Family Values

My life experience has both confirmed and refuted the conventional wisdom claiming that opposites attract. Putting aside the initial attraction piece, I've met many couples with opposite temperaments that appear to get along very well and others who are miserable. Some couples with widely divergent interests seem to make that work, others, not so much.

But how many successful partnerships have you come across where the two people have opposite values? How would you fare in a relationship like that? Not everyone in my family shares the values that underpin my worldview. In fact, more than a few of those values are diametrically opposed. But I don't live with any of them and the values I hoped to pass onto my daughter, embodying my hope for a better world, are values her mother and I share. I have difficulty imagining it having been any other way.

I've known several people who have let differing values destroy their family of origin relationships. The stability those relationships give my life is too important to allow that to happen. I choose to remain attached to the opposites in my family. At the same time, I'm also grateful my values have always been, and remain to this day, closely aligned with my partner of thirty nine years.