Significant Differences Within Partners

[Mims27]

My SO and I are so similar it's kind of weird sometimes. We clicked on so many things since day one. Music, food, TV, movies...we even have the same style! lol I think the biggest difference is that I'm Canadian and she's American...similar yet so VERY different! lol

[Rugger]

My SO and I grew up in the same kind of way. We both were raised in middle class households. But that's pretty much all that's the same about us. He was a jock in high school, prom kind, captain of the basketball team. He partied and did drugs all throughout. I was a nerd, shy who loved to read and to play D&D with my friends. I still am a nerd but I've been turning him to the nerd side as well. I've gotten him to watch Sherlock and Doctor Who. I've taught him the games my friends played and in turn, he teaches me about sports.

[Dziubka]

Mine and my SOs parents had a very similar parenting style. We share a lot of similar teenager experiences (and we'd probably have been really good friends in high school ). The only fundamental difference is that he grew up in a very urban surrounding and me as rural as it gets in my country.

We have some pretty big religious/belief-differences, but I accept that going to mass once in a while is important to him and he accepts that I think eating meat is wrong. We might not understand each other in that aspect, but we don't try to convert each other and respect the other's needs. As long as you don't see anything fundamentally wrong with what your SO's doing (and if you did, they probably wouldn't be your SO to begin with), I think that's the way to go on about it. I ask him about religion sometimes and try to understand what it gives him or why he needs it, but in the end, it doesn't really matter if it makes sense to me.
We're going to tell our kids that mum believes A and dad B and that possibly neither is right, but it's ok to believe either or something completely else if that makes more sense to you.

In the beginning we used to have quite different views on politics, but he seems to he shifting more into my direction with time (I wonder why that is? ).

I don't think I could date someone who had a lot more (less? haha, I don't know if that's possible) money than me. I mean, if I fell in love and all, I probably wouldn't dismiss someone, because they were loaded, but I have a hard time imagining an equal relationship with a huge financial divide.

[snow]

Personally I don't think I could ever date someone devoutly religious.

I am totally the other way around. I couldn't be with someone who wasn't religious

I don't think I could date someone who had a lot more (less? haha, I don't know if that's possible) money than me. I mean, if I fell in love and all, I probably wouldn't dismiss someone, because they were loaded, but I have a hard time imagining an equal relationship with a huge financial divide.

I have to agree with this. My ex's parents were very wealthy and he grew up knowing that money would never be an issue. My family has never had much money and we had to work hard for every Schilling/Euro, so when we moved in together it was difficult for him to understand that he just can't have certain things because we didn't have the money for it.. like buying a video game for 60€ or buy food for a week for the same money.

In my current relationship we have experienced some cultural differences, but since we're both very open-minded we learned from them.

[aniay]

Me and my SO are example of money difference.

We both grown up in a reasonably wealthy families but while he kept that status I didn't. Sometimes it's hard for me to imagine spending money that is A LOT for me and A FEW for him on inconsequential itethings.
And he can't imagine that sometimes I need to choose what to buy to eat not because of fussyness but because of not enough money.

Other thing is health, he's healthy while I take more medicines than my grandma sometimes. (And not because I want to)

I think differnces as they are teach us respect, consideration and acceptance. They can also show us that the world has other side that we known.

[libelle]

From the beginning there were a lot of similar character traits that we found in eachother, but it seems like as time passes we start looking like the other even more - he has picked up a lot of stuff from me, like for example learned to express his feelings more, and actually be kind and soft to another human, while i have picked up some of his boldness and confidence
BUT there stays the one and only thing that we never ever agree on, and that is what weather we like and therefore where we want to settle down after closing the distance He is used to the 30-degree- summer lasting around a week in his country, where people wear tshirts at 10 degrees because its "warm" and shorts at 20 because it is "hot", while I am used to the 4 month long-every day above 30 to 40 degree hot summer .. And while I just can't imagine surviving without that, of course he has to hate it heat.

[snow]

There is another difference that I personally think is a make or breaking point in a relationship: Marriage and children

From my personal experience I found that you have to be on the same page or else of you is going to end up being unhappy.
If you decide that you don't ever want to get married or have children and you date someone who thinks their meaning of life is to get married and have children finding a compromise is going to be too difficult. One of those two people will have to sacrifice their belief - either get married against their will or never get married or have children.

For example:
One of the reasons my past relationship ended was because I always wanted to get married and have children and my ex hated children and never wanted to get married (even though he gave me a promise ring...?)
My big brother broke up with his now-not-ex-anymore because of that reason and now he sacrifices marrying and having children for her and he's not very happy about it. He just hopes that at some point in her later years (she'S 5 years younger) she'll change her mind. But that's deceiving.