What are values in a relationship?
Google for "values in a relationship" and you’ll find the same list everywhere: trust, honesty, respect, communication, loyalty. Those matter enormously, but they are virtues. They describe how two good people should treat each other, and almost every serious couple already agrees on them.
Values are something else. Values are the beliefs and motivators behind your decisions. They indicate what you want from life, and how much you want it compared with everything else. Values are personal choices, not moral imperatives. Two kind, honest people can still want very different lives. One of you dreams of a house near your parents and a big table at the holidays. The other wants to take the job in another city and see what happens. Nobody is wrong. You are simply asking life for different things first.
That’s why "we have the same values" often boils down to "we are both good people," which is a lovely thing to know. But it is not the same as knowing you want the same life.
What values matter most to couples?
The Values Bridge™ assessment measures sixteen values, drawn from nearly a century of research in psychology and social science. It ranks them by importance, so you clearly see what matters most to you. Get to know all sixteen values:
- Achievement: a desire for accomplishment, in particular the kind the world sees and validates.
- Affluence: how much money you want in your life and how willing you are to prioritize its pursuit.
- Agency: how much you want to control your life's direction, decisions, and details.
- Beholderism: how much you care about how things look and feel: places, spaces, objects, and bodies, including your own.
- Belonging: how deeply you value connection with friends, coworkers, or an affinity group.
- Belovedness: how deeply you value a partnered relationship as the central organizing principle in your life.
- Cosmos: how much you look to a spiritual higher power or religious tradition for guidance in how to live.
- Eudemonia: how much you aspire to organize your life around pleasure, enjoyment, self-care, and wellbeing in the present moment.
- Familycentrism: the priority you place on family considerations when deciding how you spend your time and energy.
- Luminance: how much you desire public recognition, visibility, and renown, and how willing you are to organize your life choices around achieving it.
- Non Sibi: Latin for "not for oneself": how much you want and need to help others in your life and work.
- Place: how much you want to live in a specific geographical location.
- Radius: how much you want to change the world.
- Scope: how big, exciting, and adventurous a life you want.
- Voice: how much you want to express your individuality in a way others can see and feel.
- Workcentrism: how much you want work to be the organizing principle of your life.
At least one of these five factors into most couples’ major decisions:
- Familycentrism: how central family is, from children to aging parents.
- Affluence: what money is for, and how much is enough.
- Workcentrism: how much of life work should take up.
- Place: where you live, and how rooted you want to be.
- Cosmos: faith, meaning, and what your spiritual authority asks from you.
Can you share a value and still want different lives?
Yes, and this is what most lists leave out. Two people can share a value and want very different amounts of it. Say you both care about Belonging. For one of you, that means Sunday dinners for twelve; while the other pictures two close friends and a long walk. Same value, different life.
There is a second gap, and it is the one couples feel acutely: how fully each of you is living your values right now. Sometimes, one of you is getting much less of the life you want than the other. A season of change can explain that: a new job and a long commute, a new baby, a parent who needs care. But, sometimes, the explanation is a tension within the relationship. Either way, it helps for both of you to see it.
Can a relationship work with different values?
Yes. No two people want exactly the same life, and the strongest couples are not the ones with identical rankings. They are the ones who know which differences need their attention. Start with the values where you already meet — your green flags. Then look at the differences that work as long as you both understand them — your yellow flags. Then end with your red flags, the one or two issues worth a real conversation. To be clear: A red flag is not a verdict on your relationship. It’s an opportunity to better understand your partner’s needs. Want more info? We go deeper in Can a relationship work with different values?
Are we compatible?
Plenty of couples type "are we compatible" into a search bar late at night, only to find pages of quizzes that only provide vague scores. A score can't tell you what to talk about at dinner on Tuesday. A better question: Where do our values meet, where do they pull apart, and how is each of us doing right now? Read more in Are we compatible? A better question than shared hobbies.
How do you talk about values with your partner?
You don't need a weekend retreat. You need a few good questions and a willingness to hear some unexpected answers. Begin with what’s currently working, then move to what you want next. Some conversation starters to consider:
- When do you feel most like yourself with me?
- What would a week look like if it felt like enough time together?
- What do you want more of in the next five years, and what would you trade to get it?
- If life settled down tomorrow, where would you want to live, and why there?
- What does "enough money" mean to you, and what is it for?
Bring one or two to dinner, not all five. If you can, write your answers separately first, then compare. And listen for the ranking underneath the answer: not only what your partner wants, but what they would give up for it.
How can you see your values side by side?
Values Bridge for Couples brings your two Values Bridge results together. Each of you takes The Values Bridge™ assessment on your own, plus a short intake survey about your life right now: your season of life, whether you have children or live together, and outside pressures like a parent who needs care. You receive one report, written for the two of you. It shows where your values overlap, how fully each of you is living your own, and which of 15 couple archetypes describes you right now. It also covers couples’ exercises, starting with the conversations to have first. Both of your rankings are shown; your intake answers are not.
Values Bridge for Couples is designed by couples therapists and it’s for relationships at any stage: just starting out, married 40 years, thriving, or struggling. If you work with a therapist or coach, it gives the two of you something concrete to bring to your next session. Wondering how it compares with Prepare/Enrich, SYMBIS, and the Gottman tools? See Couples assessments, compared.
More than 180,000 people have taken The Values Bridge™ assessment. Nothing has to be wrong to want to see yours.