The Opposites Attract And There Is A Reason For That

I just heard a sentence that made my brain spin around and my head move like a surprised puppy when you start talking to him as if he was a human being. I bet you all heard it before: Opposites attract. It’s been known and believed in forever – people are attracted to each other because they’re so different from each other. It creates this huge passion; this strong force that makes the first phase of the relationship so fascinating (well, the first phase of a couple’s relationship is especially fascinating anyway). But then, of course, when time passes by and this first phase is gone, the relationship evolves and moves on to the second phase, not necessarily the preferable one. Some couples are able to keep up that initial passion going and their relationship is on fire, but there are also couples that just start disliking each other and eventually will end up in “I hate you” valley.

Why would they go to such extreme? I used to think it’s a natural way to go, and I thought to myself: “Well, obviously, they’ll be crazy about each other, but when the first phase is gone, it’d naturally have to die”. I didn’t believe that it could last. I just always thought the opposites are good but only for a bit. Someone once told me: “You should be in a relationship with someone who is similar to you because there’s nothing worse than being with someone who is the opposite of you when you get older.” And I believed that to be true until now, that is until I heard a sentence that totally blew me away. I just heard a recent interview of Tony Robbins where he said: “The things that attract us so much in another person are usually the features we lost or we’ve never developed within”. This was an absolute revelation for me. And although the reasons for that vary what really attracts us in the other person are features we want to reclaim in ourselves, the features we are unconsciously lacking!  
I never looked at it that way!

So now that we’ve learned this interesting theory, what would be the practical understanding for the couples who got attracted to each other based on their differences at the first place? There are two directions that this can resolve into.  The first one, which I used to think is the ultimate solution, would be to break up, because these opposites will start building a wall amongst them. And why are they really breaking up, we may ask? It’s not because they’re so different, it’s because one of the sides wasn’t able to reclaim those features that he or she desired so much. Let’s say you like to go out and work a lot and your partner likes to spend time at home and knows how to relax, so your secret (as I said – often unconscious) desire is to reclaim those features within. It doesn’t mean that from now on you’ll become a homey and you’ll stop working. It just means you’ll work less and you’ll learn that relaxing (also at home) is an amazing thing to do and that it will actually help you at work too. And it also doesn’t mean you have to be like your partner now. It only means that if you don’t learn some of those features from your partner, you have the greater chances your relationship will fall apart. At some point, you’ll notice that the things you loved so much in your partner at the beginning, are irritating the hell out of you now. The truth is that you are not angry at him, but at yourself and that you weren’t able to get there!

And then, as I just learned, there is also the other way this can go. If you notice that your partner embodies those opposite traits that you don’t have, don’t reject them, but rather think if those are not the features you ultimately would love to reclaim in yourself. If so, admit first to yourself, use your partner as inspiration and then start working on it! If you can do that, then your relationship can become stronger and eventually – extraordinary, because you would learn to love each other for who you really are.

It’s all up to you, if you’re willing to admit the things you need and if you’re willing to work on it in order to get what you really (unconsciously) desire.