While some differences can be divine, they can just as well be disastrous. Ideally, differences inpersonality traits provide complementary strengths to one another and an opportunity for enrichment and growth. These types of differences can cement a relationship. Unfortunately, all too often differences set up divisive barriers between partners.

So how do you break down the barriers? One way, unproductive as it is, is to try to change your partner so that his differences disappear and he is just like you.

You would think this collapse of differences makes for ever-lasting love stories, but that is not so. For one thing, you can't manipulate change in someone else. Second, if you could transform your partner into a replica of yourself, you would then lose him as a separate person with whom to interact. Whilefear of abandonment is at the root of desperately needing sameness, ironically, the outcome of living with a clone is just that ─ abandonment. Without mirror neurons darting back and forth you'd have no one to bounce off, no one to comfort you, no one to stimulate you with fresh thought, insight, or emotions. That is the cost of striving for sameness at the expense of differences.