Attraction and love are both completely irreverent
when it comes to compatibility.
This is perhaps one of the greatest injustices in life.
You know,
we when we really want a specific relationship with someone
we imagine that where there's a will, there's a way.
We imagine that our mutual commitment
and our mutual desire to make it work
will make love triumph overall.
The bottom line is,
we just don't want to accept incompatibility.
It's not like I can really blame people
because it is definitely a less romantic concept.
But the thing is if you do not accept incompatibility,
you are headed straight down the road to relationship hell.
Disclaimer (pause to read):
What Will Happen If You Don't Accept Incompatibility
Incompatibility is really not about differences.
Because there are many differences
that can be accommodated in a relationship.
Not only that,
there are many differences that can in fact
make two people more compatible.
Incompatibility is the condition of two things being different
in a way that is specifically uncomplimentary
to the degree that the specific difference
makes them incapable of coexisting harmoniously.
Incompatibility is really about
putting people with these non-harmonious differences
in roles or positions with each other
that require there should be either no difference,
or that require a difference that is actually not harmonious,
to be harmonious.
If you wanna learn more about this in depth,
I would encourage you to watch my video titled:
incompatibility A Harsh Reality In Relationships
Still,
our unwillingness to accept incompatibility
and our drive to find a way despite incompatibility.
It makes it so that by not recognizing incompatibility
and not making adjustments accordingly,
we're actually dooming
the very relationship that we care so much about.
When genuine incompatibility is present in a relationship
you can't be happy
with them the way that they are.
And the same goes for the reverse,
they can't be happy with you the way you are.
There has to be some change
to you,
or to them,
or to both
in order for there to be
happiness or harmony in that relationship.
When you will not accept incompatibility in a relationship
you will not swallow the reality of the difference.
Instead, you have to find a different way
of explaining the uncomplimentary difference away,
then you must throw your energy into trying to change it.
An overwhelming majority of the time
when you will not accept incompatibility,
you will do one of two things:
The first thing,
you will not accept that difference of theirs.
Let's say that the difference in terms of boundaries
is something like a thought, something like a feeling,
something like a desire, something like needs,
something like a preference,
anything that uniquely defines them.
That thing
that represents the incompatibility,
you will not accept that difference.
Instead, you will try to change that difference about them.
You're gonna make it bad or wrong in some way, first,
so that you can justify telling them that they need to change it.
Not only that,
you're gonna convince them
that it's in their best interest to change that thing.
Really, this is just a cover, you see...
Because at the end of the day,
the real reason why you want them to change that thing
is because it's in your best interest,
or you think it is,
because you want a specific arrangement with them
and you want it to feel good
and it will only feel good, if they change that thing.
#2.
The other thing you might try
is to make yourself wrong and bad
for your difference, right?
So, this is where you won't accept your own difference.
And because you won't accept that difference
whether it's a thought, a feeling, a preference, a need, you know a desire.
You will set about trying to change yourself.
And you're gonna convince yourself:
"That's really in my best interest that I changed this.
So what you should notice is that both of these things
which you're likely to do,
involve making either them, or you
bad or wrong
for that difference.
Also, if we're desperate to keep a relationship together
we might notice ourselves vacillating between these two approaches.
You know who you are.
But when two people do this,| what ends up happening
is that both people in the relationship end up feeling pain.
Not only because of the uncomplimentary nature
of the dynamic itself
and of course, the conflict that arises as a result of it,
but also because they end up feeling like crap about themselves.
When we send someone else the message
that they need to change something about themselves,
they feel bad and wrong and thus, they feel shame.
When we send ourselves the message
that we need to change something about ourselves
we feel bad and wrong and thus we feel shame.
Refusing to accept incompatibility in a relationship
is a recipe for a relationship where the experience of love goes away
and is replaced by mutual shame.
So that you can understand how this dynamic plays out,
I'm gonna give you an example from real life:
Ria met Danny at a film festival two years ago.
When they first met,
it was like one of those fireworks moments.
They spent six days in the absolute bliss
of finally having found "the one".
by the end of those six days at that film festival,
even though, Danny lived in New York
and Ria lived in Los Angeles,
they decided to commit to a relationship
and they've been in a long distance relationship
as a result of it, for the last two years.
Over time, the magic of their relationship, has been fading.
Right now, they're really not happy together.
The reason is that Ria is ready for everything.
She's ready for marriage,
she's ready for kids, she wants to settle down,
she really wants Danny to move to Los Angeles
after all that's the better place to raise children,
and she's already set about finding job offers for him
when he comes.
Danny keeps dragging his feet.
I mean, really dragging his feet.
Every time he has the opportunity
to up and leave and finally move to L.A. to be with Ria,
he notices that he keeps taking projects
which make it so that he can't be there.
And Danny's not a stupid guy,
I mean, he's noticed
how much he's dragging his feet.
So much so, that he's now in counseling.
At this point, he's going:
"Wait, I don't understand. I really don't understand what it is.
Like, I just can't, I literally just can't.
I know I should move to L.A.
and I just can't.
I'm procrastinating.
The truth is Danny doesn't wanna settle down.
The real truth is,
is that he actually wants to be on the road
a minimum of 280 days out of the year.
Whenever he is at home, he starts feeling stuck,
he starts feeling depressed,
he starts feeling like there's no point in being around.
This is a man who thrives
on the excitement and the constant change
of never being in one place.
Also,
he's not ready for children.
When Ria catches glimpses
of this incompatibility between him and her
she won't accept it.
She tells herself and Danny, of course,
that the only reason Danny feels this way
is because Danny's dad was always gone on the road
when Danny was a kid.
She genuinely believes
that Danny would have to face the pain
he has in the relationship with his own father
and stop idolizing him,
and then he would actually wanna settle down
just like her.
And this is of course, complicated
because instead of standing solidly in his truth,
which is that they're not compatible,
danny doubts himself sometimes.
I mean sometimes he's like:
Oh my god, I really do wonder
if the reason why I can't prioritize doing this stuff
is because of my dad.
And he knows I'm never gonna be able to have kids
if i'm not willing to ever sit put.
But the thing is,
is that even though he's got these concerns
even though he's got these thoughts,
he never prioritizes doing anything about them.
Danny just feels like crap about himself
and yet, continues to prioritize other things.
When he's talking to Ria
he vacillates between agreeing with her
that he's messed up and needs to change,
and of course, to the opposite
telling her she just needs to back the hell off
and stop pressuring him, because he isn't ready yet.
Ria and Danny are in a stalemate.
Neither of them know if or when
their relationship will ever progress or end.
When they get in fights,
which happens more and more now,
Ria screams that Danny is taking the best years of her life
and is keeping her on the hook and is a narcissist,
and Danny yells at Ria that she's needy and basic.
Both of them will not accept the incompatibility between them.
As a result, each spends their time trying to convince the other
that what they want is bad and wrong.
They each spend their time trying to get the other to change,
and as a result,
they both feel like crap about themselves and the relationship.
Their refusal to accept incompatibility
makes Danny feel like he's a dysfunctional self-centered asshole
makes Ria feel like an insecure and needy harpy
If they were to look at their incompatibility, straight in the face,
it is that Ria wants to settle down, Marry and have kids,
Danny wants to be on the road 280 days out of the year
and does not wanna settle down and does not want to have kids yet.
If they accepted that reality,
each of them would have to be honest with themselves
about what that means for them,
and make decisions
about what the highest and best arrangement
would be for the relationship, without compromise.
By the way, I have to interject here,
the second faulty move that people make
when they see incompatibility
but they will not accept that incompatibility,
is that they try to find a compromise.
Now, compromise should be like a swear word in our relationships,
I know that's not a popular opinion,
compromise takes you straight down the road to relationship hell.
If you wanna learn more about this, watch my video titled:
Why You Should Never Make Compromises In A Relationship
When Ria faces reality,
she sees that she just can't wait for Danny to be ready.
She doesn't even have the biological time to do so
if she wants kids.
So she decides that the best thing for her to do is to get off the hook
of waiting for Danny,
and to make him a friend, instead of a partner.
When Danny faces reality,
he sees that he just isn't going to prioritize
changing his current career path
and how often it has him on the road.
Even if he moves to L.A.
he will be gone most of the time.
And constantly feeling like he's disappointing a woman
makes him feel chronically bad about himself,
so, he decides that after a two-month break from contact
he wants to make Ria a friend rather than a partner.
There is a big difference between loving someone,
and being compatible to someone.
There's a very big difference
between the relationship element of a relationship
and the love element of relationship.
It's completely understandable
that we don't want to accept incompatibility,
after all, if you accept incompatibility
there are consequences.
And we don't wanna face those consequences.
But, because of this, in our relationships
we end up being dishonest and inauthentic.
We also end up often misleading the other person
and let me tell you something,
that is not something that anyone can keep up for long.
And I do have to do a little bit of a call out at this point,
nowhere is this refusal to accept incompatibility
more prevalent, than in the social circles
that believe in self-help and self-development.
I'm just gonna beat you the punch here
and tell you that so many personal feelings,
personal thoughts, personal needs,
personal preferences, personal desires,
behaviors...
So many of them come from trauma.
Now, what we do in the self-help and self-development field
is that we make it wrong.
We basically say
"If anything comes from trauma,
then it's not really authentic to who you are
and so, you can be healed out of it".
Essentially, people in these circles
tend to have this idea that if anything comes from trauma,
it not only can change,
it should change in order for someone to be healthy.
As a result of this, I see so many people in these circles
trying to heal each other into compatibility.
This is just yet another refusal to accept incompatibility.
Not only that,
it's an attempt to justify that refusal.
Because this happened so often with desires specifically,
it would benefit you to watch my video titled:
You Can't Heal Yourself Out of A Desire
When we try to make
an incompatible to us person compatible to us in some way,
we go about it by making them bad or wrong
for whatever uncomplimentary difference that they have.
We come up with a reason why they're wrong for it,
and try to heal them out of that difference
or try to change it so it doesn't exist.
This creates shame in them
and in turn, they will most likely make us bad and wrong
for our difference and come up with a reason
why we're wrong for it
and try them to heal us out of our difference
or try to change it so it doesn't exist.
When this is a dynamic in a relationship
the relationship, no matter how much love was there in the beginning,
completely devolves.
You will end up in a relationship
where that underlying emotional tone
is shame and resentment.
And you will end up in a situation
where eventually, both people in the relationship
feel totally unloved.
It's not going to feel good in the short term.
But, in the long run,
accepting incompatibilities is absolutely necessary
if what you're wanting
is to create relationships that feel good mutually.
Instead of relationships that are based
on a mutual sensation of shame.
Have a good week.
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I wanna thank you personally
for the bravery that you have to step into awareness.
I'll see you in the next video.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte @tanyaduarte / tanyaduarte.com