How much do you have in common with your SO?

When she's "in the mood" we have a lot in common.   

Otherwise not so much other than shared values, religion and goals.  But these are probably the most important for a sustainable relationship. 

I like working on cars.  She wants me to do home improvement projects.  

I have a personal library of over 1000 books.  She thinks I should donate them all to a book sale.  

I like jazz.  She thinks its music for Attention Deficit Disorder adults.

I like going to the sporting clays range.  She likes going shopping for organic vegetables at the local fresh markets.    

On the other hand I think we thrive on keeping each other intellectually challenged.   

We are both fairly right wing.  Her daddy escaped a  Eastern Block communist country so she has zero love for any left wing politics or apologists.  Her gritty understanding of this is probably why I dated her seriously in the first place.  

  She's a doc, I'm an engineer.  We only hang out with people who can keep up with our conversations.   

In reply to jharry3 :

See I'm not so sure that we even have much of the same values, religion and goals in common. I know her version of our end game is vastly different than mine. So we're not really working towards either version and basically turning a blind eye to it. Maybe that'll make us miserable as we get closer to it but for now we're doing alright.

We have very similar values.  Both of us are medical people, nurse and doctor, so talking shop works too.  We both have the same, very rare, blood type. Found out when we went in to get a marriage license.  The clerk thought we were kidding about the blood type thing.

I like old movies, she will not watch a black and white flick.  She is not into sporty cars at all, so she has no interest in driving the Miata, and was kind of pissed when I got the 914, instead of the 911.   Apparently orange and 914 are both ugly, so it is a double whammy.  My grandson has already asked when I am going to give him the 914, and he is 12.  Is it a guy thing, liking 914s?

In reply to Toebra :

I'll take that ugly orange 914 off your hands and end the disagreement for you. 

In reply to ddavidv :

Your mentioning of differences in libidos (and several other similar comments in this thread) reminded me of the video.

Overall, we have a TON in common. 

• Music--the core is identical. I get farther out into the fringes of "weird"; she'll go to more mainstream stuff, but in general we both will pick the same stuff. 
• Religion--both the same religion, same intensity. 
• Food--we actually differ quite a bit on this front, but we both hate bad food (i.e. Applebees) which makes it easy for us. Even if we don't like the same things, we can enjoy the tastes of each other.
• Recreation--fishing, boating, hockey (me), ice skating (her)... We have our own "things" too, but end up doing a lot of the shared ones more. 
• TV shows and movies--pretty similar. 

Since we've been together, she's gotten more conservative and I've gotten more liberal, and we're now pretty close. Or, more precisely, I've lost a party that I can support and she's realized that almost nothing is black and white. I have a habit of researching way deeper into things than she does; she'll read a headline. 
 

Our biggest issues are financial, but even those are small issues. She spends more frivolously (but she is not frivelous); I am a cheapskate. The big one for a long time was that I want to retire early and she couldn't understand that. Well, now she's resigned from her job because it wasn't a good fit anymore. She was able to do that because I have saved like I have--while she may not be on the early retirement train, she is on the "save like you'll retire early" train.

In reply to STM317 :

I do have a target number but my wife has a target age which, wait for it, is 70:

We're ahead of schedule in terms of retirement savings so 70 is ridiculous and is pretty much just her way of saying work until you drop dead berktard.

Total opposites. 

I exist, she doesn't. We make it work somehow.

Maybe we should start a retirement goal thread.

I am four years older than my wife. I will retire first, hopefully at 62 (at least from my current career) and will need her to work a few more years to cover the health insurance gap. I've told her this. She is not thrilled, though she can go to part time at her employer and still retain benefits so I'd be okay with that.

Every year longer you work is one year less you have to enjoy before you die. I plan to take full advantage of whatever my savings allow. Males in my family don't seem to make it to 80, plus the older you get the less you are likely to do that will cost money.

In reply to ddavidv :

I'm hoping to be in the position to retire when I'm 57, so 8 more years.  Although it makes a certain amount of sense for me to retire when I'm 60, as that's when my Air Force Pension/health care kick in.

I'm sure my wife won't be retiring then, which is fine.  I want to be able to enjoy an active life style (biking, skiing, etc) while I still can.  Retiring when I'm 70 won't allow that.

In reply to Nick Comstock :

We agree on the big stuff: Politics, Kids, Money, Lack of Religion, Steelers. We actually agree on everything else as well (laundry, general amount of house cleaning required, time management, priorities), but I feel like if you have the big stuff covered, the rest is easy.