True, opposites attract but making it work takes effort

Sometimes opposites attract. Think of those times when women were in the traditional fields of secretarial, teaching, nursing, or librarian were ‘reserved’ for women. Few women ventured into the world of academia computing. Yet our fathers took on all kinds of jobs at all levels of education.

The story was usually that the man was at higher level of education than his mate, often in vastly differing careers. Couples still managed these differences and life went on. In fact, these differences were part of what held them together.

Nowadays, there is so much more diversity in careers. Partners have to become even more supportive. People are finding their opposites in different races, classes, tribes and so on. And it looks like this will only continue to be the case. However, there is the case of the secretary and the banker, the small business owner whose wife is an NGO exec, the journalist wife and the genetic engineer husband or even the hustler woman and her drunken husband. The list goes on and on.

All of these examples point people who are not the same linking up and liking it. Meaning that opposites are attracting and staying in that state of attraction.

"There are two ways of looking at attraction in relationships.

Those who are super compatible and those

who are different from the word go."

Most of us aspire to the former. We all want someone who is very much on our wavelength who will allow our love to come forth and where there is harmony because we are so similar.

If those in this first group had a theme song it would be about how easy love is. The rest of us, the majority, get something different which we can label as, “The challenging but fulfilling relationship.” Each of these types of relationships have something different to teach us.

For the majority, our partners, who we love and who are different from us, force us to remain on our toes. I know we complain that it would be so much easier if we didn’t have to face all these challenges. We all need challenges to grow but as humans we really resist them.

If you look back at your love life, you will find that you were unconsciously drawn to those who are different. These differences forced you to reach within yourself and to constantly seek out love and support from your partner. This is because relationships are also supposed to teach us to become whole through the differences we encounter in our partners.

Being different from your partner forces you to get out of your comfort zone and enter unselfishly into your partner’s life and touch his hearts. So an engineer husband or boyfriend, whatever, who is with a hairdresser is also forced by the strength of the bond to come to her level just as she has to find a way to be there for him.

Relationships have always involved differences in careers. When there were cave men the men hunted and protected and the women ran the home and took care of household matters. Nowadays, the same idea applies but with modifications made to fit the modern age.

In our time the basics are similar but what could be changing for partners in different careers is that now people are much more flexible and have more choices which makes them relate far more differently. This means that the reasons for which women and men come together and stay together have changed.

Originally, it was procreation and necessity while nowadays it is also about matters such as to experience and share love and self-actualisation. If you have a busy life and are in a relationship, you will only achieve self-actualisation if you are pushed to work for it.

Truly, love, contrary to popular opinion, is more than just a bunch of feelings. It is conscious work and effort.