Intellectual comparability- is it essential?

[Tarcietiger]

I’m being a bit nosy and wondering how vital people find having a comparable level of intelligence to their partner to be.

Do you think a relationship can work if one partner is much more intelligent than the other? If not, why not? If yes how?

Have you had experience of being with someone who is measurably more or less intelligent than you or does that rarely happen due to the laws of attraction?

Personally I am married to someone who is academically way (way) brighter than me. I am a college drop out with dyslexia who struggled at school, he has a 1st class MSc and Masters degree from a top uni and is a high level techie. I think we have equal levels of common sense. We are happily married but I do find myself zoning out when he tries to explain things like quantum physics to me, In contrast he finds small talk really hard and hates illogical questions like ‘would you rather have a tail or a hump?’ If I want to have a gossip or talk about daft things I tend to do it with other people or I’ll risk his eyes glazing over and feel like we haven’t really got into the spirit of what I’d hoped to discuss 😂. We have a shared sense of humour though and a similar sense of style / politics / moral code which has made our relationship sustainable.

Personally, I do need intelligence comparable to mine, and do love a good techy discussion, or a spirited debate about historical points. I did go out with someone in my youth who wasn't, and it really didn't work long term because he didn't get that side of me.

Depends what you mean by intelligence tbh. Academic achievement, not necessarily. But I do need someone with a similar interest in the things I am intellectually stimulated by and also the same attitude to learning things. I find that there is a link towards attitude to learning and similar education levels, probably due to how you are taught to think at different levels, eg University

Having detailed, indepth conservation is something I enjoy and look for in a partner. I appreciate that makes me some people's worst nightmare!

There are different types of intelligence OP. Having a degree doesn't mean someone is generally intelligent, they might just be really good at memorizing things, or writing essays in a specific style, or maths..

DH and I have similar IQ I'd say but expressed in very different types of intelligence. We have learned a lot from each other as a result.. and also have topics we just don't discuss with each other because the other has zero interest or aptitude

The important thing is are you both happy and feel respected for your differences? Or is there an element of undermining, disrespecting, belittling? That's to do with respect not intelligence..

We are ‘intelligent’ in dif ways - he’s into maths and logic and I’m more words and people. So it’s up to you two - does he find you interesting? Listen to you? Respect your ideas? If not that could get irritating

Yes, I would say it is essential - I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with someone I'm not on the same wavelength as. But it certainly doesn't mean academic qualifications or job title. I've met very intelligent people with neither, and thick people with both.

No there’s no belittlement or disrespect in fact he’s often the one ‘bigging me up’. I lack confidence sometimes in my abilities as school was a bit of a nightmare for me plus I’ve got a truly terribly memory but he’s my biggest champion 😊

I’d say there has to be a high level of intellectual compatibility, even if not the same level of educational achievement. Being stimulated by similar things, attitude to learning, curiosity etc.

I went out with someone who was very pretty but not very bright when I was younger, and he bored me to tears. He didn’t really care about anything other than cars and certainly couldn’t have any kind of meaningful debate with him, or discussed the news. There’s no way I could have stood it long term!

Intelligence is something I rate very highly in a partner.

I would quite happily be in a relationship with someone who was smoking hot even if he was as dumb as soup.

I went out with someone with a learning disability.

He thought I was the bees knees, and pandered to me, and it worked for us.
(He also knew some things like the times of the high tides all around the uk, and was able to tell you what day a date 75 years ago fell on!)

The main thing though, is that he was kind, and we shared the same values.

I find intellectual ability to be the key component in my attraction to a man. I don’t even particularly care what he looks like . I’ve developed crushes on composers and writers without ever seeing them just based on the quality of their work.

I am also generally regarded as being of high intellectual ability. So for me personally, a match seems essential.

I think there needs to be an intellectual spark and you need to both enjoy and be stimulated by your conversations/interactions.
On the other hand, sometimes people who are too close in intellect and educational background end up one of duelling with one another and that is very tedious.

I don't want to be intellectually stimulated, nor do I want to provide intellectual stimulation. It sounds like too much hard work.

I didn't think it would matter but when I was doing old I had comments that I was too clever (I'm university educated to masters level and interested in current affairs, theatre, opera etc) men seem to be threatened by women who are more intelligent than them. Both exh and dp are of equal intelligence/possibly higher than me.

I should add one of my interests is going to literary festivals, certainly limited my pool of men

Doesn’t sound like you are IQ incompatible. It’s much more about left/right brain. You are creative thinking focussed and he is maths-y.

That ‘hump or tail’ question is insightful.

I'm married to a high level techie and he loves bickering debates of "would you rather....." (We have some of the books and have family debates at dinner).

I have a creative degree and know stuff he doesn't, so we teach, bicker, debate many topics. We have also discussed partners whom you couldn't do this with. Not really for either of us. But academia doesn't equate intelligence.

Basically without colourful conversations, some deep, some about unicorns and everything in-between life would be considerably more boring.

@PersonaNonGarter

Doesn’t sound like you are IQ incompatible. It’s much more about left/right brain. You are creative thinking focussed and he is maths-y.

That ‘hump or tail’ question is insightful.

Tail, without hesitation!

It depends. You can both be equally as clever but it shouldn’t matter if you click. I had a couple of older boyfriends when younger who were Oxford/Cambridge graduates but though I didn’t go to university they didn’t seem to hold this against me.

I did have a boyfriend later on who was clever but in a more laddish way - salesman and I think he sometimes thought I was too clever for him, he tried to put me down in other ways.

I had a good friend who dated and had a child with someone she thought was stupid but also bigoted/xenophobic - as he had little or no interest in current or world affairs and told her she was stupid - she was far from it! I still don’t understand why she’s with someone who thinks she’s stupid but to prove himself “clever” or right.

I definitely need intellectual compatibility. My DP is more intelligent than i am, although he disagrees. We also think the same way about pretty much everything.

My ex husband was the definition of thick as fuck. It drove me mad and I almost died of embarrassment several times when he said ridiculously stupid things in public and people would snigger or stare.

I do like teaching people things though, and it's very rare I can teach my DP anything.

@PersonaNonGarter

Doesn’t sound like you are IQ incompatible. It’s much more about left/right brain. You are creative thinking focussed and he is maths-y.

That ‘hump or tail’ question is insightful.

I’d have a trunk. They are just such useful things. Elephants use them to play with, to feed themselves, wash themselves, carry stuff etc etc. Imagine how cool it would be to have a trunk!

I went out with someone as a teenager through to early 20s who had no intellectual curiosity at all (unless it was about football, he knew alot about that). All we really had in common was clubbing and drinking. He’d never read a book, not interested in anything vaguely cultural, he was just quite hot and a reasonably nice bloke so stayed with him for ages. We ultimately weren’t compatible so it fizzled out. When I met my next boyfriend (now DH), and we’d been dating for a month or so and it was my birthday. He bought me a non-fiction book as a present, he said that he’d heard a review of it on the radio and he thought I’d find it really interesting. I did, it was indeed very interesting, and I think that’s when I fell in love with him. I didn’t really know what I was missing out before I met him, but I’d have to say now that for me, it’s very important. I still keep in touch with my ex. He’s very happily married to the football mad lady he me just after we broke up! It’s horses for courses, but you do need general compatibility and similar interests. That encompasses intellectual compatibility too really, if intellectual conversations and pursuits are something you’re into.

I had a bf once who was measurable dumber than me. But oh my..., he looked like a greek god and was a bloody good car mechanic :) I learnt a lot about cars from him, but as soon as I learnt all I could from him there was nothing left to talk about. And after a while sex doesn't hold a relationship together. All other partners I had were as -or more- intelligent as me, usually same educational level (that has nothing to do sometimes with intelligence or common sense tbf).

With my H of 20+ years it turns out that we have around the same IQ points as well. We both got tested in high school eons ago and that's how we know. I sometimes still brag about mine being a few points higher :)
To me the important thing is to be able to talk about diff subjects and see comprehension even if he is not familiar with the subject. He is an engineer and I am more on the humanities side, so we can still offer each other new info/new perspectives.
The only time his eyes glaze over if I say something related to sewing or knitting. :)
The other criteria for me is humour. And for me real humour is not the farting type -- so you have to be intelligent to make me lol.
As soon as that vanishes I think I will get a divorce.

My last partner was defo dumber than me and enjoyed fart type jokes. He was good at talking though, or for few years I knew him gave an impression of a smart person (I learnt there was not much underneath. His positives was he was kind and generous.

My new admirer is defo much smarter than me, and his intelligence is outstanding. With that comes being a bit fussy and pretentious and opinionated (nothing extreme though).

I did think kind is enough, however now having seen the difference intelligence goes a long way. Much further than fart jokes.

I think intelligent women value intelligence in a man, but men are more likely to marry for other reasons. I am extremely bright and DH is too but he is more technical, whereas I am mathematical and think very creatively. I could write for a career - in fact lots of my jobs involved lots of writing, but DH has Dyslexia and avoids writing. We complement each other.

I could never have married any of those guys on Made in Chelsea or Love Island, (if they had been around back then 😂) but some very intelligent men marry the female equivalent of those men.

I think it has become a problem for many women with higher degrees, there is a much smaller pool of men they want to marry, and those men will just as often, marry for looks as for brains.

I had a boyfriend many, many years ago who left school at 15 (as you could then) and could not be defined as intelligent. He came from a large working-class family on a council estate. He had difficulties with writing and spelling, but was probably the kindest person I have ever known.

Because I was headed towards university, my parents obviously thought I should be setting my sights 'higher' and were very pleased when I met someone who was very intelligent and from a naice middle-class background.

All very lovely until he started beating me black and blue and knocked me unconscious against a brick wall when I told him our relationship was over.

Give me kindness anyday.