Some Thoughts on Marriage and Compatibility

Compatibility is not the basis for a good marriage. It is what arises from a good marriage. We create compatility; it does not create us. Indeed, perhaps the only point of compatibility necessary at the outset of a successful marriage is the mutual willingness to create the compatibility that will go on to sustain it. Any ostensible points of ‘incompatibility’ can in this way be overcome. We therefore need not look at what we want in a partner, so much as what we want of ourselves. As Harville Hendrix notes, “[i}n an unconscious marriage, you believe the way to have a good marriage is to pick the right partner. In a conscious marriage, you realise you have to be the right partner.” Picking a partner on the basis of a ‘checklist’ of attributes forecloses our own ability to adapt and develop, so let’s approach things from the other direction: recognising and cultivating this very ability in ourselves enables us to expand our checklists almost infinitely, and thus opens the space for our selves and our partnerships to grow and flourish in ways that we never could have imagined.