Let’s be honest. Sharing the exact same interests as your love can get boring. Why not celebrate all your differences in a relationship instead?

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After sorting through an impossible number of qualified, conscious suitors you’ve finally met someone who brings a sense of synergy to your heart and feels like home. While dynamic and unique qualities can be complementary in a relationship, they can also be drastic and challenge us on every level once we discover them. When months of lovers bliss is interrupted by qualities in your partner that began as endearing have since turned into cause for concern, there still may be grounds for celebration.

Instead of running for cover when you realize you are far from similar, here are five reasons to celebrate you partner’s differences.

Complementary Energy Isn’t the Only Energy

When a loving relationship is based on complementary, mutual energy it makes life and love easier. When quirks turn into downright differences, it can make or break a new relationship. The more truths are resisted and covered, the more strained the relationship can be. Change takes courage and learning about a loved one means we agree to leave the safety of the shallows to embark on a soul journey; and this journey travels beyond a rigid approach to learning and growing together.

Mirrors Reflect Our Own Soul Work

When we learn about qualities in another we don’t like, there is a hidden gift in understanding what the circumstance or discovery reflects to us about who we are. Although there is an art to not taking on the issues of our loved ones, there is soul work in just about everything we exchange in a meaningful relationship. There is a gift in seeing an understanding to energy, traits or habits that we don’t like so, why not explore when differences come a-knocking?

Tidy vs. Carefree

So, you travel together or move in only to discover you are complete and total opposites. Ms. Yoga turns out to be Ms. Carefree and Mr. Accepting actually has specific preferences about perfect living and tidiness. Don’t run. You’ve discovered you are opposite. It’s a perfect time to embrace where you differ. Investigate whether or not you’ll allow judgements about being different to destroy the relationship or if those judgements will influence you to commit to making it stronger. The heart and soul swing between perfection and disarray. Maybe people do, too.

Innie vs. Outie

You’ve enjoyed getting to know a new love only to settle into the we’re-officially-together stage, realizing one partner is an innie and prefers to stay inside on long winter days while the other partner is an outie and prefers to be social, even in a super storm. Day-to-day harmony is important, but being in a new partnership means one partner doesn’t decide how life should be for both.

A new relationship can present us with the opportunity to have more depth and variety in daily life that we haven’t yet experienced. It also means that unless we prefer being unmoving about a routine that makes us feel safe and comfortable at the expense of our partner, we can’t insist on life being how it used to before love tapped us on the shoulder.

One Million Styles of Meditation

One man’s symbol of peace is another man’s symbol of confinement. Mindful relationships present an opportunity to learn about new levels of tolerance. Not everyone has the same experience of meditation or spirituality. While some may connect with the divine at ashrams, temples or workshops, others may invoke Spirit through artistry, creativity or music. Building a space where both roads to soulfulness are embraced doesn’t have to be a road less traveled.

Finding harmony under the same roof for opposites can be painfully and wonderfully messy, but the concept of love won’t save us from the human condition of seeking comfort or making a home with a new partner.

Wishing for the effortless connection we experience during the honeymoon stage of dating to never end may mean we are tempted to invest in a stagnant dream. Dreams, like water, wind, fire and earth, change, move and evolve. While there’s no perfect formula to integrate major life changes, sometimes the best approach is to ask for what you need, trust in your soulmate, be who you are and above all else, breathe. The ability to peacefully co-exist happens over time.

[image: via Timothy Marsee on flickr]