Experts Say These 3 Rare Compatibilities Are What Make Love Really Last

Choose your own recipe for relationship success.

Last updated on May 14, 2023

Compatible couple in love. Yan Krukau | Pexels
Advertisement

There are certain ingredients that, when tossed together into the pot of relationships, enable you to whip up a succulent stew of romance. To that end, we surveyed a panel of YourTango Experts to find an answer to the question, "What are the rare ingredients that couples need to be compatible?" Oddly, none of them mentioned quantum physics but their insightful responses below will get you cooking.

Advertisement

Here are 3 rare compatibilities that make love really last according to experts:

1. Opposite (but complementary) character traits

The secret to making a life-long match is finding a partner with an opposite temperament: for example, impulsive and controlled, or easy-going and anxious.

Rachel Greenwald, matchmaker training professor, the Love MBA

2. A smorgasbord of strong interpersonal connections

Compatible couple shares connection Westock Productions via Shutterstock

Advertisement

The recipe for a truly compatible couple is a special one. It requires a dash of love, a pinch of respect, a sprinkle of trust, and a heaping helping of patience. Oh, and don't forget a good sense of humor and a willingness to compromise. Mix it all together with care, and you'll have a recipe for a long-lasting, happy relationship.

Clare Waismann, M-RAS/SUDCC II, founder of the Waismann Method and Domus Retreat

RELATED: 11 Rare Signs You Have A Special Connection With Your Partner

3. The ability and willingness to heal one another

We know we need to find someone with common interests and values, but what is equally important is to find someone whose trauma is compatible with your trauma.

Advertisement

People are often told they need to heal before they can find love. This is completely unrealistic because most of us are in a perpetual state of healing. Life is full of things that hurt us. Finding someone who isn’t healing from something is unrealistic but finding someone whose trauma is compatible with your trauma will escalate your healing process.

If I grew up with parents who were never there I might have insecurities and abandonment issues. I might often lean on my partner and come across as a bit needy. But perhaps my partner lost their mother to cancer and felt helpless. Maybe showing up to comfort his partner helps him to heal the part of himself that couldn’t show up for his mother.

We can heal each other when our trauma is compatible. Likewise, if I grew up with an overbearing mother who constantly needed me to help her in some way It might be my own personal torment to end up with someone needy.

Erika Jordan, love coach, NLP practitioner

Advertisement

RELATED: 5 Ways Long-Term Couples In Healthy Relationships Stay Happy, According To Research

Let's talk about particle physics

Night sky and silhouette contemplate physics and love AstroStar via Shutterstock

Wait, what? You thought this was an article about compatibility in a love relationship, didn't you? And you're right. It is.

Advertisement

But, what's a stew without a little math-fueled heat? It's nothing but cold soup, that's what. And when it comes to particle physics and love, nothing holds a candle to the classic Love Equation derived almost a century ago by British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac, aka Dr. Love.

OK, Dirac was not actually known as Dr. Love. Contemporaneous accounts described him as kind of a stick-in-the-mud. But he did come up with a mathematical formula to represent the interconnectedness of electrons and other quantum particles like quarks (don't ask).

This is his magical, mystical love equation: (i∂+m)Φ=0. It shows without a doubt how electrons continue to influence the actions of other particles — even when they're separated. You see it, right? The simplicity? The profundity? The compatibility of it all?

No? Well, there's a decent chance you have seen that very formula depicted as a tattoo that is supposed to draw a parallel between the concept of quantum entanglement (again, don't ask) and the emotional connection between humans popularly known as romantic love.

Advertisement

Now, if this parallel seems a little sketchy, that's because it is. A quick-and-dirty fact check by the Australian Associated Press debunked the association of Dirac's equation and human love as "essentially nonsense."

That might seem like bad news if you have a Love Equation tattooed somewhere on your body as a symbol of your enduring compatibility with your romantic partner. But listen, so what? The beauty and majesty of romantic love is that it is indefinable. Which means we get to choose our own recipe for success.

RELATED: 5 Habits Of The Grown Adults Who Find Love And Actually Make It Last

Advertisement

Carter Gaddis is a writer and editor who spent 24 years as an award-winning sportswriter for newspapers in Florida and for various online publications, including ESPN, Parenting Magazine, and the St. Petersburg Times.

Loading...