Maintaining an Important Relationship When Values Aren't Shared

A young man who was raised evangelical Christian checks himself into an inpatient rehab center where he encounters the most kind, loving, insightful people he has met, some of whom happen to be gay. This experience forces him to question everything about the way he was raised and eventually leave the church of his entire family. A woman whose career and passion has been as a liberal immigration attorney finds herself with a teenage son who is ardently anti-immigrant and supports Trump’s calls to build a wall across our border and ban immigrants from certain countries. A young adult who is vegan, has deep compassion for animals, and works at a farm animal rescue has a twin sister who refuses to eat a meal that doesn’t have meat in it.

If we are dating or making new friends, we can pick and choose whom we become intimate with. We can decide which values are most important to us and create close relationships with people who share those values. But sometimes we find ourselves in intimate relationships with people we didn’t “choose” who have dramatically different values than we do, forced to make painful and difficult choices about how to navigate those relationships or even whether or not to remain in them at all.

Source: Samantha Smithstein

Defining "Values"

The Oxford Dictionary defines values as “a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.” By this definition, our values are not just ideas or thoughts—they are expressions of who we are, how we see the world, and how we believe one should behave in it. When someone we love and are deeply attached to doesn’t share our fundamental core values, it’s both deeply painful and immediately alienating. It’s painful because we feel it to be a personal rejection, and it’s alienating because it has meaning—it means that we do not find the same things important and/or we don’t hold ourselves to the same standard.

The vegan animal rights activist whose twin eats meat with every meal is not just faced with a sister who has different dietary habits—the sister does not feel the same way about animals or the earth. She doesn’t share the same level of compassion toward nonhuman animals, nor does she care as deeply about the environment. She does not believe her behaviors should be oriented toward concern toward either one. They are both making choices about their eating habits based on what they believe is important, and it differs dramatically.

Sometimes this distance in values can be too much to bridge. A child who feels unloved by their parents because the parent rejects their gender or sexual orientation may find it too painful to remain in that relationship. In cases such as this, people feel forced to give the relationship up. But if we are determined not to lose the relationship completely, we are left with the task of trying to figure out how to navigate a relationship that is both deeply important and alienating at the same time, with someone we love but don’t fully like—someone who believes and behaves in ways that are deeply personally painful to us and go against our fundamental core values.

How to Deal With Our Differences

Figuring out how to navigate such relationships is not easy, and each relationship must find its own way, over time. But there are some things we can do to try to help deal with the differences and possibly bridge the gap.

1. Talk things over—properly. Listen to what each other has to say. Don’t just wait for your turn to speak, but listen well, reflect on what’s said, and speak it back in your own words. When you share your values, speak calmly, openly, and honestly. Don’t attack the other person; simply stick to what you believe and feel (e.g., using “I think/feel...”). It may be that, after talking things through, you realize you aren’t quite as opposed as you thought—or that each of you relaxes your view a little. But, even if that doesn’t happen, at least you will understand each other as fully as you can, which, in and of itself, creates some connection. At a minimum, it creates surer footing from which to move forward.
2. Try to see where they’re coming from. You may be able to understand the other’s opinion better if you try to understand the reasons behind it. Perhaps they grew up in a very different environment or received a different kind of education from you. Maybe they’ve been influenced by family members or friends. And it may be worth doing the same for your own opinion—it can be helpful to understand where your own values came from. Knowing these things about each other can help provide compassion for the other and help their stance feel less like a personal attack.
3. Find the common ground. Even if your ideas are different, it’s likely that you agree on certain key things—because we are all human, it’s possible but unlikely we’re completely opposed to someone on every level. Don’t just focus on the differences at play: Recognize that there are plenty of areas in which you have common ground, too. It is through these areas you might be able to still connect to the other.
4. Don’t force things. It isn’t healthy—or even possible—to try to impose your beliefs on another person. In fact, having different opinions can be healthy and interesting if they are workable. You may want to think in terms of embracing your differences—consider seeing them as positives rather than potential sources of friction.
5. Are they right (or at least partially so)? It isn’t always easy to accept that someone might have things closer to the mark than we do, but it’s a sign of true maturity to consider the possibility. In addition, it may not be an all-or-nothing proposition. Perhaps the two of you can concede to parts of what the other believes or find common ground within both opposing viewpoints.
6. Know your boundaries. That said, it is important to figure out how different is too different. If the things that you and the other are disagreeing on are fundamentally important to each of you, and you aren’t likely to be able to find a compromise, common ground, ways to navigate it respectfully, or compassion for each other, this will undoubtedly affect things in the future.

Differences in core values can be powerfully challenging to navigate in any relationship; in an important attachment relationship, that’s especially true. When the young man decides to leave the Evangelical church of his family, he does so because he feels he can no longer be a part of a group that condemns the people he loves for who they are. His family feels rejected and abandoned—that he no longer shares beliefs they have held for their entire lives. Bridging gaps such as these can feel incredibly daunting and, ultimately, may be insurmountable. And if the differences are deal-breakers, the relationship may have to be dramatically less intimate than either party would like. Or it may even have to end.

That said, it’s also possible that differences can be navigated—if there is a way to meet in the middle, move forward with compassion, or find connection in spite of the distance. Either way, in a relationship in which there is love and attachment, the effort itself will likely create learning and growth regardless of the outcome, and the efforts will create a future with fewer regrets.