A critical element of any happy relationship is that the partners are compatible. Perhaps the biggest way that potential couples sabotage the prospects for a long-term happiness is by getting involved with an incompatible partner. The damage this error in judgement causes is two-fold: first by preventing the relationship from progressing in a happy and healthy way, and while in this deteriorating relationship the couple is prevented from pursuing and connecting with better matches.
Although I will be concentrating on romantic relationships in this post, this idea can be extended to business relationships and friendships alike. Few people actively choose their families, but as adults even with close relatives it is up to us to only maintain healthy and productive interactions and distance ourselves from destructive influences.
A large part of compatibility comes from mutual sexual attraction and interpersonal chemistry. While this is enough to spark the initial interaction, for any relationship to remain healthy and happy in the long run it’s important that in addition to chemistry all partners are also compatible in many other ways. One of the ways to ensure that your values are compatible with your partners’ is to evaluate your dates’ qualities against your personal list of deal-breakers If a deal-breaker is discovered, the relationship ends right there and then. There is no discussion, and no “compromising.”
Every time you go on a date with the same person after a deal-breaker is discovered, a cute kitten dies.
While following your deal-breakers will prevent some relationships from forming, this is not a loss. Those relationships would eventually end and will bring with them a lot of unhappiness and despair, at best. Deal-breakers allow us to select more compatible and better partners, and because of that help us live happy and fulfilled lives
Why spend the next 10 years fighting about whether to go on a 2-week trip or remodel the kitchen? By following our deal breakers we can choose more compatible partners and that leads to fewer disagreements, less fights, reduces major misunderstandings and results in more happiness for you and your partner.
When presented with a list of deal-breakers, many people get uncomfortable, wishy-washy and bring up a point that relationships are not built on the basis of my-way-or-the-highway. These people will say that healthy relationships require a lot of compromise, negotiation and accommodating other’s values and preferences. To further complicate things, one person’s deal breaker is another’s “nice-to-have.”
To all those concerned about deal-breakers preventing compromise, here is a no-nonsense way to distinguish the two:
Whether you want to have children is a deal-breaker. What to have for dinner is a compromise.
When coming up with a list of your personal deal-breakers, it is important that you don’t get too caught up in a long list of “nice-to-have.” Your deal-breakers should be based on your values, your expectations and your needs in a relationship.
If you’ve not spent a lot of time considering your values and expectations of your partner, making a list of what is unacceptable to you will help you with clarity around this. Also, please don’t add things that you yourself aren’t sure about right now. Your core values will remain consistent throughout your life and it is compatibility in that area that deal-breakers help to ensure.
To help get you started, here is a list of my personal deal-breakers from a few years back. If I discover any of these in the early dating stages, this will prevent the relationship from progressing any further.
My Deal-Breakers:
- Habitual smoking (of anything)
- Excessive drinking (or becoming angry when drunk)
- Being actively involved in an organized religion (attending church every Sunday)
- Obsessing over purchasing more “stuff”
- No personal hobbies or passions that are being actively pursued right now
- Seeing self-improvement in general as quackery
- Insulting myself or anyone around me
- Disrespecting my or other’s time (always late, canceling plans for “I don’t feel like it” reasons)
- Lying about anything big once, or consistently about little things
- Physically abusive
- Emotionally abusive (nagging, denigrating, vindictive or instigating conflict)
- Considering education or learning unnecessary/unimportant (no Undergraduate degree)
- Picky eater
- Unwillingness to try new reasonably safe things at least once
- Dislike of outdoors (hiking, camping, swimming, open water)
- Ongoing long-term use of psychotropic medication(s), recreational or prescribed
- Inability to make important but not life-or-death decissions without consulting a panel of parents/friends
