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butter and jelly sandwiches for all eternity, or that they have the fortitude to stand up for their principles with conviction? Each one of us should know what pulls our "A" lever. It is our hearts and our souls that measure our capacity to be compatible. And since each of us is made differently (i.e. upbringing, culture, environment, ethnically, etc.), we must search ourselves for answers before we begin to ask the "'til death do us part" questions.

For starters, we need to stop pretending we're Cinderellas looking for Prince Charmings. What good is it gazing into the night sky for our Knights in shining armor to arrive? Our lives will neither mirror nor emulate fairy tales. If our internal make-ups do not correspond with one another's, we will surely find ourselves on the perfidious path to the witch's gingerbread house (divorce), and all the "sweets" in the world won't cover-up our dying relationships.

Let us ask ourselves: Are we capable of receiving, holding, and absorbing all that our proposed mates have to offer; or are we lying to ourselves in order to alleviate some personal desperation or in the hopes of modifying an unpleasant characteristic of our own?

Hopefully, the former is true. The latter is futile. It always has been. We rarely understand this, however, until it's too late.

Our mates cannot change our inner most beliefs, desires, and/or ideals, and neither can we theirs. Therefore, our "happily ever afters" are found in matching these inner traits as closely as possible.

Some, but definitely not all, examples are religious beliefs, measures of common decency, level of loyalty, moral values, and prejudices that may or may not exist.

If we do not have the capacity for compassion, courtesy, devotion, ethics, and truth; how can we notice or even measure it in another?

All of the above require quite a bit of soul searching on our parts and an ingenuous internal scale for weighing our individual priorities.

Then, and only then, are we able to seek out our "match" - the compatibility factor.

Why worry about such trivial matters as height, weight, employment, financial situations, daily routines, and the like? These are things that can, and do, change. A person's inner being - his/her hidden features - holds the key to a lasting relationship.

As I have said many times in the past: "Love is deaf, dumb, and blind" in the beginning stages of any relationship (sometimes much longer). So, it's time for us to get hearing aids, do the research, and purchase a new set of glasses.

Inner compatibility works - grandiose visions (in any form) do not.

Learn more about this author, Maggie West.
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