You and your partner are surface-level compatible. You both have a similar sense of humour, like to hang out at similar places, similar interests/music taste etc. It is easy conversing about daily life with your partner, and you both are comfortable with silence together.
However, you know deep inside, you are not completely compatible. Your emotional levels are very different. You often feel alone when you have plenty of things to say/express, because you know your partner will not understand/is not able to feel the same way. Your partner is just unable to feel as strongly as you do, and you know you can never get your partner to express anything strongly, basically you feel stuck in a lukewarm relationship. Your partner can understand the situation, but they do not feel the intensity of it.
This lack of emotion from your partner also affects their general drive in life. As they are unable to feel for anything that strongly, they do not feel motivated to want more in life. Just the bare minimum is okay, e.g having a job is enough to live. Does not care about fitness, does not have any personal hobbies (other than scroll tiktok and watch Netflix), y’all get the gist. Your partner just does not have the emotional capacity to feel that much. They are able to feel sad, happy, excited, anger etc. But they are never VERY sad, VERY happy, VERY excited, nor VERY angry.
I believe what drives motivation and ambition, is the intensity of emotion itself. This is when the ability to detach yourself from outcomes too easily, actually backfires on you.
As compared to your partner, you are passionate about issues and topics, and you are able to take a stand and have opinions. You are able to want something so badly, and plan a way to get there because you feel the desire to have it. Your partner sometimes thinks you’re “overreacting” and that you “do too much”, “chill.” Because they would not do the same. Because they always take the neutral stance on topics, and genuinely feel neutral about it. I believe it is okay to feel neutral about things, but being neutral about everything does not actually mesh well with someone that likes to debate.
Your friends are okay with your partner, only because she/he is “nice and chill”, and that it is obvious they genuinely want to be with you and treats your relationship seriously (does not talk to anyone else, allocates time to spend with you despite being busy etc. generally a good partner)
There is nothing wrong with your partner’s personality. You just know that deep inside, “chill” is not what you really want. This personality of theirs might be someone else’s dream.
You have voiced out this concern before, and your partner thinks that it’s “normal” for couples to have differences. They do not find it a strong enough reason to break up.
Asking all of you now, is this a valid cause for break up? You are about to celebrate your 2nd year anniversary too. been contemplating it for the longest time but genuinely don’t know if my idea of a relationship is too idealistic, or there really is a problem…