A dream couple

I was having the most wonderful conversation today with a man, a friend, who had asked me what I thought of his wife and him as a couple.

I told him I thought the two of them were perfect together because they complemented each other so well. Whereas he always seemed calm and centered, she was flighty and full of nervous energy. Somehow their two energies just fit together.

But it was more than that, I continued.

After knowing them both for a while, it had become clear to me that underneath his serene veneer, my friend was not at all as calm as he seemed. In fact, his air of quiet assurance was a way to deal with an inner feeling of alarm and nervous worry, whereas his wife was actually quite calm and centered underneath her appearance of nervous energy. And it was on this deeper level that their relationship truly worked well — still as a fitting together of complementary opposites, but not at all in the way one might at first think.

And then I woke up and realized that it had all been a dream — the man, the woman, my long answer to his question, our entire conversation.

Yet as I am thinking about it now, I suspect it wasn’t just a dream. I may simply have been reviewing, in my sleep, the hidden truth about every successful relationship: We are each our own opposite, and we fit best with someone who complements our own contradictory self.

5 thoughts on “A dream couple”

  1. I am new to your blog Ken. In fact this post is the first one that I read and it struck a chord. I will be following your blog regularly now.

    I expected to find a blog on your work on graphics, multimedia, other such related topics, but when I saw this blog post, I must say, I can only see how these two different selves within you complement each other.

    Warm regards
    Sandhya

  2. Ah, yet another topic best discussed in person, over a cup of tea or a glass of wine!

    In brief, I’m sure there’s a lot of truth to your observation. I think distinguishing “opposite” and “complement” might be key. We have opposites within ourselves, but want to look for complementary traits in the other, and not all opposites are complementary. For example, religious vs. non-religious are opposite, but perhaps not complementary, while calm vs. excitable might be both opposite and complementary (it depends). Opposites can be intriguing and a source of growth when things are new or going well, and become irritating and even limiting in times of stress or difficulty, in my experience. I guess the most successful relationships would be both aligned and complementary, if that makes sense.

  3. I would go by the combination of Sandhya and Sharon 🙂

    There are some things I think, that a couple is better off being opposite (I don’t let my kids 10 ft in front away from me, husband let them go far–a block away for example: paranoid vs. relaxed) But I don’t know if I can be married to someone who is not crazy and obsessive enough to play “Civilization” game all night together knowing full well the next business day will be a catastrophe LOL!

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