Are you talking about values or virtues?
Most advice on this question focuses on the roles honesty, respect, and loyalty play in a relationship. If you and your partner disagree on any of those, that is serious, but it’s a problem with how you treat each other, not your values. Those are virtues, and nearly every serious couple agrees on them.
Values are different. A value is something you want from life, and each person prioritizes their values differently: family, money, work, where you live, faith, adventure, time with friends. Values are personal choices, not moral imperatives. So when couples ask whether different values can work in the same relationship, they are usually asking something gentler: Can two good people who want somewhat different lives build one together? Very often, the answer is yes.
Which differences matter?
Values Bridge for Couples sorts a couple's values into three colors, and the order tells you where to look first.
- Green, where you meet. The values you both hold, in about the same measure. Start here, always, and remember to celebrate what you share. This is what you protect while you work on the rest.
- Yellow, where you differ and it works. Not every difference is a tension. One person having a value high while the other person has it low can help you run as a team. Just make sure the arrangement is understood and said aloud, rather than resented or ignored. Yellow means watch, not worry.
- Red, where you will negotiate. A value that will keep asking for a real conversation until it gets one. Having values in the red is not a verdict on your relationship. It shows you where your work and attention needs to go.
Same value, different amounts
Sometimes a difference hides inside a shared value. You both value Familycentrism. One of you means Sunday dinner with all the in-laws every week; the other means a close but quiet household with the holidays together. You agree on the value, but differ on the amount. Once you name it, this is often the easiest kind of difference to work through.
Is it a values gap or a hard season?
Couples often mistake another kind of difference for a values gap: One of you is living far less of the life you want right now. A new baby, a move, a job that takes every evening, a parent who needs care. In a season like that, a partner can feel out of step, and it can start to feel like you want different things. Often you don't. One of you simply has less room to live your values at the moment.
One question helps: If this season ended tomorrow, would we still want different things? If not, the work is supporting each other through the season. If so, then it is a values conversation, and it’s worth having.
What a couples therapist says
“A difference couples can live with is one where both people feel respected. One that needs real work is where someone feels they have to give up what matters to them for the relationship to work. Different values are not only okay in a relationship, they are inevitable.”
Elisabeth Schneider, LMFT, Values Bridge for Couples advisory board
When to bring in help
If the same red difference keeps coming back as the same argument, or one of you feels you would have to give up something central to who you are in order to settle it, a couples therapist or coach can help you talk through it without assigning blame. Asking for that help means you’re taking the relationship seriously.
See your green, yellow, and red
Values Bridge for Couples shows both of you where your values meet and where they pull apart, and how fully each of you is living your own right now. Each of you takes The Values Bridge™ assessment on your own, and completes a short intake survey about your season of life separately, so the report reflects your real circumstances. Then you receive expert-approved exercises and the conversations to start first, in order. For an even fuller picture, read Values in a relationship and Are we compatible? next.