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Predicting Relationship success: The science behind Personality Pairs

Any couple can choose to stay together. But most of us want more. We want to feel happy with our person. So the question is, are some relationships doomed to misery, and others primed to succeed?

The answer may surprise you. Yes, we are hardwired to attract and get along with some people more than others. But we are also hardwired with tools that make it possible to forge new and evolving relationship pathways and expand relationship potential. This hardwiring is the foundation of human personality.

Every human being is born with a Personality Triad that includes three distinct personality types which operate as toolboxes to help us survive and thrive in life. Of the three personality types in our triad, one functions as our Core Personality while the two others take on the role of Bodyguards. The Bodyguard Personalities serve as backup to the Core Personality when the Core Personality feels mismatched to what life demands from us in that moment.

The toolbox that is our Core Personality has the greatest influence on whether or not we feel compatible with someone. When our core personality feels unconditionally accepted by someone, we feel compatible with them. When our core personality does not feel unconditionally accepted by someone, we do not feel compatible with them.

Figuring out whether or not we feel compatible with someone can take time. Feeling attracted to someone, or even in love with them, can happen in an instant. The key to managing the complexities of relationship lies in our particular personality triad.

Within every triad, there is one Explorer personality toolbox, one Changemaker personality toolbox, and one Connector personality toolbox. The Explorer toolbox is in charge of how we love. The Changemaker toolbox is in charge of how we approach anything we want to change. And the Connector toolbox is in charge of how we connect to the world.

Each of these personality toolbox categories (Explorer, Changemaker and Connector) can be a Social Personality, an Ideas Personality, or a Physical Personality.

For two people in a relationship, it is the interaction between their individual Explorer Personalities that determines their love experience. It is the interaction between their individual Changemaker Personalities that determines how they work out conflict. And it is the interaction between their individual Connector Personalities that determines whether or not their lifestyles align.

From the moment we are born, individuality develops as our Core and Bodyguard Personalities keep learning from and responding to one another within our ever-changing environment.

Understanding these living dynamics that are forever in motion is the key to predicting whether a relationship will feel sustainable. It is also key to creating empowering relationship stories that are as rich in drama as they are successful.

There is a common perception that any reality tv couple not on the verge of a break up must think they are better than everyone else, and will never be as interesting to watch. It seems that we have no choice but to accept that there can be no drama without trauma.

But once we understand where relationship drama actually comes from, we can dig into it without requiring cast members to pay with their mental health. Regardless of how well matched a couple is, relationship drama will play out in the push and pull that is integral to the interaction between two people, each with their own personality triad wired for adapting to outside influences.

Romance reality entertainment delivers the bold drama of people in the process of discovering each other and finding their way in uncharted relationship territory. But current entertainment trends risk compromising the well-being of unscripted talent in the belief that such risk is essential to creating tantalizing stories.

Bringing the science of Personality into view can open new doors to telling intensely dramatic stories, flipping our dependence on unscripted crisis and trauma that takes its toll on real people’s lives.