Compatibility
Compatibility appears in what we find pleasant to share: “This person likes the same things I do.” It can rest on present tastes and also on habits learned while growing up.
Perhaps we both come from families that gave importance to art, culture, intellectual development, or sports. Perhaps we grew up in similar socioeconomic conditions or learned similar ways of making decisions. Sharing those references makes the meeting easier: there are matters we hardly need to explain.
We can recognize those references in very concrete questions. How was sexuality treated in our families? Did our parents express their affection in public, or did we almost never see signs of affection between them? Was money talked about openly, or were financial matters hidden? Were decisions made by mutual agreement, or did a single person run the life of the household?
The habits and rituals shared by a community, a country, a religion, or a social group also have an influence: celebrations, customs, and that way of doing things we feel as our own. That is where expressions like “in my family,” “in our community,” or “in our country” come from.
These unspoken agreements can make us feel we are a “normal” couple. The word actually reveals how much the relationship resembles what we learned to recognize as familiar. By recognizing that origin, you can ask yourself which customs you want to keep and which need a conversation with your partner.
Complementarity
In inventory 1, complementarity is related to the image of the ideal partner. We may want what we lacked in childhood or look for an experience different from the one that caused us pain.
If one of our parents was absent, we may especially value presence and availability. If there was infidelity, we may give a central place to faithfulness and to keeping what was agreed. If we grew up near addiction, mistreatment, or physical or emotional abuse, it is understandable that we want a relationship in which those experiences are not repeated.
When describing our ideal partner, we sometimes put more emphasis on what they must not do than on what we would like to build together. The image is organized around what hurt us.
However, what we want and what we choose do not always match. We may feel drawn to a relationship that reproduces a familiar dynamic and, at the same time, hope that this time it will end differently. Asking ourselves what we expect to change this time lets us review our choices, rather than attributing them to luck, karma, or destiny.
Fairy tales and some movies feed the hope that any difficulty will be resolved in the end: the beast will turn into a prince, the frog into a princess, differences will disappear, and whoever did harm will change thanks to love. That promise can stay with us even when everyday life offers signs we need to pay attention to.
Incompatibility
The same aspects that create affinity can become sources of tension when they were learned differently. What one family considers fundamental may seem secondary to the other. This happens with beliefs, values, socioeconomic conditions, and everyday customs.
Think about money. In one family it may have gone mainly to food, housing, and education; in another, it may also have been used to display social standing. When two people form a couple, those priorities can come into conflict if each person considers it obvious that their own criterion is the right one.
Something similar happens with emotions. In our family, were we allowed to express love, anger, sadness, or fear? Or did we learn to hide and ignore them? What is sincerity for one person may be an uncomfortable exposure for their partner; what one person understands as prudence, the other may experience as distance.
How disagreements were handled matters too. Perhaps in one home the parents talked behind closed doors and waited for tempers to cool, while in the other conflicts were argued out at the top of their voices, in front of the whole family. When they meet, the two people may reproduce those learned forms without understanding their partner’s reaction.
Cultural differences call for the same attention. In some settings reserve is valued; in others, a more open expression of affection. The protocols of so-called “good manners” are not identical across all social groups either. When we take our own custom to be universal, it is easy to conclude that something is wrong with the other person, their family, or their community.
When a custom puzzles you, you can ask how that matter was lived in your partner’s family. Their answer may show you something you had never needed to explain in yours.
Four possible kinds of interaction
When comparing those factors in two charts I use four terms: compatibility, complementarity, incompatibility, and no relation.
Compatibility
I call compatibility the aspects associated with affinity, attraction, and the pleasure of sharing. Its expression is emotional: we enjoy each other’s company and find things we like doing together.
These meeting points have value even when there are conflicts. They remind us that the bond also holds pleasant experiences and spaces both of us want to return to.
Complementarity
Complementarity appears when a difference awakens attraction. The saying “opposites attract” expresses it. I once heard Germán Rosas say, paraphrasing a couples therapist: “differences bring them together and differences drive them apart.”
If I say little and am shy, I may feel drawn to an expressive, outgoing person. At first I admire how easily they approach others. Over time, however, that same trait may bother me if I expect them to change and behave like me.
The difference that brought us together needs a place in the relationship. On a work team we can value someone doing easily what we find hard. That possibility exists in a couple too, although expectations and emotions make it harder to accept.
The conflict sharpens when we believe our way of doing things is the only right one. Then we stop seeing how we complement each other and start judging what is different as a mistake the other person has to correct.
Incompatibility
I call incompatibility the factors whose interaction produces discomfort, rejection, or a lack of harmony. It can appear in one or several of the six levels and feel like a persistent noise in the relationship.
Think about mobility. In this system, a predominance of Hydrogen is associated with quick reactions, a taste for activity, and a desire for movement. A person with that tendency may want to head out early on weekends and make the most of the day with physical activities. If their partner has a predominance of Water, they may prefer to rest, keep an unhurried pace, and spend the weekend at home.
Each is trying to meet a different need. The tension grows when the judgments begin, along with the demand that the other person adopt the same pace. The nagging starts: “You’re so slow,” “You’re always rushing around,” “You never like going out,” “You prefer your friends,” “You’re boring,” or “All you care about is work.”
The same can happen with the way someone eats, talks, or caresses. The remarks repeat until a large part of the time together is spent pointing out what bothers us. The difference stops being something to talk about and becomes a disqualification of the person.
At the start of a relationship we tend to overlook some incompatibilities, from both inventory 1 and inventory 2. We may think that, over time, the other person will change and everything will be fine. Talking about those differences from the beginning helps tell the possible agreements apart from the changes we are merely waiting for the other person to make.
No relation
In a chart comparison, some factors make no contact with those of the other person. I call this absence of interaction between specific factors “no relation.”
The term refers to those points of the comparison. To understand the whole bond, we also need to consider the contacts that do appear and the way the two people live their relationship.
Looking at your own history
- What custom from my family did I take as obvious, only to discover that my partner lived it differently?
- What difference attracted me at the beginning that I now complain about? What has changed in what I expect of it?
Take those questions into concrete situations. A conversation about what happened yesterday can show more than a general label about what each of you is like. With that history in mind, you can approach the astrological profiles and ask yourself what they help you recognize in the person you love.