Every partnership has its differences. One person is Democrat, the other Republican. One person loves dogs, the other cats. One person is Christian, the other atheist.

If you spend your life denouncing the other as evil and worthless, your relationship will not last very long.

How do you learn to respect the other point of view, and reconcile a peaceful "agree to disagree" serenity?

Don't do it here. It will not work.

How to get reconciliation & serenity, when you disagree on fundamental issues? With difficulty, I would say.

Denouncing each other as 'evil and worthless'? ~ Over politics, religion or pets?!? Who would do that?

I knew that I couldn't cope with being married to someone religious, or a smoker, or someone who didn't have the same kind of education as I had. I just knew that for a relationship to work, we would need to have certain things in common.

Perhaps I was ~ and am ~ just lucky. (Not that we agree on everything ~ certainly not! Especially not music, I would say.)

Oh dear, what a topic for me!

My husband is a Christian, Haitian, psychologist, and soft-spoken.

I'm an Atheist, Italian, Theologian, and fairly crass. Also prone to drinking and smoking and other things the hubbie does not approve of.



A LOT of talking. And I mean a lot. We could discuss it all day long and seem to come to a consensus and be happy about our differences and madly in love, but the key is to always talk about it. Always. We're always saying communication is key, because it is. The day we don't communicate is the day we end. Communication has been so so so hard. Especially when I'm crass, impatient, and extremely stubborn. But we push to talk, and I fight to communicate every thought I can and how we can reconcile our differences.

Thus far, it's been great!

What though if someone denounces the other person's goals as worthless, though? What if one person has a goal and a dream, and the other person feels it is rubbish? Can a relationship thrive in that situation?

I should add that I'm very fortunate right now in that Bob is generally gung ho in helping me on any project I set my mind to. So for example I am getting my degree at Northeastern, and he drove me into Boston, stayed with me during the orientation, and so on. He proactively helped me with everything.

When I wanted to learn to play guitar, he did all the research, found a beautiful, perfect guitar for me to learn on, and did all the contacts with the seller too.

I'm very grateful that he is so actively supportive of the things I choose to do in life. I try to return that emotion, to encourage him to play golf when it's sunny, to go with him to darts and be cheerful and friendly to all the team members. I make origami for them all, and do DJ service with my iPod and boombox.

That sounds like a thoughtful tradeoff, Lisa.

I know Dan and I have trouble finding things we both enjoy doing. When we tend to do things together it's more like going for a hike (mostly for me), going with him to a sportsbars to watch the Lakers (mostly for him), or watching a series we both enjoy together on netflix (for both of us). We also both enjoy going to a bookstore, gardening together, and building things.

There are things we WON'T do with each other - he won't visit wineries with me, visit a new town, or go thrift shopping. I am not into watching the programs he enjoys about history, TED, or on the Discovery channel (I would rather read).