Miss match of intelligence/culture/class - can it work?

[IShouldHaveBeenAPairOfClaws]

I'm more interested in a general discussion really, rather than focusing on my own marriage. Its probably the issue I've struggled the most with in four years of marriage and nine years together. I like music, radio 4, boring documentaries, foreign films and reading books. He likes action films reality tv. We work well together in so many ways and he is a great father and we have some similar life philosophies. But every time we have a row I always think to myself, is the real cause of this argument the fact that were coming from such different perspectives because of our backgrounds? For example, I was brought up in a family that encouraged debate to the extent that other people might see us and think we were arguing, but to us we were debating. Dh hates this, so I really have to hold myself back because what I would see as a gentle debate, he would see as confrontational.

So there you are, if anyone has experience of this I'd be interested to know if you think it can work. Were both in our twenties with one young child, by the way.

Hi IShouldHaveBeen. Yes its bleak and we both know we made a mistake getting together.....I was naive and he was desperate and needy when we first met. We have very little in common......and he won't leave but as far as I'm concerned its just a matter of time....

"I was brought up in a family that encouraged debate to the extent that other people might see us and think we were arguing, but to us we were debating. Dh hates this, so I really have to hold myself back because what I would see as a gentle debate, he would see as confrontational."

Maybe the difficulties are different family communication styles; or maybe your family are a bit antagonistic / heated / rude!

IMHO intelligence matters, the rest does not. The rest can cause problems but does not necessarily have to.

Intelligence, well I'd say my x had a much higher IQ than I have but he hadn't the emotional intelligence to recognise that there are other forms of intelligence. So I think it was his lack of empathy and his lack of respect rather than the disparity in our IQs that caused a bigger problem.

I am LOVING the way that you all are more inteligent than your husbands!! Last night my husband and I lay in bed chuckling at the fact that I (2.2 from a shit uni) was on facebook and mumsnet and reading the daily mail sidebar of shame while he (2 oxbridge degrees) was ploughing through churchills biography.

However as I can read and write and everything! I have more common sense, a great grasp of popular culture and earn more than him so....dyou think I give a damn?? I wonder if he would secretly like a wife who reads the trash he does....haha

@ Fergus I didn't claim to be! but like you say, I had more emotional intelligence, I was more intuitive and sensitive to other people's moods and feelings, I had common sense, I read the paper! I could make small talk! My x could do none of that but firmly believed I was a fool and he was a genius.

In my mum's generation I think there was a certain type of man who quite liked a man who was less intelligent who just bowed to his superior wisdom on every matter. My mum knew a woman whose husband treated her like an intelligent pet. She has thrived since he has died, and my mum says she no longer plays dumb and puts herself down. She wasn't that stupid it turns out. But there marriage worked insofar as HE was happy. Her?

quite liked a WIFE who was less intelligent i mean!!!

My DH is definitely more intelligent than me but he never makes it obvious, apart from when we play scrabble, I have never beaten him in 25 years!!!
He pushes me to read things I wouldn't otherwise attempt and is fantastic to visit historical sites with as he not only knows the history but can put it across in an interesting way. His mental arithmetic is second to none and I have never met anyone who can add up as fast as him. Mine is ok but not fast.
I am from a working class background and he is upper middle public school educated but we have shared ideals and hate snobbery and inverse snobbery equally. We judge people on what they are like not what their parents decided to do.

I used to be married to someone who was very similar to me, on paper. Our parents had similar origins, although my dad had studied and worked hard and gained a lot of qualifications, while his worked in a factory doing a similar job for years. We both have degrees and post-grad degrees. We both worked full-time in professional jobs, had many friends, had similar values etc.

However, he was an emotionally-illiterate shit. I am much happier without him.

I've been with DP for two years. We have running jokes about the north/south divide in our speech (he thought I was posh, I'm not though, and I love his accent) and although he did not go to uni due to joining the army at 16, he is very highly qualified in his field and is a recognised expert in that sector of construction. What matters is that we have the utmost respect for each other and we are so proud of what the other does. He had never been to an art gallery until I took him last summer. I've never been to a football match or any other live sporting event, luckily we have agreed not to bother with those! We always have plenty to talk about and we discuss and resolve our differences respectfully and rationally.

My bf and I are very different. I am a British atheist and he's a North African Muslim. I am not particularly educated though know for being bright (!) but I haven't read a book since we've been together (3 months) and instead watched Transporters 1, 2 and 3 and enjoyed them very much He's a highly skilled manual worker and I am training/working in a new career.

We won't last forever. I am already about the presumptions regarding cooking and cleaning and he's already about some of my friends.

But I'm giving it a go as 1. We like each other very much and get on like a house on fire and B. I've been by myself for rather too long.

Sounds fab, doesn't it?

It seems that lots of women are prepared to 'marry down' but not men.

Is that because of women's low sense of self worth compared to men of the same class/education?

My experience has been that my 'middle class values' (eg valuing private school, home ownership, mocking pop culture etc) have rubbed off on DP, who was fairly 'classless' when we met. I imagine he'd be a very different person now with a very different life if he had got together with a working class woman.

It's interesting that someone else mentioned Christmas. At first I found his and esp his family's attitude to Christmas alien. To them it was all about spending £100s on plastic tat from China for the DCs. For me it's about a big get together with lots of high quality food, drink and games downtown abbey.

Isn't it about respect? If you can respect each others differences then there's not a problem. If it's over something fundamental to your character then it might not be possible to sustain a happy relationship. For example, I am agnostic and my wife is catholic, but neither of us is prejudiced against other religions. Religion is obviously more important to her so I'll compromise over things like christenings etc.

Yy it really makes a difference at Christmas in exactly the way margerykemp describes. I still don't really like christmas at pils, but I have got used to it.

Yeah Christmas is a big one, why does it always all come out at Christmas? My in laws see Christmas as synonymous with watching TV for hours/days on end whereas at my family Christmas is when the TV is most likely to be off and the board games and quizzes come out. Unsurprisingly we both prefer it with our own family but can tolerate it with each others. Though I do think I am a bit more tolerant of his than he is of mine as he now pretty much refuses to play any quiz games any more, though I can see his point on that one, my family do take quizzing to a bit of a ridiculous extreme.

I thought it didn't matter, and it was entirely about who a person was, respect everyone, everyone has something to offer, background is irrelevant, university education is less important the older you get, and you should be able to get on with anyone etc. Thanks Mum & Dad for that helpful advice which you dinged so well into my head! When my husband chose his affair partner he chose someone from his background, from a dysfunctional family, massively less well-off, less intelligent, but that he had known at school. The polar opposite of me in every way.

Next time I won't be 'marrying down'. Which I admit sounds awfully condescending - but those were his words not mine! I thought I had found my soulmate, someone I could trust completely, and the fact his family were like the Gallaghers, he hadn't been to university etc was irrelevant. Doh!

Oh and Margerykemp - your description of your DH is mine to a tee. "classless" (in a good way) would have described him perfectly - now I'd describe him as the other kind of "classless" . He actually actively didn't want the type of woman he had the affair with when we met!

You can work through everything but the intelligence i think. I graduated at 21, Dh left school at 16 with decent O Levels, is very bright and in MENSA. I am clueless on some things he knows lots about and vice versa. We are also a bit nerdy in that we have our special interests like History and music.
If i couldn't discuss something with him and feel we were on the same 'level' of understanding intellectually it would make me miserable.

my x used to laugh that we played ping pong on christmas day! so so so glad i'll never have to endure his pouting on christmas day again.

i think now it's more important to find somebody with emotional intelligence.

It depends on how crucial you feel these things are to cementing your relationship, and that will vary from one person to another.

Certainly with an X of mine, I discovered that once the passion wore off, I actually found him quite boring because there wasn't enough common ground between us to keep conversation stimulated. In a friend this wouldn't have mattered, but in a partner it mattered a lot.

Personally, I think respect is the biggest element of importance in a relationship. Once that is gone, love soon follows. Many people find it hard to maintain respect for a partner they feel is less intelligent than they are, although if that partner shows they are more capable than you in other ways, this can balance out quite nicely.

I think things matter, if it matters, iyswim, but I do think it's not going to work if there's a massive gap in raw intelligence.

Education, class, background etc are all things that can change. As are interests and hobbies, but the basic ability to understand things, to retain and apply information can't.

There's a gap between myself and my husband which, for the most part, doesn't cause issues, but there are times - mostly when I'm talking to certain of our freinds - when I can literally feel my brain stretching and waking up.

It's not a huge issue, because the gaps not huge, but I know (and I think he knows) that he's never going to stretch my intellect.

One of the saddest things I have seen lately though are two friends of ours. Both lovely, nice people, but she's extremely clever and in a 'clever' career. He is, bluntly, well below average - struggles with simple maths level of below average, with no other issues.

They rub along, but, oh, the change in her when she speaks to someone else. She literally lights up. She has a Phd in Literature - he can barely read. They have no conversation, because she can't speak to his level without really trying, and he can't understand the language she uses without thinking. It's incredibly sad, but I don't know why she stands it.

I'm worried what will happen is they have children. If the child comes out at his end, she'll never have the joy of teaching her child her love of language, of reading stories and discussing and spinning new tales together, and I know that will break her heart. If the child comes out like her, then it will have a dad that it will outstrip long before it leaves primary school, and that will break his.

I find I can't be attracted to somone who isn't similar to myself in these respects. Not to say it would never happen, but I tend to find anyone who is less clever/accomplished than me who fancies me in a romantic sense very irritating. Likewise I find certain aspects of different social class irritating as well, particularly over-familiarity too soon, being too colloquial, things like slurring of words deliberately, assuming everyone will understand you and has the same experiences/views as yourself, but then I do live in central Scotland so this might have some bearing on it!

Maybe I'm a snob, I don't really care (actually I'm not and will talk to anyone from any background, as long as they're reasonably polite to me).

When I was single, I even had a sort of mental checklist of what type of man I would go out with, and it was basically university educated (must have gone away from home and lived independently), degree in a professional field, like me, such as medicine, dentistry, law or engineering, must be sporty and outdoorsy and reasonably practical. It wouldn't have swayed me if someone was good with their hands and practical while not being academically bright, as both my husband and I are practical anyway.

Basically, I didn't want to marry down, or "carry" someone financially.

My ex left in January. He is very clever (academically much brighter than me) but, in the words of Madonna on Guy Ritchie, emotionally retarded. The other problem was he is an 'inverted snob' so would dumb down and drop his aitches with certain friends. I enjoyed a book club for years but never told him I went because he would have scoffed and sneered. Isn't that sad? God I am so glad he has gone. I would say, you need to be true to yourself to be happy. If you are too different intellectually and culturally it can't work.

I don't think it makes much difference in a relationship, but when you have children and a long term commitment it will do.

What happens when you want your children to go to one school and he wants another, or when you meet new families and he doesn't get on with your friends (or you with his)?

I'm in a similar situation and it is very very hard. However I am by no means alone, I have quite a few friends, both male and female who have married down, and it's just one of those things in life that we deal with and makes it interesting. The couples that survive this mismatch are the ones that have a very good understanding of each other, listen and share and generally play nicely.

When there is any pricklyness because of differences it is very uncomfortable for other people and probably is confusing for children.

Intelligence is a tricky one, because it is inextricably linked to background as well IME. Though I do accept that a massive difference in 'raw' intelligence would make it potentially difficult in a relationship.

DH and I have almost identical very high IQ scores (with different strengths within the profile) but we come across completely differently due to our different upbringings. DH is not dyslexic but is completely useless at spelling and grammar - so for example if we both wrote a story to be read by a stranger, he would seem really unintelligent (when his actual content/plot would be far better than mine). When he isn't. He is great at science and I'm shit at it. His general knowledge is massive and I feel like a total dimwit when watching university challenge with him and my parents, because I have no capacity for that type of knowledge. I'm happier with a maths book or with language.

Most of DH's deficits are down to terrible schooling, and a traumatic abusive childhood in which amazingly he didn't end up braindamaged by his mother (though his coordination is terrible and he will never be able to drive). It is sad that he didn't get the opportunities I did - my childhood was nowhere near perfect but on the academic side it was a decent upbringing.

But the interesting thing is that from our vastly different upbringings, we have both arrived at the same feelings about intelligence and learning, and at least in terms of parenting our children, I think that is more important than IQ, if that makes sense. We both crave knowledge, it's just in different areas.

I haven't read all posts yet as I just wanted to get my thoughts out first (probably not very clearly sorry) but I did notice a few remarks about inverse snobbery etc - DH's background is very much anti-academics but for some reason DH always strived to escape it. Small example, he's always loved classical music in films etc but never had real access to it, unlike me who was brought up with it. When we got together he was so happy to finally have someone to share it with and to introduce him to more of it. His ex wife is from a similar background to him but is very much an 'inverse snob' and this has irreparably rubbed off on their children, despite DH's best efforts to make it clear that it's ok to enjoy learning as part of your life. That makes him really sad, and I think it makes their DCs sad too, seeing this massive inconsistency between their parents and feeling caught in the middle when their mum criticises anything too clever. It really makes me feel that attitude is of a higher importance than many other things.

I guess class wise we are different, him working, me middle - but although he used to jokingly call me his 'bit of posh' we are totally compatible in terms of what we want from life and IMO that is more important than where we came from.