Let’s get into the topic of love, partnership, and soulmates. So many of us spend a good chunk of our lives looking for the one.
How do we know if they’re the person who’s right to spend the rest of our lives with, or even if starting a relationship with them is the right choice?
While compatibility is no guarantee of longevity, studies show that it is directly related to the quality and satisfaction of our relationships.
Simply put, the more compatible you and your partner are, the happier you’re likely to be with them. Everybody has ideas about what qualities and traits their dream partner should have but rarely do we ever find someone who’s a perfect match.
Instead, we learn to compromise where we can and go to love people despite their flaws and imperfections.
However, it can be hard to differentiate normal differences from incompatibility.
So, if you’re wondering whether or not you and your significant other are incompatible, here are seven telltale signs that you probably aren’t right for each other.
1. You don’t get each other
Right from the get-go, this can tell you a great deal about how good of a match you and your partner make.
If you have a hard time understanding how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking or what they need, then they might not be the one for you and vice versa.
It’s better to be with someone you can be in sync with, someone who picks up and understands your nonverbal cues; they can discern your tone of voice and get what you’re trying to tell them.
Otherwise, miscommunication and misunderstandings can pile up in your relationship.
2. You’re too different from each other
While it’s technically true that opposites do attract, every solid, healthy couple should share at least a few similarities with their partner.
This doesn’t mean having to like all the same music or movies that they do or even share the same hobbies as them.
It can be refreshing to be in a relationship with someone radically different from yourself. Sadly, though the excitement won’t last forever, if the similarities are too scarce or non-existent, once the new and shiny effect wears off, you’re both left with someone who doesn’t share the same humor, interests, values, ideals, or principles. Making it difficult to relate to one another in any meaningful way.
3. You try to change each other
The hallmark of any strong healthy relationship is having a partner who gives you the drive and motivation to change for the better.
That’s the point, it must be something you want for yourself, your idea, not theirs alone.
Despite your partner expressing irritation or dissatisfaction with the current you, it’s generally ineffective and not sustainable if you’re forcing change on yourself solely because they want it and you don’t.
You have to want it for yourself.
And this goes for many things. Whether it’s the way you dress, speak, or hang out with. Only you have the right to decide who you want to be.
If you don’t feel comfortable showing your true colors to your significant other. Even in a private setting. This is a definite red flag.
4. There is frequent arguing
It’s perfectly normal and healthy to disagree with your partner about something from time to time, especially if it’s over something that’s important to the two of you. We didn’t choose this person so we could be with a clone of ourselves.
These disagreements become a problem, however, when the arguing is constant and over the tiniest of things, it’s even unhealthier.
If the fighting is dirty, shouting, name-calling, humiliating each other, holding grudges, and emotional blackmail. Being in a relationship with a partner who tends to bring out mostly the ugliest side of you, it’s never good.
5. You attain peace by avoiding all the problems
It’s all about moderation.
While constant fighting is not ideal. It’s also not good for a couple to never disagree about anything.
You need to be honest and communicate openly with one another about how you feel even if it’s not in agreement with the other person.
Constantly pretending everything is okay or blindly agreeing to the wants of the other person does not make the relationship stronger and may result in a catastrophic blow-up later.
Conflict can be a positive bond-building event if it can be given and taken constructively. It then can lead to personal growth and a deeper mutual understanding.
6. Your socializing is isolated from everyone else
Do you find that when you and your partner go out, it’s nearly always only with each other? No friends, no parties, or group hangouts?
Do you never spend any time with your friends?
Have you ever met their friends?
Is their family still a group of mystery people you’ve never been introduced to even though you’ve been together for a while?
If you answered yes to any of these, this could be a potential problem.
Importantly, you must spend time with your partner’s loved ones and get to know them better.
Couples who make the effort to be close with other important people in their partners’ lives tend to have longer and happier relationships.
7. You’re not attracted to them
Lastly, but most importantly, even when everything seems perfect on paper if you don’t have any romance or chemistry, it’s simply not going to work.
Without even an inkling of those factors, you might have a best friend, but not necessarily significant other.
The result is that you will naturally be drawn to people you have more than friends’ attraction to.
The triarchic theory of love by Robert J. Sternberg, even states that although intimacy and commitment are present, without passion, the love you share will only be platonic like the love shared between you and your friends and family.
In the end, there’s no such thing as a perfect relationship.
Everyone has doubts or disagreements at times with the person they love. A strong healthy relationship takes ongoing effort, dedication, and also time for it to grow.
What’s important is finding that someone who to you is worth the effort. First impressions and initial choices do not seal your fate.
Learning to know and recognize compatibility versus incompatibility, will save you much heartbreak and possibly avoid more serious scarring.
So take the time to evaluate your relationship with these key points in mind.
And honestly ask yourself, ‘‘Is my partner right for me?’’
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Still, confused about whether you’re compatible or not?
Here are signs you have an unexplainable connection with someone.
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Do you believe in soulmates or the idea that everyone who comes into our lives is destined to do so, for reasons we may never understand?
That you were fated to cross paths and meet with certain people who changed your life for the better?
Whether it’s romantic or platonic, your relationship with this person has a certain intensity you can’t explain.
You don’t know why, but there’s just something about them. You’re in sync with each other’s innermost thoughts and emotions. To borrow the poetic words of author Emily Bronte;
it feels like whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same
Encounters like this are truly special and rare. Making it all the more important.
To be able to tell when you come across someone just like that, here are six telltale signs that you’ve made a meaningful connection with someone.
Photo by Lauren Rader on Unsplash
You immediately feel drawn to them
From the very first moment you saw this person, you wanted to meet them, you knew you wanted to be something to them.
You wanted to walk right up to them and strike up a conversation, desperately needing to get to know them. You felt intrigued by them and drawn to their presence, for reasons even you may not completely understand.
That’s what it’s like when two kindred souls cross paths. You just click even when you’ve just met, it feels like you understand each other already and you get along with them easily.
This brings us to our next point.
You will love their company
Do you miss them already when you just said goodbye?
Do you constantly think of reasons to meet?
You love being around them so much that it’s made you spend more and more time together.
Despite not even knowing each other that long. You always have fun talking to them and being with them so much that it’s made you crave their company when they’re gone.
It doesn’t even matter what you do together because so long as you’re with them, you know you’re in for an enjoyable time, you find yourself making lots of plans with them and talking to them the most because they’ve quickly become one of your favorite people to spend time with.
The fact that they always say yes and go along with all your plans means they probably feel the same way too.
You can easily talk to them
Are you usually the quiet one in the room who likes to keep to themselves and listens more than they talk?
For some reason, do you just find this particular person easy to talk to?
You don’t feel shy or self-conscious around them. Even though it’s usually a bit awkward and stiff when you’re first starting to befriend or get to know someone, it’s never like that with you and this person, because when you’re with them, you suddenly feel more animated, talkative, and outgoing.
You crack jokes, share stories, gossip, and have deep conversations with them like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
You feel comfortable around them
Does it feel like you’ve known them forever?
When you make a special connection with someone, you become best friends, and you often feel closer to them than you do with most people.
Whether it’s romantic or entirely platonic, your relationship just has an intensity you can’t quite explain.
It makes you feel comfortable enough to be yourself around them, and open up to them in a way you never felt like you could before.
You trust them with all your secrets. And you let them in, on all of your deepest thoughts and feelings because they make you feel safe and understood. They make you feel seen and heard like no one else ever did.
You’re deeply involved with them
Do you come over to their place a lot and stay over?
Have you met their friends and family?
Do you call them before you make any big decisions or ask them to run errands with you like buying groceries, getting gas, helping you move, stuff like that?
Moving forward and becoming more involved with each other’s lives is a definite sign of a deepening connection.
All of these things are signs that you and this person have become significant parts of each other’s lives and both of you are perfectly happy about that.
You’ve been through something difficult together
They say nothing brings people together like adversity.
So it stands to reason that if you’ve gone through something serious and difficult with a certain someone, then it’s only served to strengthen your relationship and your feelings for them.
Whatever the reason may be for your heartbreak, unfulfilled dream, the loss of something important, or falling out with a loved one, having someone around who stuck with you through it and helped you get through it just goes to show that the bond you and this person share is truly a special one.
Connections like this are hard to come by, but when they do, everything surely falls into place.
Having such a deep emotional connection can make a person feel anchored and explain why nothing else ever worked out.
Thus, it’s important to know and hold on to them when they come knocking.
We hope we’re able to give your insight into some of the ways you can tell if you found your soulmate.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: Allef Vinicius on Unsplash