Last week in the New York Times, Erica Berry addressed the issue of relationship dealbreakers. For her, climate change is one. A partner who supports her interest, but doesn’t share it, isn’t good enough:
When I brought up global warming, he’d often try to comfort me: to wrap me in a hug, cue up an old episode of “Seinfeld,” offer a CBD gummy. I struggled to tell him that I didn’t need anesthesia or answers, I just wanted a relationship where we shared more of the same inquiries. . . . After all, it is hard to fall in love with a person if we are not also falling in love with the future we want to create together.
On my list of dealbreakers is “supplies CBD gummies when I’m sad,” but nonetheless, Berry has a point. Increasingly, spouses tend to hold the same moral, social, or political views, which makes sense. It’s not shallow to draw hard lines on certain convictions.
Black Lives Matter, green initiatives, and Stop Asian Hate are all topics Gen Zers consider to be dealbreakers (ostensibly — who knows if young people would actually break up with each other over carbon emissions). It’s helpful to bring up questions about matters that are important to you on a first date. There’s no guarantee you’ll agree, but it’s good to know where someone stands.
In the dating realm, cultural issues are, in many cases, hills to die on. Abortion, transgenderism, and race issues are topics that matter, for both sides. They’re difficult subjects to address in modern relationships, as hookup culture necessitates detachment from serious questions. Casual relationships, especially ones with sex as their hallmark, don’t need debate, agreement, or intellectual compatibility to survive. It’s a different story when you want to find a partner to grow old with.
There’s a good case that nonphysical dealbreakers should be relationship deterrents. More singles ought to consider intellectual and spiritual values in the same way they consider physical attraction or compatibility.
Why wait months (or years) to ask questions about where a potential partner stands on important issues? A checklist of convictions — subjects on which it’s important to you that your partner shares your point of view — can be useful as a guide. And then there are other questions: Are you willing to date someone of a different faith? Is it important that your partner is family-oriented?
There’s nothing wrong with having convictions and wanting your lifetime partner to share them. Of course, there are many happy marriages in which spouses live on opposite sides of the political aisle. For them, it’s probably equally important to ask these questions — if not to agree, at least to discuss respectfully.