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Couples

People use their various strategies when they approach anything new. Sometimes ‘the new thing’ is another person – who will also be using a range of strategies. The various strategies begin to interact – and the result is the infinite variety of human interactions.

From this complexity of interactions, patterns still emerge – and one instructive place to observe them is in one-to-one relationships that become long-term stable partnerships.

All kinds of long-term stable partnerships are possible, and they all have their own unique dynamics – but in contemporary western culture, the most common form to emerge by far is between two people of adjacent types: two people with neighboring home bases.

This ‘adjacent pairs’ phenomenon is especially evident in couples who meet in their late teens or in their twenties. In contemporary western culture, young adults in particular have a certain set of assumptions about the intimacy, compatibility, and complementarity they expect to find in a one-to-one relationship. ‘Romantic bonding’ of this particular youthful and idealistic kind tends to flourish between two people of adjacent types – and this pairing then has a good track record for helping them ‘stay the course’ as a long-term stable partnership.

The ‘adjacent pairs’ phenomenon is all about balancing compatibility with complementarity. Two people of the same type could spend too much time stepping on each other’s toes – finding it difficult to share the same space, and having relatively little to add to each other’s lives. Two people too distant from each other might have too little in common: they may not ‘understand’ each other; they might not make that ‘special connection.’ Adjacent types appear to be ‘the perfect match’ for creating a strong and intimate bond that can nourish both partners – balancing compatibility with complementarity.

The ‘adjacent pairs’ phenomenon is so common that it becomes a powerful tool in helping to discern someone’s type. If you know two people in a long-term stable partnership – especially one founded in young adulthood in our contemporary western culture – you almost certainly have two people of adjacent types: you have a ONE-TWO couple, or a TWO-THREE couple, or a THREE-FOUR couple, or a FOUR-FIVE couple, or a FIVE-SIX couple, or a SIX-SEVEN couple, or a SEVEN-EIGHT couple, or an EIGHT-NINE couple, or a NINE-ONE couple. As with just one person, you have nine possibilities – but with two people in the partnership, you have twice as many clues.

No relationship is entirely straightforward – and there are two great ways for ‘adjacent pair’ couples to row. One is to swap places – not difficult as each partner’s type is a wing of the other’s. Each leans over so far to see the other’s point of view on some issue that they actually pass each other and swap places. Each feels very generous for taking a stance according to the other’s usual priorities, and so is greatly frustrated to find that the other now seems to have moved. The other great way to row is for each partner to move to the wing the other partner does not share. This leaves the couple a long way apart, and almost certainly unable to communicate – unable to understand each other. Recognizing in each case that this is what is going on can make it all much less frightening – and much easier to avoid.

One of the confident assertions of contemporary culture is that it is always good to talk things through. This may well be true in structured organizations, governed according to logical written rules – but it will often not be true for an ‘adjacent pair’ couple. Unless they are both in the head zone – the home of logic and words – the best solution is often to say nothing at all. Heart types and gut types are reconciled more easily by a kiss and an embrace and a bit of romance – because words are not the way that they communicate. An excellent piece of alternative advice is this classic: ‘when you are wrong, say so; when you are right, say nothing.’ Of course, if two people as a couple really have lost their way, it may help to have some assisted rational head type analysis of what is going on – in their heads, and in their hearts, and in their gut reactions – but day by day outside the head zone, most communication happens in different ways.

Finally on the ‘adjacent pairs’: some relationships flounder because people meet, apparently as adjacent types, when one of them is actually away from home base at their stress or security point. After what seems like a perfectly stable beginning, one partner seems to pull away from all that the couple held in common. It’s that break-up cliché – ‘I needed to find myself’ – and that is exactly what the person is doing: leaving the stress or security point, and therefore the basis of the relationship, and going on a journey to find home base again. It has actually been the relationship that has helped them and resolved the stress – as the person leaving will often testify at the tearful farewell. Other couples who find themselves in this situation eventually learn to understand each other again: for a while, they may seem like strangers to each other, but their lives are intertwined, and years spent at a stress or security point remain a part of who we are: there is always hope and new potential.

There are two other recognizable patterns in long-term stable partnerships – though neither is as common as the ‘adjacent pair.’

The first is the partnership between individuals whose home bases are diametric opposites on the board. Each is one of the other’s opposite or ‘wannabe’ types. Individuals in these partnerships are full of admiration for each other, rejoicing in their very difference – their complementarity. Partners meeting later in life often form such partnerships and grow together ‘in all three zones.’ There is more of a sense of choice and reflection about forming the relationship – even formality rather than ‘inevitability’ in the choosing – and the couple live and grow together and delight in each other on that basis. There may be times when they do not understand each other, but admiration and generosity and forbearance see them through.

And the other recognizable form of partnership has some features of the ‘opposites’ partnership and some features of the ‘adjacent pairs’ partnership. It is the partnership between individuals whose home bases are at either end of a stress and security path – such as a ONE-SEVEN couple. The shared link along the stress and security path creates features like those in an ‘adjacent pair’ relationship – but the physical distance across the board creates features like those in an ‘opposites’ relationship. The result is often a sparky but very committed relationship: creative, complementary, and admiring – and able to clash and forgive.

There must be many other types of committed partnership out there, but these three do emerge regularly and distinctively in our culture from among the potentially limitless patterns of human interaction.

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