fundamental that it just there wasn't any getting around it. It fell into that deal-breaker category.
Emily: Pretty interesting, yes.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: I think more often though, it's been more of the subtle thing, it's just physically, we're very compatible. We're very attracted to each other or maybe we share a certain interest or something that I haven't found many people that share this interest, so it's, "Oh my gosh, we're so compatible." It's more often been that like we talked about in the intro of as that NRE dies down a little bit, that then we're left with this. There's not a huge one deal-breaker, but it's just, "Maybe we're not that compatible, actually."
Dedeker: From my experience, I am learning in my life that humor and fun really is a key component. I think that's something that in the past, I would have really downplayed, like, "Oh, whatever, we don't have to share the same sense of humor or we don't need to have fun in the same way." Now, that I think back at up, back on it, like the relationships where I've realized, "Not so compatible." The humor and fun aspect has been a huge part of that.
I've been in relationships with people in the past, where I felt, "Yes, this feels really good, and we have this high chemistry and we feel really compatible in all these different arenas," but then when I think about it, like, "We don't have fun in the same way, and we don't laugh at the same things and we haven't really shared a sense of losing our shit laughing over the same thing or the same piece of media." I don't think that's something to what, to sniff out, to disregard. I think it is actually quite important.
Emily: Absolutely, it is.
Jase: Yes. I think that makes a lot of sense.
Emily: Yes, I like that a lot. Moving on, we wanted to talk a little bit about the science behind compatibility. There have been a bunch of studies done over the years on this subject. We'll talk about a few of them. I did just want to say that the studies that I found were all over the place. They're talking about various types of compatibility and reasons why people might be compatible, but not necessarily a big overarching study on compatibility, because I do think that compatibility is different for various people like even to the three of us. We gave three different answers. Well, they had similarities, they weren't all the same answers. It's hard to do a study on like, this is what compatibility is and this is what makes a person compatible, so bear that in mind as we go through this.
Jase: Yes, each study had to define compatibility. What compatibility means in the terms of that study. This is something that's very common in academic work, in research and dissertations and things like that is when you're going to be talking about a thing. You need to define what that means specifically for this context. Sometimes, it's different because in some cases, the studies are about compatibility meaning, when you actually meet this person, how interested are you in seeing them again?
In that like very short term whereas others like a lot of the research that Gottman do and stuff is more about this much longer term. How compatible are we going to be over many, many years? These studies cover a range of all of that. I did want to throw in here a little caveat because I think when we talk about compatibility, something that comes up is something that online dating sites have been trying to tell us for a while now.
Dedeker: Algorithmically. together.
Jase: Yes, they can figure out how compatible we are with someone else based on our answers to some questions that we fill out.
Emily: That was like a big deal to me when I was on OkCupid like, "Oh my gosh, I'm a 96% match with this person or whatever. I'm a 98% match." I felt you and Dedeker are like when you first were on there, you all are like 98% matches, which definitely like-
Jase: I don't think it was quite that high.
Dedeker: I think maybe probably a 96% match, but I do remember on our first date, Jase, you insisted on sitting down and-
Emily: And looking at your-- I remember hearing about those.
Dedeker: -going through all of the questions that we disagreed on and arguing about it a little bit.
Emily: Wow.
Jase: A weird thing to do on a first date.
Dedeker: I know, It was fun though.
Jase: We did have fun.
Dedeker: think it was fine.
Emily: That's good.
Jase: What's interesting is that these dating apps do really try to say, "Hey. If you answer these questions, we'll match you with someone who's compatible." It's even part of their marketing.
Emily: Match.com.
Jase: Certain sites will say, "We've got the algorithm that works and no one else's does." What's interesting about this is from all of the research that I found, none of them actually do. Again, it's a little tricky because it depends what exactly you're looking for in terms of compatibility, and it is a little hard to do longitudinal studies where you are looking at that much longer term compatibility, but what they did find is that based on answers to various questions about your personality and what kind of date you would want to go on, what's your ideal dating situation, all of that sort of stuff.
That just based on those answers and then having people meet in person, the study that I was reading about did not find any traits which could be reliably linked to people wanting to go on a second date with each other without being more compatible. Basically, the conclusion of these researchers was, you have just as much luck just swiping through pictures.
Emily: Well, because it is a mesh of chemistry and compatibility. It's challenging to find someone that's going to be a lasting relationship that you only have one or the other with in my opinion.
Jase: It does need to be both, yes. Anyway, to throw that out there, I think that just as an interesting caveat that when we're talking about compatibility, there is a lot of interesting research which we're going to talk about here. In terms of those algorithms, no one's quite cracked that code yet in terms of doing this without having the in person interaction or the many years of seeing how that goes over time that no one's quite cracked that code.
There are, I think, some interesting things going on with using things like machine learning and looking at people's behavior on dating sites to then, use that to calculate compatibility with people, I think is actually very interesting and could lead to some neat breakthroughs, but we're not there yet.
Dedeker: It seems as far as research goes, we're going to start out talking about the incompatible side of the spectrum. Is that right?
Emily: Yes. This one is specifically about people who do or do not want children. It discusses the fact that if one person wants a child and the other doesn't, then there's really no room for compromise. There was this long longitudinal study in the American Journal of Sociology that was later published as a book, and it revealed this ridiculous claim. I guess it's true because, I don't know if it's true, but this is what the study said basically.
Dedeker: Well, this is based on a 10 year longitudinal study.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: I would say, yes. This is pretty reliable.
Emily: I guess this is right. That 100% of couples with a husband, so this is specifically a husband who didn't want to become a parent, 100% of these couples were divorced by the time their kids were six years old. That's pretty impressive.
Dedeker: 100%.
Emily: I guess to think about that in my own life, my father was pretty much out of my life by the time I was a teenager. I think he didn't want much to do with me, so that kind of makes sense.
Dedeker: It makes sense because considering that also we have a culture that sets it up that if you're a man and don't really want to be a parent, I would bet you, it's easier for you to bounce out of that situation. It doesn't mean that there is no difficulty or no conflict or no consequences for that, but easier for you to bounce more so than if you were the person who birthed that baby as it were.
Jase: The fact that it's 100% of the people in their study is a lot. 100% of the couples where the man didn't want to be a parent. I'm curious about what those numbers are the other way around.
Dedeker: Me too.
Jase: Whether those couples stayed together or not, but unfortunately, we don't have that right now.
Dedeker: If you want to read more, you can actually get the book that they published. It's on Amazon. It's called When Partners Become Parents: The Big Life Change For Couples. This one actually has a foreword by our good friend John M. Gottman. He's not really our good friend. He's kind of our acquaintance, really. Anyway, if you all want to read more about that, I would definitely recommend that. That's incompatibility over children. Let's talk about, what's our next favorite topic to talk about with incompatibility? What do you think?
Emily: Sex and money. Sex.
Dedeker: No. Mostly money. Yes, money.
Jase: That's good too.
Emily: Both of them.
Dedeker: The New York Times reported on this, and this is information that was found in a study that was done at Utah State University, basically about disagreements and incompatibility. They found that, again, I have to give the same caveat. It's a very gendered study, but this is what we got. The study found that disagreements over money and sex, both of those, were the key predictors of divorce for women. For men, that disagreements over money, that was the only common predictor of divorce for men.
Emily: That's fascinating. I wonder why that's the only common predictor.
Dedeker: Well, gosh, we could get into, go down a whole rabbit hole about just what money tends to mean to people in general. We still need to revisit doing a money episode in general. For instance, they found that specifically fights about money are a great predictor of a relationship's viability. I suppose that's whether or not money fights are a frequent or how they get resolved or things like that. I do think also it seems to me fairly common knowledge that gets tossed around that money and disagreements and incompatibility around money is a high predictor of whether or not a relationship is going to work out or not.
Emily: It's a scary topic in general.
Jase: Combine that with a culture that's very comfortable talking about money, period, with the high stakes nature of that in a relationship, and I would actually argue that part of this is the fact that relationships, "normal heteronormative marriage-based relationships" all involve sharing finances.
Dedeker: At least that's the expectation.
Jase: I actually that that's the expectation. I would bet in this study that almost all of the people that they studied, that's how they're operating. That they are sharing a bank account, essentially. I would be really curious to see research that shows what it could be like if that's not part of it. Even if you are married.
Emily: If you have separate bank accounts.
Jase: Even if you do share a household but you did have your more money more separate from each other, I don't know. Also, this of course, assumes that both people are making their own money and there's not some different division of labor where one person does more of taking care of the household and the other does the making money.
Emily: Well, we don't know.
Jase: That's also a different thing too. I do think this one's a lot more nuanced than this, but I do think it's interesting that money, I remember learning that as a kid. That money is the number one cause of divorce. It seems like this is essentially saying the same type of thing. The compatibility that money's the one common one that seems to come up the most. It makes sense.
Dedeker: What did you think about that as a kid, little boy Jase?
Emily: I'm back. You thought that I was dead, but I'm back.
Dedeker: Wow.
Jase: Oh, dear. When I heard it as a kid, I was just like, "Okay, mommy." I do remember that that stuck with me just knowing that that's important. I think that as I got older and started having relationships where I was living with people, I have not had any relationships where we've had a bank account together or at least not where that's where all our money went into. I think part of that maybe because of learning this from my mom, that it's made me a little more cautious about that rather than that being a first step. As soon as we move, let's also open a bank account together. I think maybe because of that.
Emily: For me, knowing that statement just that people tend to get divorced because of money, that definitely made me not want to talk about it in my relationships very often, and it still to this day incites anxiety in me. When I discuss it to a degree, it needs I think, my partner now knows to talk to me about it with kid gloves because I also grew up in a household with a single mother who tended to be pretty uptight about money in general all the time.
Even though I felt like we did a lot of things and I had a really privileged life, it still was in the back of her head and it still was therefore on the back of my head that money is something to be a little frightened about. That's probably where a lot of people were raised, especially in the United States.
Jase: At least some variation on that for sure.
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: That was something that I felt very fortunate that a little bit later in my life, like high school age, my mom did for herself, did some reading and stuff on how to talk to your kids about money.
Emily: That's good.
Jase: And did start trying to change a little bit of that narrative or at the very least, shared with me the fact that she was reading these books and told me some of the things she was reading that actually really took to heart. Are still things that I think about a lot and that I probably have talked to both of you about at certain points.
Emily: You did Rich Dad, Poor Dad and all of that too.
Jase: Right, then later read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which I also think is a really interesting book in that it talks a lot about just our relationship to money and not just like, "This is how you get rich," but it's more about, how do you relate to money, but I think that, if so say that I had that upbringing where my mom started doing this stuff about, "Okay, how do you talk to your kids about money? How do you teach how to have a different sort of relationship to money."
Then reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and being like, "Okay, I'm going to be someone who thinks about money fairly directly." It's a matter of fact thing. It's a thing that's okay to talk about whatever. That then in itself could cause an incompatibility with someone who's very much still in that mindset of no, this is not something you talk about and this is not something you're objective about. This is money equals security or money equals love or whatever. That that in itself could be an incompatibility. I do think it's-
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: It's not just like, "Oh, think this one way about it and then the conflict goes away." It's like, "No, there's still the compatibility that needs to be there."'
Emily: Of course.
Jase: Okay, the next study we have here, this one is a left turn from the others. This is a study published in psychological science, which is an Association for Psychological Science Journal. This one is about people who speak and write in similar styles being more compatible.
Emily: I thought is so interesting and strange a little bit.
Jase: The study was conducted by James Penn Becker and Molly Ireland at the University of Texas at Austin and it looked at the way people communicate and the language they use. It found that 80% of couples whose writing styles matched each other were still together after three months. Now, like we said before-
Emily: It's like really short amount of time.
Jase: This is short term. This is more about the compatibility of, from when you start dating, do you decide to keep dating rather than the compatibility of, are you going to be together from 20 years or whatever? That's what they're looking at in this one. Still interesting though. 80% of the couples whose writing styles matched were still together after three months and that they can indicate future dating behavior because I think they theorize that it's because it has a lot to do with the way we interact socially and our education. I would argue probably socioeconomic similarities, things like that.
I think that this is one of those things where you say, "Oh, it's writing styles," but really, that's just an indicator of other things which probably mean people are more likely to stay together. Now, whether that actually means that they're truly compatible long term. This study didn't cover that, but I still think it's interesting at least as-- You know what? This one's a good conversation starter. If you have some friends or maybe you're on a date with someone who is keen to think about these sorts of things of like, what does that really mean though when we have similar speaking styles? I think this could actually be a fun conversation starter.
Dedeker: Yes, that is interesting to think about because it does prompt the question like you're saying of, what creates your conversation style? What creates your speaking style? What creates your writing style? Is it your parents? Is it your culture? Is it your family of origin? Is it the level of education that you got? It's the type of education that you got? That there are so many factors that go into that.
Emily: I think I've definitely been with people who don't have particularly, similar styles of speaking or thinking that I do. That is fun and interesting at times too because, you can bounce ideas off of one another and think in their way or be like, "Oh, I wouldn't have thought of that in this way had you not said it like that," or whatever. I don't know. I do understand what you mean but, I guess it is important but there are a lot of underlying factors potentially too, as you're saying.
Jase: Yes, I think especially if it's unexamined, then it's maybe a little more concerning if it's unexamined because, there have been lots of studies out there basically showing that the whole thing of opposites attracting is bullshit and that actually similar attracts. People are more likely to date other people whose name starts with the same letter as themselves.
Emily: That's so weird.
Jase: Yes, we're very much set up to look for similar and that's not necessarily a good thing. That's not necessarily something that serves us today that maybe at some point in our evolutionary history, that was an important thing and that that may be helped us survive as humans, but in our modern day, that's not necessarily a helpful thing. I think this study might even be something worth looking at to go, I don't have the same communication style as someone, maybe don't assume that, that means, "Okay, if I'm not quite feeling it, maybe I'm not.
Maybe actually give that another chance." Try to see past that. Just something to throw out there that I think that that may actually be a leftover from an earlier time in our human evolution that's not serving us today and might actually cause us to be classist or racist or culturalist or religionists or various things that would contribute to that.
Emily: Various ists. Absolutely.
Jase: Yes, all the bad ists.
Dedeker: We're going to dive into a list. A list, let's. We love lists. This is a list compiled by a psychologist, John M. Grohl and this is in his opinion, the six must haves for relationship compatibility. Now, looking over this list, it is pretty interesting that it bears some similarities to a list that we went over in episode 234, which was about repair and about the common topics of conflict in relationships. That's a little bit more of a comprehensive list. If you're interested in hearing about some ways, some important questions to ask essentially in your relationship concerning these common topics of conflict, go check out episode 234.
But, we're going to go over this list of six things. Thing number one is, timeliness and punctuality or compatibility around timeliness and punctuality. Things like, it's one of you punctual and the other person isn't, is the other person constantly 30 minutes late to everything? How important is that to each of you? I think that's a distinction that we got a little more specific in in episode 234. Is that if there was an in compatibility here, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a deal breaker or maybe it does.
Sorry to be super confusing about it. That could be a deal breaker to you. It could be not a deal breaker to you. It could be an incompatibility that you're okay with, you can learn to live with or it can be an incompatibility that's going to constantly drive you up the wall and you just can't hang with it.
Jase: That's the important part is that, there's not a hard and fast rule of this thing is compatible. If this thing is the same with the two of you, then you're compatible and if this thing's not, then you're not. This thing's a deal breaker, this thing's not. It's for each person. With timeliness and punctuality for one person, this is absolutely not. It's going to drive them up the wall like Dedeker said, and for another person, they could be different and it's something you laugh about and maybe it annoys you sometimes, but it's not as huge a strike as it could be for someone else.
Emily: Exactly, as you said before, how well do you deal with somebody else's quirks or somebody else's idiosyncrasies that are not your favorite thing maybe, but it's not going to be a deal breaker for you exactly.
Dedeker: Then similarly, let's move on to the next one. The next must have for relationship compatibility. It is cleanliness and orderliness.
Emily: I've heard the two of you talk about this a bit.
Dedeker: I love cleanliness and orderliness. We both love cleanliness.
Emily: Yes, you both do, but it's slightly different in different things.
Dedeker: Yes, but that's okay. That's okay. Asking questions like, how clean do you like your living situation to be? How much does it matter to you to have a household that's orderly? I think that things related to this are not just clutter, but also design, interior design. What mood do you like your house to be in? What level of noisiness or not noisiness you like your house to be in? Again, the same thing that I do think that if there's differences between you and your partner, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're incompatible. It could be something that you learned to live with or it could be something that will just be a deal-breaker.
Emily: Well, yes. If somebody who's like a total slob and then you are very, very fastidious about your living situation and your surroundings, then yes, that's going to be a tough one I think if the two of you are together. Maybe if you live together, in that instance, I'd say maybe don't live together. Maybe don't move in because that's probably not going to be something that you're going to reconcile potentially.
Jase: I love that, the fact that all these studies and the people writing about all of this are almost always assuming a marriage-like relationship that involves living together. It involves sharing finances, it involves probably having kids and things like that. I actually think though with all of this it is really cool that if you're willing to think outside of that box, a lot of things open up to you a lot of solutions for incompatibilities are possible if it's just like Emily said. It's like what if we didn't live together? That doesn't mean that we can't love each other very deeply. It doesn't mean that we can't even have kids or something like that if we wanted to. Like I knew a couple in Seattle who were clients of mine who lived down the street from each other but had a kid together.
Emily: I love that.
Jase: There's lots of different ways you can do it if that's what works for you and I just think it's so cool that there are all of these solutions that I think most of these researchers just don't even like-- it doesn't enter their mind that they're possible because they're so entrenched in traditional-looking relationships, and most people are so I think it makes their research valuable to a larger audience. But for our listeners here, I want you to know you have superpowers compared to the people that a lot of these researchers are studying.
Anyway, sorry, that's the end of my rant.
Emily: I love that. You have many, many options. Let's move on to the next one which again is our old favorite, money and spending. So, yes, this is the most common reason to break up for most people because it is really difficult to talk about finances especially until something might go wrong in this arena. People might ask like who's a spender and who's a saver in a relationship especially if you are commingling finances and that becomes apparent that one person is just going out often and spending money on big expensive things and the other person really, really wants to save up for maybe a larger purchase or security or retirement or whatever.
Jase: Yes, just not to spend it at all. Just to have it.
Emily: Exactly, then that definitely could be an incompatibility that can cause, if you are commingling finances, that can be a big issue there.
Dedeker: Yes, and definitely exacerbated by situations where there's a high level of financial imbalance. If there's one person who's making a ton of money and one person who's not making very much money at all. Some people though, they're able to figure that out and that works, some people not so much. It can also be exacerbated if you are in a relationship where you mix finances and then you open up the relationship and then suddenly it's a question of how much money do we spend on other people? What feels fair, what feels reasonable? That's when things can really start to get complicated. Again, some people can hang with it and figure it out and some people it's just a little too much.
Emily: I dated someone years ago who was financially supporting their partner and that was really, really challenging and caused a lot of resentment and their relationship to end eventually, just because tey were bringing all the money in. Their partner was spending it on other dates with other people and various things and doing kind of some expensive things with that money and they weren't contributing at all to the household because I guess they were unemployed at the time.
That was really really challenging for this person and it did cause the demise of their relationship, which I think is understandable when you're completely relying upon your partner to bring in finances for both of you, that's challenging over a long period of time.
Jase: But I think that could work for people too, but it needs to be compatible. Your views on it and your values on it need to be compatible. It's not to say that that situation can't ever work because it absolutely can.
Emily: It absolutely has just over many years. You both need to be able to talk about it.
Jase: You need to be aligned at those values.
Emily: Yes, and especially before something like that comes up where challenges or resentment comes up, you need to be able to speak about it up beforehand for sure. The next one is our other old friend, sex and intimacy, which can also be a very challenging issue to overcome in a relationship if you are incompatible in this way because it is very pressure-filled. This is also potentially filled with a lot of entitlement. A lot of people taking it personally if you want this and then your partner maybe doesn't at times over and over again. There are a lot of articles written on this subject, a lot of things about rejection and feeling bad about those things.
It may just wax and wane over the course of a relationship just how much you're interested in sex or not.
Jase: This one I think money and sex both have the same thing in common, that they're both things that our culture values very highly but doesn't feel comfortable talking about.
Emily: Doesn't want to talk about it. Fascinating.
Jase: That emotion is very linked to it, like sex and emotion. My sexual desirability and my sense of self-worth are very tied together because we were taught to think of those things as being very connected. Similarly, the money you have and how you spend it is very tied in with self-worth and a lot of emotion goes into decisions about both of those things. So I think that that is why those are the big two.
Emily: Absolutely, yes.
Jase: Okay, our next one is life priorities and tempo. We talked about this one a little bit before in terms of life priorities, about wanting to start a family, wanting to have a home, wanting to travel, things like that. Then tempo, I think it's interesting that he adds tempo to this one and that's something like, is one of you really laid back and the other is a workaholic. Is one like go go go adventure travel and the other is like, "I just want to go and sit on a beach for a week." How do you differ in the pace of life that you want to have? Actually, I really like that perspective on that idea of life priorities is also tempo.
Emily: The tempo perspective.
Jase: Then again, maybe that works for you, but maybe you need to find ways to have that worK. So if one of you is laid back and the other is more workaholic, that could be frustrating if you feel like you're always causing friction with each other, but perhaps it's possible to find a way to go, "You know what, you have your space and in that space, that's where you can do your workaholic thing, and then when we have these designated times together, this is when we're not going to do that," or something like that. There's ways to work with it. Maybe that'll work for you. Maybe it won't. Again, with compatibility it's all about that, evaluating, "Can we make it work or not?"
Emily: This is an interesting one with the sort of nuclear family of the old where I think a lot of people would get into this very gendered norm thing of, "I'm the guy who's going to go out and be the breadwinner and be really into my work and maybe not be as emotionally available for the family," and then it puts that burden I guess, on the other partner to do those things. That's a fascinating idea of like just built-in ideas of, "Well, if we're going to be compatible then we need to fit into these roles, this mold."
Whereas I think that people now might question that a little bit more. It might be like, "Well, maybe I want to go back to work after having a kid and you need to be the one to stay home with it at times." It's like navigating those types of compatibilities that may be very different from what people used to do that just was ingrained and well, this is what is done and I'm okay with that.
Jase: Those superpowers I was talking about if you think outside the box a lot more things are possible.
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: All right, and then the last one of this list of six is spirituality and religion.
Emily: One that I'm not at all attuned with.
Dedeker: This is still relevant to you, though Emily.
Emily: I guess you're right. No, it definitely is. Yes, because my partner and I are both not religious at all and so that really works.
Jase: Right, but if one of you is in the other isn't or if you both are but different religions, or even if you're both not but approach it very differently, where one person's more of a vehement "religion is a terrible thing in the world" atheist and the other person's more of an agnostic, that might not go over so well too, right. There's a lot of different ways that that could look.
Dedeker: Yes, definitely. They've done some studies specifically on couples who do identify as religious. Specifically, we found this study here that's, well, it looks like it's only a survey of just couples that are Christian.
Emily: This is from an episode of, what was it? It was called the anatomy of a good relationship or something, I think was what. I'm looking at it right here.
Dedeker: It's a podcast?
Emily: Yes, the podcast.
Dedeker: I see, okay.
Jase: That's where we heard about this study. They didn't do this study. We heard about it.
Emily: There it is. The Art of Relationships Podcast.
Dedeker: I like the anatomy of a good relationship though. Let's change the name of the podcast.
Emily: That can be our book title, I don't know. I don't know really, but yes. That's good.
Dedeker: They took a national survey of 25,000 couples specifically that identified as Christian and of those 25,000 couples, 50% were Protestant, 15% or so were Catholic and then 35% were various other denominations. They found that the greater compatibility or agreement between couples on their spiritual beliefs, the more satisfied they were as couples. This seems to imply to me that it's not just about two people who are Christian getting together, who are sharing like the broad, the same broad faith, but it's even almost denomination specific. If you share that same specific set of beliefs, then the more satisfied you're going to be as a couple. But they did find that of the couples that were spiritually incompatible, a whole 82% of them said that they were unhappy in their relationship.
Jase: Yikes.
Dedeker: Okay, then you only 9% of the spiritually compatible couple said that they were unhappy and now, this is fascinating to me, especially as someone who did grow up religious.
Emily: I wonder what you two would think of those because I'm like, ugh, over here but-
Dedeker: I think that part of this is potentially valid of, yes, if I'm with a partner who isn't quite aligned in the same values or in the same beliefs as me, that that could cause some dissatisfaction in the relationship. On the other hand, I know my personal experience of growing up evangelical Christian, there's a ton of pressure put on you to be in a relationship with someone else who's also evangelical Christian. A lot of pressure and a lot of implication of if you're dating someone who's non-Christian or who has a different faith that like maybe you're doing something wrong and maybe that's the reason why you're having issues in your relationship if you're having any.
I do think part of it is a little bit about, shall we say culturalization? Culturization within the church itself. That's just from my personal experience.
Emily: Like a push to continue the evangelical line or whatever?
Dedeker: No one phrased it quite that dramatically, but sure.
Emily: I don't know. Well, and even this podcast like broke it down even further. They're like, "Well, let's talk about like what compatibility actually means. Is that like, how do you-- Are you pulling one other person to go to church all the time? How do you view God and how do you worship God and all this stuff." I was like, "Whoa, okay. I don't know anything about this. I'll have to talk to Jase and Dedeker about those.
Dedeker: But to do a quick recap on that list. This is the list of the six areas must-haves for relationship compatibility that compiled by good old Dr. John Grohl. We addressed timeliness and punctuality, cleanliness and orderliness, money and spending, sex and intimacy, life priorities and tempo, and spirituality and religion. Again, if you want to think about maybe a more comprehensive list, check out our list in episode 234.
Emily: To finish off with just that list, I will say that John Grohl did say that people don't have to have all of these six compatibilities by any means. Some people might just have one or two but your, he did state that things would be easier if you had more potential compatibilities than incompatibilities, which I guess I agree with. It might be easier if you're just completely incompatible on all these things, then probably it's not going to work out for you in a long term relationship, so they are things to think about. But we wanted to move on to, is it possible to change our compatibility with our partners?
We're going to step back to God, Dr. Gary Chapman because he believes that there are bad habits that some of us have when we conduct ourselves in relationships and that if we have a willingness to change our behavior, then we can become more compatible with our partners. Which is interesting because I think some people might not appreciate that these things are called bad habits, but he says that the bad habits include dishonesty, breaking promises, tardiness. That might be the thing that some people are like, "Well, I can't help that." Then assuming the worst, which is interesting that he added that in there. Assuming the worst, because that's probably a learned behavior to a degree.
Dedeker: This is all very for provoking.
Emily: Yes, I thought so too.
Dedeker: It's interesting that he calls these bad habits, which they are bad. They could be habits for some people. It's interesting that he connects it to if you fix these things then you can become more compatible because I would see this-- Most of these, especially like if you clean up your act as far as dishonesty and breaking promises goes, I'm like, that's less of a compatibility thing and more of a being a good human being to whoever you're in a relationship with. I don't know if that's a compatibility issue. With tardiness and assuming the worst, then I can see like, maybe that's more of a part of compatibility that you could adjust. What do you all think?
Emily: Maybe at least in terms of communication, which is worries going to.
Jase: I think, that also open lines of communication is the key to all of this. I think that the dishonesty and breaking promises, that those things are fundamental to communication being successful. It's that if that communication is honest and if the things that are communicated are adhered to. So open lines of communication and honest communication is the key to all of this. Like we said, you have a lot of superpowers about ways that you can deal with these things or understanding that maybe we're not compatible in this certain way.
Meaning that doesn't mean you're a bad person or that I have to hate you.
It just means that maybe we're not compatible in a way that we would need to be to be happy living together or having a business together or having kids together or being monogamous together or whatever it is. That I think it's so important to get across that it doesn't mean that that other person's a bad person, that there's like, I think we tend to think, "Oh, if we're incompatible, it must mean like I have to dislike them or dislike those things." You could even be neutral about them and still understand that they're incompatible. But if you do want to work toward more compatibility with them, it has to come from this willingness to want to understand each other.
We also talked about this before too about this idea of like if you have a difference on money or tardiness, why? What does it mean to you? Getting to understand what that actually means to them and learning how to empathize with them about it can really change our views about it. Maybe change some of our habits around those compatibilities maybe even change our own mind about those things, but even if it doesn't like getting a real understanding of what that means to them and not just assuming that, "Oh you're wrong because you don't think the same that I do."
Emily: Exactly, as you just said, some people might be like, "Well you're a bad person or you're just wildly incorrect because your view is not the same as my view and my view is the correct view." But rather than just seeing yourself as the hero of your own story, it is important for us to look at our partners and be like, "Hey, like what's the reasoning behind that thinking?" If you can go there, which is hard for some of us to do, but if you can, then that really can be a catalyst for change.
Dedeker: Yes, so let's talk about some takeaways, some takeaways for all relationships. I think the first one that I want to hit here is that, of course, compatibilities and incompatibilities, they can be deal-breakers in certain instances at the same time, total 100% compatibility is maybe not necessarily something that you have to put a bunch of pressure on yourself to strive for in every relationship. Again, generally, one person is probably not ever going to be perfectly compatible for another person. It's important to have multiple relationships and we don't mean everyone needs to be not monogamous. We mean it's important to have friends, have family, have a support network, have other in your life from whom you also get care, support, companionship, maybe support in these other different regions of compatibility.
Jase: Similar to not needing every relationship to be 100% compatible necessarily, also compatibility is not about trying to find someone who fills a hole in your life or is the missing puzzle piece that has to fit in an exact way into your life. This can lead to finding partners who ultimately make us unhappy and can tend to lead us toward a lot of codependent thinking about how we look for relationships.
Lastly, ideally, we should be finding partners who can challenge us and to help us evolve. There's no single person on earth with whom we will be perfectly compatible in every aspect of our lives and so it's important to just also learn to respect other people as autonomous individuals. Even if we're very compatible in a lot of ways, there's going to be some ways where not and respect, and mutual respect for each other is going to go a long way in having those conversations be productive and not be something that's destructive and leads to being hurtful.
Emily: We started with a quote. I'm going to leave you all with another quote and this one is from another professor at the University of Texas, Ted Houston I guess yes Houston, so he conducted a longitudinal study of married couples and claims that compatibility is overrated. He says, "My research shows that there is no difference in the objective level of compatibility between couples who are unhappy and those who are happy but the unhappy ones think compatibility is important to a good marriage, but they don't think that they have it. People overemphasize the effect of personality or values and they underemphasize the extent to which easy, congenial temperaments aid marriages." Interesting.
Jase: I think that really goes along with the idea of having little respect and honest communication about these things everyone.
Emily: Just relax, it's going to be okay.
Jase: Being cool.
Emily: Yes, let's be cool. That leads into our bonus. If you are a patron of ours or you want to become a patron, you can check our bonus episode which is going to be on the one thing that according to science may be even more important than compatibility. Whoa, all right. So check that out for sure, and if you would like, because we would love you to, go on our Instagram or Twitter or on Facebook and talk about what you think about compatibility. How compatible are you with your partner or partners? Do you think that it's an important thing in relationships? Do you think whatever, opposites attract, doesn't matter at all?