Is compatibility that important?

FOR aeons, the issue of being compatible with a partner for the success of a relationship has always been stressed.

And you’ll hear things like, “make sure you click”, “look for how well you gel together”, and “when it’s the one, you’ll just know”.

But despite the continuous emphasis placed on compatibility, when actively searching for a partner, is it that vital to the success of a union?

Dr Karen Carpenter, clinical sexologist and author of Love & Sex: The Basics, told All Woman ‘yes’, but says it depends on the purpose of the union.

“It is important if you want a romantic, sexual relationship. Not everybody gets married or gets together for a romantic sexual relationship,” she said. “Some of us want security, some want children, some aren’t very interested in sex, and so for those people it wouldn’t be as important as for someone who wants their relationship to be romantic.”

With regards to compatibility in a romantic relationship, Dr Carpenter said if this is lacking, the relationship is over before it started.

“The shelf life of that relationship would be very short as far as a romantic relationship is concerned,” she said.

Instead, she said the two parties involved could have a marvellous friendship for their entire lifetime.

“There are people who are friends all their lives, but they wouldn’t have a romantic relationship. If both partners want a friendship where they bring up children, buy property, secure the future, among other things, then they don’t need sexual compatibility for that. It’s only in a romantic relationship that you need this,” Dr Carpenter stated, while pointing out that most modern couples want a romantic relationship, so compatibility to them would be important.

Many people have been placed in relationships and were told that they will develop compatibility for each other, but Dr Carpenter said this is mere rubbish.

“You cannot develop sexual compatibility. We have to define sexual compatibility. It is having similar libidos, in other words, how much you want sex and how much I want sex are similar. Also, how often we want sex is important. What sex means to us is very, very important – the most important factor, because if sex means reproduction for you and adventure for me, we’re not going to have a reproductive adventure.

“[In this regard] once you get pregnant you’re not going to want anymore sex. That happens a lot in relationships where one partner is focused on childbearing and once the woman is pregnant, she’s not interested in sex again. What the person does is to display a lot of interest in sex while they’re trying to get pregnant, and the other partner mistakes it for them having a high libido and gets involved with them. As soon as the children come along, sex dies,” Dr Carpenter stated.

And as it relates to Christian couples who ought to abstain from sex until marriage, Dr Carpenter said there are ways of finding out if you’re sexually compatible without having sex, but it takes a professional to help you through those stages.

“I do see mature best friend couples. By mature I mean breaking the rules. They are virgins who come prior to marriage to see things that they need to know about each other sexually, and so you need a guided discussion around the areas that are important to the sexual experience,” she said.

“You also need to know how far they’ve gone. Some only pet from the waist up and some people pet below the waist. Some people have oral sex, some people only kiss. So depending on the couple, I would have to help them through different stages of the sex cycle.”

She also said that when discussing compatibility, it is important to explore what will happen when children come into play.

Dr Carpenter said Christian couples usually get pregnant soon after marriage as they see that institution as a place for sex and many churches don’t support birth control.

“If they do so, they do so sort of covertly. They don’t out and out say ‘yes’, we believe in using contraception, and many couples are unsure whether or not it is allowed by their faith,” she said.

She stressed that it is important to first establish the purpose of the relationship, then examine whether or not sexual compatibility is vital before proceeding.