There are several ways we make mate choices. One way is to look for mates who complete us. If you are shy and a potential mate is outgoing, you might seek that person out. You might think that each of you would complete the other.
In their book Build the Life You Want, Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey call this complementarity. They say relationships need some compatibility but “really need ... complementarity to complete you as a person.” Introverts need extroverts. They say there is more conflict with alike mates.
In the 1950s, Robert Francis Winch learned by interviewing couples that the "happiest couples tend to round out each other’s personality.” More recently, in 2006, Figueredo, Sefcek, and Jones’ research found that we “wind up pursuing long-term relationships with people who are different from us.”
My clinical work indicates that mates often engage in an unconscious process and search out mates who complete them in a twosome. Later on, they may have increased conflict, break ups and divorce. Why?
Each person admires traits that they lack but find helpful in the other person. “How I wish I could........