Opposites Attracting

The paradox of "opposites attracting" can be enlightening or frustrating. We want someone who is more like us than the rest of the world is, who can share and understand in a way that we don't find in others. But we also deeply want and need someone who fills our missing pieces and weak spots, someone who is different enough to inspire us and help us see the world in new ways.

We're all looking for someone who shares the same definition of love, and who will go about loving in the way that we think it should be done. We sometimes realize that these are ideals, that everyone loves in different ways. But it's very difficult to accept that two people can both have the feeling that they define as "real" love and yet mean something different by it.

You can have specific and strong beliefs about love, and find yourself in love with someone whose own beliefs differ.  It's natural to think: well, if they don't feel what I feel, then they don't love like I do, and they're not really in love with me the way that I am with them. This feeling encourages disappointment, a break in the connection that you thought you had or should have with the other person -- up to and including alienation and a sense of betrayal.

If you're a flexible and thoughtful person, you can moderate your reactions with compromise, and you can come to your own new understanding of what love can means. Of course, if you're THE flexible person in a relationship, this can present its own obstacles if you come to believe that you are the only person who is adapting and compromising, again and again. On either side, both of you have a point at which you draw the line.

Is it better to refuse to compromise -- to demand that the other person already shares your views or does things in the way that you think you need them? To get to that point early, before the depth of emotion and shared history becomes so much more powerful of a factor? Or is it better to struggle with the challenges and recognition of differences, in the hopes that the love that you feel has an equally strong (if different) character on the other side of the dynamic?

What is your goal, you hoped-for result? These change significantly depending on where you are in the relationship's life cycle, but in general it comes down to "getting to the next stage".

When you're still dating or looking, you can simply refuse to compromise as a method of selection. You set your standards high enough to make sure that your wants and needs are fulfilled, in both the short and long term. You may end up compromising if you come to believe that you've set your standards too high -- either in a positive sense, because you realize that your high standards are simply a defensive way to remain alone and protect yourself,  or in a more negative way, because you're simply lonely or horny or otherwise willing to compromise in a way that will ultimately be unfulfilling.

As the relationship goes on, the goals may become less clear-cut. You may be looking for someone who will be a good spouse, a good parent, or any number of other roles that are related but tangential to romantic, passionate love. Most people find these roles to end up somewhat at odds with the very characteristics that they respond to in a good lover and a fun, inspiring companion.

The same person who thrills you with passion and intensity may be someone who disappoints you with commitment and reliability. The person who provides you with new ideas and new experiences may be unsuited for a life that all too often mainly consists of routine and stability. Although the two of you may share a deep love, either or both of you may come to believe that this love now means something different -- and again, this may be so difficult to accept that one or both of you may decide that their concept of "love" itself is incorrect, or has evolved.

If you have a strong will and self-confidence, you're likely to cling to the rightness of your beliefs. If you are more likely to be flexible and self-sacrificing, you may regularly update your expectations and approach but still hang on to your "inner" definition and goals -- eventually finding yourself getting farther and farther away from what you believe you want and need from a relationship.

Either way, despite being objective and understanding enough to realize that passion and emotion has a powerful effect on perception and understanding, it can be easiest to think that you were wrong about the other person, that you have misled yourself or allowed yourself to be deceived about the depth and authenticity of their feelings (or perhaps misled about the reality of love itself), than to recognize that it wasn't any depth of love that was lacking -- it was a difference in the definition and goals of love.