Partner

I have seen many young men in severe mental torment because they have a great sexual relationship with a person they are not compatible with.

Physical attraction is just one element of a compatible relationship but it alone will not be enough to make you and your partner compatible. For the highest compatibility you'll need mental attraction, emotional attraction and spiritual attraction.

Following points from Are You the One for Me? De Angelis

Commitment to Personal Growth

• Your partner is committed to learning everything they can about how to be a better person and a better spouse (husband or wife).
• They are willing to receive help and guidance in the form of books, tapes, lectures, seminars and counseling if necessary.
• They are conscious of their weaknesses and problem areas.
• They have personal goals for their own self improvement and you can see specific, positive changes in them over time.

Emotional Openness (Emotional Generosity)

• An intimate (close) relationship is based on shared feelings.
• Find a partner who is generous with their love (gives love freely, abundantly and without restriction). This means a partner who regularly tells you how much they love you and shows how much they appreciate you.
• Emotional openness in a partner gives you access to their inner world.

Integrity

• Honesty, integrity and trustworthiness are essential ingredients for a healthy relationship. (not telling the truth is the most significant way couples destroy intimacy)
• Honest with themselves (not lying to themselves in self deception)
• Honest with others (if you doubt your partner's integrity, you'll lose respect for them)
• Honest with you (doesn't hide parts of their life or personality from you)
• Look for a partner who is up front about how they feel and what they want, and someone whose actions match their words.

Maturity and Responsibility

• Maturity. They can take care of themselves (earn enough to support themselves, keep their living space relatively clean and know how to feed themselves)
• Responsible. They do what they say they are going to do (requires action)
• Respectful. Look for maturity in your partner by noticing how respectful they are of yours and others: feelings; time; possessions; boundaries.

High Self Esteem

• Your partner can only love you as much as they love themselves.
• A person with low self esteem loves in orderto feel good about themselves.
• A person with high self esteem loves becausethey feel good about themselves.
• Your partner takes pride in themselves. They are satisfied with who they are now and who they are becoming.
• Your partner takes good care of themselves. Someone who mistreats themselves and doesn't mind it, won't mind mistreating you either.
• Your partner doesn't allow others to abuse them. The more you love yourself, the less you'll allow others to mistreat you.
• True self esteem manifests itself in action. Look for a partner who does something about their goals instead of just talking about them.

Positive Attitude Toward life

• Love thrives in a positive atmosphere and starves in a negative atmosphere.
• Relationships are much easier when you are with a positive person.
• Negative people: focus on problems and resist solutions; find something or someone to complain about; allow fear and worry to rule them; are cynical and pessimistic about the future; don't trust easily.
• Positive people: focus on finding the solution; turn obstacles into opportunities and adversity into lessons; trust in their ability to make a difference; believe that things can always get better; use their vision to change their reality.

Compatible Religious Beliefs

• For most people, spiritual values and beliefs aren't topics of discussion in the early days of a relationship.
• Generally, religious incompatibility only becomes an issue when the relationship has matured and become more serious making it much more difficult to resolve.
• Ask your partner early in the relationship what religious and spiritual values they would like to pass on to your children. Nothing forces us to examine our values and beliefs more honestly than thinking about raising children!

When you start to get involved with a potential partner there will be an element of attraction. Stand back, ask questions and see if you are really compatible together before you get too involved.

I knew of a 19 year old guy who thought he was getting involved with a 25 year old woman. She thought the guy was about 25 as well. The woman was actually 35 years old - 16 years older. A lot of grief would have been cancelled out in the break-up if the two had a simple conversation before getting involved sexually.

You won't be able to fake compatibility to try and make the relationship work in the long term. You might have to make a hard decision.

This site might not help your personal situation. The purpose of this site is to give you information from other sources that you might not have heard before. That way you can make your own informed decisions about what can be complex issues in your life.

Every issue has different points of view and it is wise to consider all available information (including the author's motives ) to arrive at the best decision for yourself. All information from the internet (including this site) and media in general should be approached with caution.