HOW TO WROTE YOUR OWN PERSONAL GUIDE TO INCOMPATIBILITY

The wrong partner

The good news is, while spending those months or years with the partner who just wasn’t right for you, you were conducting your own clinic on compatibility. No one else can tell you who you are compatible
with, and it’s sometimes hard to figure out in the abstract; but when you’re actually with someone, all the
cogs and gears get tested. When you’re with someone who is wrong for you, you find out a lot. You learn which parts of couple interaction matter most to you, and you learn what you need a partner to bring to
the table.

A WORKSHOP ON COMPATIBILITY
The devil is in the details, and I have a feeling that’s where the angels are too.
So it’s time to marshal your intuition and your memory, and those thoughts that you haven’t had time to unfold, and make an unflinching assessment of the relationship that didn’t last.

As we move through our workshop on compatibility, ponder how you and your ex fared in its various departments, how significant they were in the failure of the relationship, and how important they are to you now, through eyes that are wiser. In the light of a failed relationship, you may find that your needs and wants have emerged and evolved—have crystallized into a pretty clear portrait of the kind of man who would be a better match for you, the next time around.


Compatibility doesn’t mean being the same as your partner.
It means fitting together well with him. In some areas, people can thrive on not being similar: for example, body type and life skills. But in other areas, such as values, intellect, and sexual agenda, they may be better off if they’re more alike. As I present different facets of human beings, take your own reading on the past and what you want to look for in the future.

Please don’t get the impression that I’m saying compatibility is a multiple choice type of affair, where you
can just check off a bunch of boxes. You can get a “long shot” of a person that tells you in a general way if he is in your ball park (this is particularly easy to do online, before you even look at profiles), but real compatibility waits in the close-up of time you spend together.

It resides in the details of how two people get along, the texture of their rapport: how they communicate, how they have fun, what they share, what they admire in each other, how they work as a team. And
your past relationship has much to tell you about that. But such tips are only half the reason for this exercise. There’s another, equally important benefit, which will open up a whole new vista of healing. It can be put as follows: Incompatibility, if not understood, reads as personal inadequacy.

When you emerge from a mismatched relationship, there is a tendency to internalize every failure, to come away with a sad list of the new “facts” you’ve learned about yourself. I’m not an interesting person; I’m a complainer; I’m a bore; I’m gutless; I’m bad in bed . . . The logic here is: I wasn’t good for that person, so I must not be good for anyone.

That’s the typical damage that ensues from a mismatch that hasn’t yet been understood. Which is why discovering that you were incompatible with someone is liberation. It’s a priceless step forward.
Until you figure it out, you can’t help blaming your own flaws (or your partner’s) for the many slip-ups that were made. But once you get it, you can begin to put away the pointer of blame. In so many instances, nothing was wrong with you (or him); it was the combination of you and him that was wrong. Not only blame but anger and guilt begin to melt away.

The next step is to heal the feeling of inadequacy. The goal is to exonerate yourself, and eventually to re-validate yourself, in every area where a mismatched relationship has left you feeling like a loser. As I go through the different areas, I will mention examples of false take-aways—mistaking incompatibility for inadequacy—that should be rejected because they are not true and they are not worthy of the person you are.

friendship
Someone once said, if sex is half of compatibility, then friendship is the other ninety percent.
So the most general question is this: Were you and your partner really simpatico? Or to put it a different way, would you have wanted him as a friend if you hadn’t had a sexual thing going? If your response is no, then ask yourself: in what areas did you need more in common, in order that the answer might have been yes?

Those are areas that need to click with your next partner. As we get down to specifics, many possible answers will emerge.

A false take-away
My expectations of enjoying time alone with my partner were just too high.
personality and emotional makeup There are many ways in which two personalities can fail to mesh.
Here are some examples to look for.

the feisty quotient
Some people are born to fight. They like to argue; they like dissention in the air; it gets their blood flowing; maybe it spells home because that was how it was in the house they grew up in. Others find combat
draining and discouraging. Looking back, were you and your ex in different camps? A person who is averse to the feeling of hostility is more likely to want to patch things up quickly and without damage; so it’s
better if she is with someone who shares that preference. On the other hand, bickering can be a fine pastime for those who enjoy it. Of course, there are going to be some unavoidable issues and disagreements.
But fighters are going to handle them differently than peacemakers. Where did you find yourself on this spectrum?

A false take-away
I’m a pushover; I’ll have to change before I can be in an equal relationship. Or: I’m way too feisty. I’ll have to tone that down if I want a good match. gender and polarity Traditional stereotypes of masculinity and femininity still hang like ancient moons in our cultural sky, but meanwhile down here on the earth, things are not so hidebound. For example, manliness is associated with physical bravery and fighting spirit; and women are said to excel at emotional communication and nurturing. But are the virtues of the two genders always that different? Your average female trial attorney doesn’t give way to any man for coolness in combat;
women face the rigors of childbirth that make men cower. Many men are excellent communicators about feelings, and lots of guys are good or even great at nurturing.

Still there is this delicious polarity that we relish, and it lends heat to sexual goings-on. For many of us, certain members of the opposite sex have an overall aura, strongly related to their physical characteristics but also to their mind, that moves us. “Man,” a certain guy’s vibe says to a certain woman, and her being says “woman”
to him. This is very subjective stuff. A guy who seems like a sheep to one woman may seem like a wolf to another; and a woman whose presence screams female to one guy may not arouse any great gender
turbulence in another. A certain shape, a certain face, a certain walk— the right kind of hair, the right voice, the right smile, can all figure in. We may not be able to define it, but we sure know it when we see it.
What often happens in successful couples is that there’s a sort of envelope that strikes the other person as simple and relatable: I am man to you and you are woman to me. Then within each person there may be ingredients that test the old stereotypes, but these complications only seem to juice the fun. I talked to one couple who had polarity in spades. They were like opposite magnets: when they stood together he seemed the definition of man and she of woman. Yet when they started telling their story, it was full of blown stereotypes.
She was a tough administrator and he a pushover with his staff; she was thick-skinned while he was sensitive and easily hurt. The list went on. They were both completely comfortable with these quirks and were hilarious while talking about them.

And maybe that’s the most important thing. Not how feminine or masculine a person is in some conventional sense, but have they found a partner with whom their own unique flavor works?
Some people subscribe to a more traditional version of masculine and feminine, and some don’t. This is fine if you’re with someone whose code matches yours. The thing to beware of is a person who tries, in a dogmatic way, to enforce a rigid notion of how each gender should be, where this rigidity is actually a disguised insecurity, a fear of the variations that exist within oneself.

When thinking about your last partner, ask yourself:
• Was there a problem because the two of you had different ideas about what it means for a man to be masculine, or for a woman to be feminine, or about how masculine or feminine one should be?
• Did you have the overall sense of polarity that you would want?
• Did being with your partner make you feel easy about your own unique mix of qualities, so you could celebrate being a human and not a stereotype?

A false take-away
It has now been proven: I am not feminine enough. insecurities and complaints. Did one of you like to vent fear and annoyance, as a way of coping, and did the other find that a nuisance? Better to find someone who
likes your approach to life’s terrors and its adversity.

A false take-away
I’m just a big complainer.

intelligence/intellect/words
There are different kinds of intelligence. Someone who is not book smart may build a business empire. It is unfair to expect your partner to be brilliant in exactly the ways that you are. In fact it is beneficial to a couple if they bring different talents to the table, because more challenges can be met and there can be a division
of labor.

But still . . . but still. In core areas of your mentality, you need to be able to reach your spouse. You need not just good, but great communication. It’s up to you to decide what these core areas are, and your past relationship can help you. Were there topics that were too important to neglect, and yet you and he couldn’t get it on?

The things you care about, you need to share. Some of them can only be shared in words.
Here are a couple of bare minimums, bars you had to be able to get over. If you couldn’t, it speaks volumes about the one you’ll need next time.
• You got home from work and you wanted to tell your mate a delicious story that happened that day, a story that involved a couple of technicalities about your job. You tried to tell him but he couldn’t grasp the technicalities, even though you explained them clearly. So the story died.
• You had a problem with a friend. You were all broken up about it, because you loved this person and things were going wrong. You tried to get your spouse’s counsel. The conversation went nowhere.
• You and your mate had a peak experience. You wanted to talk about it, because you like to analyze things that move you deeply.
He didn’t, so he wouldn’t.
Any of these scenarios could be reversed; it could be that he wanted to talk about things that you couldn’t get into. There is no fault here. There is just a pair of people who don’t fit.

A false take-away
I am an effete, eggheaded over-analyzer of everything, who doesn’t deserve to live. Oh, and way too verbal.
abuse It may seem ridiculous to list abuse as a type of incompatibility—it’s like saying a tornado is a kind of thunderstorm. But in fact there are different kinds of abuse and one of them springs directly from incompatibility. The other kind is more dire but it signals a mismatch too, the kind where a person is no good for anyone, not just for you—which is the most extreme case of incompatibility.

Let me take them in order.
when one partner doesn’t fit the other’s requirements If partner A doesn’t appeal to partner B’s tastes, A will automatically end up in a state much like being abused, even if B isn’t a particularly bad person. In the end, even if they try, people can’t hide the truth about what pleases them and displeases them. A person who doesn’t like you the way you naturally are is the perfect person to make you feel bad about yourself. Their mere presence is a form of ill-treatment.

Let’s take body type as an example. Some men have a marked preference for a thin woman. Whether this is hard-wired or is a cultural add-on is not always clear: there is so much pro-thin propaganda in our society that many men (and women) probably can’t tell whether they are toeing the line in order to fit in, or really mean it. Nevertheless, for a variety of reasons a man may plunge into love with a woman who is curvier, more full-figured, or heavier than what he deems correct. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that
she is healthy, active, and fit, and her body type is simply natural to her.
What then happens is: whether the guy tries to be nice or not, the woman comes to realize that in his eyes she is not prized. This can happen because he doesn’t compliment her, even when she is at her hottest; or because of the type of woman that he does stare at, on TV or on the street. Or he may tease her with her failure to measure down, thus betraying his careless belief that his own personal tastes are somehow universal.

It’s hard enough for such a woman to like her own body even if her partner adores it, given the remorseless din of “information” on TV and in magazines with the sole (commercial) purpose of persuading every single woman on the planet, no matter how slim, that she needs to lose weight. But many women manage this anyway, celebrating their natural shapes and strutting their stuff, and even the culture seems to be starting to lighten up about it. (Of course, the situation can be exactly reversed, as to body type or as to gender. A man who is addicted to curves may give his partner trouble because she doesn’t have them. A woman who is slim may run her man down for being stocky.)

The best thing all of us can do, in addition to accepting ourselves the way our genes designed us, is to choose a partner who delights in that design. Unsolicited admiration is a very nice ally to self-esteem.

No matter what your healthy shape and size, there are going to be lots of folks out there who think you’re just ducky. Men’s tastes are just as varied as women’s: it simply isn’t true that everyone is looking for some
one type. So next time around, find someone who is looking for you. Body type was just one example.

Natural appeal to one’s partner is just as important in other areas:
• Looks in general. Whether we’re talking face, fashion, or physique, it’s easier to maintain a sense that one is attractive in the presence of a beholder who gets it.
• Sexual performance. A good recipe for keeping your sexual gusto is to be with someone who is highly susceptible to your moves, and who consciously craves what you are. It’s no fun feeling like a bad lover, because you shared a bed with someone who needed someone else.
• Humor. Again, you can’t condemn a person for not laughing at your best witticisms, but you don’t need to be with that person. People can’t help what strikes them funny; it is as essential a part of them as their bone marrow—maybe more essential, because it reflects not only the soul they were born with, but all the joys
and sorrows of the road they’ve been on. If your last man made you feel less funny every year; if life itself lost the great resource of humor; then do a little forensic analysis and learn to detect the problem next time.

Here are some questions to ask:
∙∙ Was he able to make you laugh at yourself when that would have really helped? All of us have times when we take ourselves too seriously; to be deflated by a loving friend is the best medicine there is.

∙∙ Think of specific times when you said something that should have been hilarious, but it fell flat. Think about the content. Usually there is some crucial lesson lurking there.

∙∙ Think of instances when your partner laughed uproariously, and you saw nothing funny. Again, scrutinize the content. It may speak volumes about the distance between you as people.

False take-aways
The list goes on, of areas in which one partner can “disappoint” the other.
The false take-aways abound: as well as unsexy and unfunny, you can end up feeling stupid, clumsy, or annoying, incompetent or slow, phony, or wishy-washy... and the cause of the problem is simply that you installed a critic in your life, whose notions of quality you were perfectly designed to flunk. What a good thing to avoid next time.

the professional abuser
Some people would try to sabotage anyone they were paired with.
Whether they come from a long line of mistreatment, or just got it in the DNA lottery, doesn’t matter—they need and want to hurt their mate. They need to undermine the other person’s opinion of themselves, in
order to maintain their own. It is how they get to feeling better. Getting entangled with this kind of person endangers one’s selfconfidence and self-worth (as well as one’s chances of happiness and, in extreme cases, one’s life). Not that it’s easy to leave. In more dire cases, to extricate oneself may require professional help, before, during and after.
On our grid of compatibility, such a person belongs on the margin.
He is not compatible with anyone.
Even in its less overt forms, this sort of behavior should be a red flag. When you’re getting to know a new person, it’s good to take a zero-tolerance attitude towards it. Affectionate teasing can be delicious, but when you feel yourself being cut up, and there is coldness or meanness or malice behind it, walk on.

energy
It isn’t good if there’s a chronic situation where one spouse is rarin’ to go and hungry for more, and the other is spent. Different people— even in good health—just naturally have different-sized batteries, and it’s better to be with someone whose fuel supply is similar to your own. This may have shown up in the sexual arena, or it could have been a matter of whether you wanted to do anything active after getting through your work day.

A false take-away
I’ll never fit with anyone because my energy level is too low.

sex
It’s very important to some people to reach the heights in bed; and that calls for a partner who has similar styles, tastes, and desire levels. The more unusual a person’s tastes, the more critical this may be. There are deal-breakers lurking in this area, and if you found out what some of them were, you are armed with precious knowledge.

Conventional wisdom has it that sex declines drastically for most married couples, but there’s a sort of counter movement arising these days, at least in the trendy magazines. If a couple once had good sex, it seems grudging to think there aren’t ways they could revive it again.

A more relevant question for present purposes: was the sex ever what you wanted, and if not, why not and how important is that to you in the scheme of things?

A false take-away
This person didn’t enjoy me in bed and wasn’t satisfied, so that means I’m a failure sexually.

life goals and agenda 
To some extent these things are negotiable, and they can even change when the right two people find each other—sometimes the whole plan gets scrapped and redone, because in the bracing presence of each other you can’t accept half-measures anymore. Was your last relationship inspiring in that way? Did you feel
like a team; did you make each other’s plans better? Was there mutual support?
Or did your agendas clash?

careers and jobs
Different couples have different ideas about job and career. All may work out if the two people are good with each other’s visions. Looking back at your last relationship, ask yourself if the bar was set high
enough by each person to fulfill themselves and satisfy the other person? Was it set too high, so that someone’s standards weren’t being met? Or was it perhaps too high in the opposite way: someone wanted
a career so big it precluded a life together? For some couples the right level means being able to get by financially, and still have enough juice left to enjoy life. For others it may mean a more demanding definition of “success” and material prosperity: the right house, the right neighborhood, the right schools, and so on. How did these variables shake out for you the last time around? Have your needs and wants emerged more clearly? Have they changed?

A false take-away
My partner was never satisfied with my career, so I’ll have to fix it if I want to be happy with someone.

money and debt 
Like other life challenges, financial issues can be dealt with if you face them together, get whatever expert advice you need, and make a plan. Were you able to talk about these things honestly with your partner, take care of them, allocate tasks and responsibilities? This is an area where a lack of unity can be a serious red flag. Did it show up?

A false take-away
I need to lighten up about credit cards.

children
The first question is, did you agree on whether you wanted them? And when?
Supposing you did, then we arrive at the biggest challenge two people can face—raising children. That activity can expose incompatibility like nothing else.
It may happen this way: One spouse instinctively takes on more authority with the children than the other, and no one seems to be able to do anything about it, but the less dominant one finds their new status demeaning, and that begins to sow resentment. Or the two have different assessments of what it is to be responsible parents, and thus a clash of values emerges. Worst of all is when one parent is more perceptive about the kids and their developing minds, and the other parent doesn’t get this stuff and takes on an air of stupidity in the eyes of all concerned.

The presence of children can also offer up all sorts of adversity, from cognitive to financial to medical to sudden “Acts of God,” and if the parents are able to meet these situations with force and cohesion, it will make their union stronger; but if they can’t, if one lags behind or cops out, the prospects aren’t good. The gap that was hinted at in the pre-children relationship may explode into a real breach. It’s just another proof that one should catch the signs early on, because if there is a fault line, children will make it show up.
Children raise the stakes in every area they touch. If you and your ex had a lot of conflict in this area, take a close look at it, because it will reveal a lot about what you didn’t have in common as people.

A false take-away
I’m better off leaving child-rearing to couples who are good at it.

values
It’s a nebulous term. Depending on your stance, it might mean anything from your relationship with Jesus Christ to your relationship with the illegal alien who is nailing shingles to your roof. It might mean how you feel about the garbage truck driving away from your curb or the President receding into history. It
has to do with what you want your children taught in school or at home, what you want them to watch on TV, and how much time you want them to spend outside the house and free of adult supervision.

Values concern how you think a family should behave, and whether you want your new family to resemble the one you came from. Values are about right and wrong. Truth versus lying. Compassion versus indifference. And how the world works. The degree to which you are engaged in public issues—and the way you choose to deal with them—is an important index of who you are as a person. And that affects who you can be comfortable with as a partner. Ask yourself: Were you able to converse with your mate about
personal/political/spiritual issues? Were you able to air them out and talk them through, even when you didn’t agree? Did your mate allot them the same importance, or lack thereof, as you did? If not, that will help you know what to look for next time. Ideally, you should be able to find a bedrock in your partner that
you can lean on and count on, a sanctuary away from all the bull, a place where it is easier for you to find your way, with the firm grip of another’s hand. Most of us can’t be Gandhi: we need a moral ally.

A false take-away
I can’t expect a partner to care about the same issues I do.

food, fun, and entertainment
food
Many people treat food as a form of entertainment. They choose what to eat based on pleasure, while the voices of nutritionists echo in the distance. Others insist on eating in a healthy way, and make the astounding claim that flavor is thereby maximized.

Food can be a very significant meeting place for two people, and can raise some real issues.
The first issue is whether meals even exist in a couple’s life. A lot of people skip breakfast or eat it on the fly; lunch is part of the work day; that leaves dinner as the main couple opportunity, but it often gets sucked into the downdraft of TV, takeout, or random snacking. If two people do make the effort to share a meal recognizable as “dinner,” that raises more questions. Who prepares the food? Who cleans up? Who chooses the menu? On the first two, lots of different answers can be fair and balanced, but in many cases the chronic outcome is anything but.
How did it work out in your last relationship? Did you end up doing all the work? Did that rankle? Was your work at least appreciated? As far as menu goes, the more you care about nutrition and quality, the more likely you are to need a partner who cares too, and whose beliefs don’t conflict with yours. Did you
have that?

It takes dedication to buy healthy food and plan interesting meals, and it sometimes takes willpower to avoid the naughty temptations that could undermine the program. If one person isn’t on board, they can easily sabotage the other. Did that happen to you? A good meal enjoyed with good conversation—whether it’s
in a restaurant or at home—is one of the prime attractions on the marquee of couplehood. It can be one of the reasons two people are glad to be a couple! It’s also one of the best ways to avoid drifting apart. If you agree, then ask yourself how often this kind of occasion was achieved, last time around. If seldom, what stood in the way?
You have a right to look for a partner with whom food will be a positive, fun thing, a celebration, a collaboration and a meeting place—if that’s what you want. Don’t be afraid this area is somehow trivial; take stock of it when you’re getting to know a man.

A false take-away
I’ve got to stop obsessing on nutrition!

fun and entertainment
Since work time is usually not spent together, play time had better offer some chances to bond. So it matters whether there are forms of recreation that you and your mate share.
Conversation is number one: if you don’t have it you’ll end up with nothing. Then there’s a spate of others: games, physical and Mental; socializing; outings of all kinds, from shopping to just going for a drive; art, music, films, TV; walking, running, working out; more active sports like hiking, fishing, boating, camping; summer retreats; travel; the list is endless. Did you and your partner find a decent number of these that you could enjoy together? On the domestic front, the list narrows to the things you really do on most days.
Like television. One woman with no interest in sports told me that her memory of her first marriage was basically a bunch of men sitting in the living room watching “the game,” whatever it happened to be, all weekend, and her job was to keep them fed. The roar of the crowd, the announcers yelling over that, and the guys yelling over that, were inescapable. They still echo in her brain as a nightmare that she will do anything to avoid in future, a way of living that she now clearly sees is incompatible with her own.
Television is in fact such a potent and perilous thing, that I will give it its own section, when we look at the ways that even well matched couples go astray. I think unless wrestled into submission, it can do a lot of mischief.

A false take-away
I have this tendency to want to find leisure activities that my spouse and I both enjoy. But that’s just being needy—most couples are more independent.

We’ve now picked our way through some juicy examples of incompatibility. There are others—the subject is rich—but I hope you’ve seen enough to realize that this process works. It’s nothing less than an active reconstruction of the past. Cheerfully discarding the spurious messages that a mismatch tried to dictate, you take your own reading on what happened, and extract your own lessons about what you want in a future partner. The number one error laid to rest is that of thinking something was wrong with you, when you were really just with the wrong person.
To round out our survey of mismatch specifics, there are two general trends that need to be recognized as red flags—the chameleon response and the choice of bad boys.

the chameleon response
This arises when you make so many adjustments and changes in yourself, in order to fit with the man you’ve found, that you are in effect forcing compatibility. I talked earlier about loss of identity in a mismatched relationship, but I had in mind mostly the sacrifice of parts of yourself that the other person didn’t like. The Chameleon Response is a more active thing. It means adopting a whole set of passions, interests, and allegiances just because the other person has them. It is changing your color to suit the situation.

Take the wedding. 
The bride is more spiritual than religious, but the groom’s family is religious. So they want a big church wedding. So she caves, and allows the biggest day of her life to be mounted with words, songs, and rituals that she doesn’t believe in. To complete the Chameleon Response, she actually makes herself, and him, and everybody else think that she now does believe in the Holy Trinity, the transmutation of the bread and the wine, and all the rest of it.

Especially herself.
Not stopping at this, the chameleon may actually change religions in order to fit the bill. A Protestant may become Catholic; a Christian may become a Jew. It would seem an unlikely coincidence that a soul’s take on ultimate reality could change just when it was romantically convenient, but life is full of surprises.
And this just scratches the surface. Or the depths.

Whether in a mild or extreme form, this tendency to change or distort oneself in order to fit someone else’s bill is a sure sign of a mismatch. Check it out in your past, and look at the specific ways in which you may have compromised yourself . . . they are inducements to resist next time.

Some of the things that Bad Boys offer aren’t so bad. There’s nothing wrong with a little danger, nothing wrong with chemistry. Bad Boys (and Girls) are a reminder that love should be a kick, it should sizzle.
Especially when you’re young, who wants to be respectable and complacent? At that age there’s nothing worse than boredom. And fear is one of the great cures, with its mates, danger and risk.
But there are other cures that crop up later, like meeting an impossible deadline on a job you care about, or taking care of your loved ones. And there are other aphrodisiacs.

The thing is, badness can be overrated. Just how dangerous do you want your boy to be?
• Do you want him to leave the baby alone while he goes out to a strip joint?
• Do you want him to smoke in bed?
• Do you want him to lose the credit card invoices?
• Do you want him to chop salad veggies on the same board where he prep’d some raw chicken?
A lack of concern for consequences becomes much less charming when you have more to lose.
Maybe what we all want is the right combo of the scary and the safe, the naughty and the nice. But it’s worth bearing in mind that within many a Bruce Wayne, there may lurk a Batman.



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