I’ve found an element that is crucial to a couple's compatibility that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else.  Physics.

The insight came when a close friend died and I asked my partner if she could have married him.  She asked me the same question about my friend’s wife.  We both answered ‘No’ and came to the same conclusion.  The reason for Our mutual compatibility was the same reason for our incompatibility with our married friends.

My friend and his wife are klutzes.  They can’t connect a TV set to the cable system, can’t assemble the simplest appliance or use their new cell phones.  

Some people are good at manipulating the physical world, hammering, sawing, attaching and detaching and others are not.  From our experience the reason for this effectiveness in dealing with the physical world has to do with their understanding of physics.

Humans develop a physical sense of the world.  What is hard, what is pliable and what is similar. That view shapes how people manipulate the world and how they direct workers around them to manipulate the world. 

I never recommended my best hired workers to my friend and his wife because they could not distinguish a hard job from an easy one and they would complain about the work done by a worker whether it was excellent or shoddy.  Neither of them could give good directions to get a job done, whether for a plumbing problem or putting a new lock on a door.

This view of the world seems to me to be a key element in sexual partnerships.  We know that smell, cleanliness, money views and countless other prominent issues are part of compatibility and are what counts when sexual attraction wears off.  I just want to add the physical view of the world to the list of compatibility issues. 

 Just a note for marriage counselors and people who counsel couples before marriage. Check on whether one or both are ‘handy’ with tools.