When you choose someone to spend your life with, do you choose someone like you or someone that completes you?

Question

This question is kind of personal... but I was reading this heartwarming story, and this topic came up. It made me think of what was important in life and in a chosen significant other. Would you want someone who you would undoubtably get along with because they shared everything with you, opinions and insights? Or would you want your opposite, to have someone who you can absorb insights and thoughts from, and they can from you? There's that trite saying-- opposites attract. But maybe there's something to that-- that your opposite may complete you, although someone similar to you would probably be easier to get along with...

I'd love to hear your insights on this topic.

aim: taintedreticence

in response to Vicol, and to serve as clarification, when i said complete, i meant.... when you have weaknesses, those are your SO's strengths. Where you have strengths, those are your sig. other's weakness.
If you have someone like you, you'd both share the same weaknesses and strengths, which is nice because you have much in common...
but what if you both were afraid of spiders? who would get rid of them then?

That's what I meant. So if any of you whom have already replied sees this, please change your answer accordingly, if this point of clarification has altered what you originally thought I was asking.

Thanks for all your replies so far though!

BTW-- check back like in a day or so, because I'm going to let this question be voted on.

Answer 1

I couldn't live with someone like me.

Answer 2

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston would be a great novel to read that may help you clarify your query.
In this novel, Hurston depicts a pear tree as an ideal vision of love and fulfillment. As Janie lies under the pear tree thinking about her life, she sees a perfect moment in nature: a bee entering a blossoming flower to extract pollen. Although one can have a traditional gender stereotype of how the female or tree waits placidly for the aggressive male or bee, Hurston portrays something different: “The thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree form root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight”; in other words, love between the tree and the bee is reciprocal. This ideal in the natural world in which the male and female are parallel or complementary to each other, is something what Janie wants to achieve. Throughout the novel, Janie tries to attain this ideal of perfect union by finding someone who she was truly meant to be with and can fulfill her love. Finally, after her second marraige, she finds her true love Tea Cake. Although each person have complete different personalities, they were successful at completing each other. SO what the author is trying to convey in this novel is that---it doesnt matter how similar or different the personality is, the two people are meant to be together, just like the bee and the tree.

Answer 3

As a professional counsellor, I can tell you.....a combination is the nearest you will get to the ideal. Too much of yourself in your partner will lead to some serious conflicts, while at the same time you need some one to complete where you fall short. In other words you must complement each other.
I will leave u with advice that cost hundreds of dollars; Nothing in life is 100%, look at it as 80 20. The 20% is what you will NEVER have out of every situation. Do not chase the 20% and lose the 80%.

There is no "Mr. Right" He is not yet born and his mother to be is dead.

Good luck

Answer 4

Well there is a catch to choosing someone like yourself, first you have to be somewhat happy with yourself and who you are to be with a partner who is like or similar in many ways. I have choosen someone who is like me is some ways but very original in his own ways, he has his own thoughts and insights that are completely different from my own, and I think that makes us stronger in a lot of ways. As an opposite I have done that as well, and it can be painful for someone to point out every flaw because it isnt the way that person is so it must be wrong.So it didn't work. A true relationahip goes beyond opposites or likeness, it is about true compatibility, you have to have a personal likeness to yourself before you can find an opposite of you. You have to know what you are and what you want and what you don't want.At least thats how I look at it.

Answer 5

me and my husband get along well great because we have a lot in common and a lot of differences at the same time, because in a relationship if a couple have no differences at all, it'd make the relationship boring. Where as a couple has similiarities and differences. We share everything, we get along just great, and we respect eachother's differences. The reason why I married my husband because he makes me feel special, and that he's always there for me, he loves me for who I am, and I also love him very much. Me and my husband are very close from the day we met. we have this special feeling that we can't describe when we're together. We share everything with eachother, and also we complete eachother. In love you can have both.

Answer 6

I married someone with a little bit of both. He completes me and he also shares my views, values, opinions and ideals in life. I always joke with him that the reason I married him is because I knew that as long as I lived life with him, every one of my days would be filled with laughter. He has an awesome sense of humor and can make me laugh when I'm down and out, sad, mad, etc. Ofcourse, the fact that I was and still am madly in love had a huge factor, as well.

Answer 7

A boss of mine once told me to never be with someone who "completes" you because you should feel whole without the other person....personally, I think this is a load of crap! How sad would it be to live a life feeling completely satisfied with yourself...you would never need anyone to talk to, be with, or just enjoy the presence of. In my case, opposites most definitely attract. I am to marry my other half entirely and couldn't be more thrilled about it. We are able to share views and visions from each of our unique beings and it works out beautifully. I think it would be quite boring to marry someone just like you...what kind of exctiement could you possibly have in your relationship? Well, those are my thoughts anyway...

Answer 8

I have married a complete angel sent from heaven for me and only me and he is my world. He is kind compassionate caring loving awesome terrific, ect ect ect, I think you get the picture and to be truthful we are completely different in every way shape and form. So i truly believe that you should marry for love and happiness no matter if you are one of the same or completey opposite. It is what your heart tells you is right and if you follow your heart it will lead the way to true happiness. NO MATTER WHAT

Answer 9

for someone to complete you doesn't mean they re the opposite of you sometimes having someone who shares everything with you completes you .. being completed by someone I have found is more of a feeling when your with them a feeling that is hard to describe but there is no way of confusing it for anything other then the truest fullest and most honest love you could ever ever know

Answer 10

My girlfriend isn't like me at all. I don't know whether I could date someone like me- I'm too stubborn and impatient sometimes. But my girlfriend and I, we have some similarities but we have more differences than similarities. We have plenty of arguments dealing with our differences. But we are such a perfect team that I know that I just want someone who completes me.

Answer 11

You chose someone that completes you. If there were two of you...how much fun would that be? Take the rode that is unknown and different!