Hello everyone, thanks for taking the time to read this and being active on this site in general. I have a problem that brought me to this site some time ago and it seems to constantly come back up for me, so i figured I’d throw it out there and see if anyone has similar issues or experiences.

My life philosophy is centered around the idea that we are all connected in some way, and so should treat everyone and everything with love, compassion, and kindness. I fail at this regularly, but strive to maintain empathy for both others and myself. I am in a long term relationship with someone who thinks very differently and I am not sure if staying with her is accepting her as she is, or settling for less than what I want out of a partner.

I do love her, and she has many qualities that I both admire and aspire to. She is very active and we hike, surf, and workout together. She likes to eat healthy and we love to cook together. She loves sports, is social, has a good relationship with her family, etc…
But she has zero empathy for anyone. She sometimes even relishes in being mean to people (sometimes that person is me). She dislikes when people tell her their problems, ask her for advice, or generally ask for any effort from her whatsoever.

In some regards its admirable, to know you are not a very empathetic person and be very upfront with that. We are not all built the same and have different emotional capacities and being aware of that is good. In other respects it is very tiring for me, as she seems to be constantly spouting negative energy and refuses to see anyone’s perspective but her own. This leads to all kinds of arguments, both inconsequential and important. And her lack of empathy can result in a small minded approach to situations, where her immediate thought is the only right one and she doesn’t waiver or compromise or back down. This can be frustrating and often leads to her doing what she wants, and me either tagging along or doing something else entirely. The flip side is that she is very independent and allows me to do things on my own, and isn’t overly needy when I don’t go with her.

I fully accept that is the way she is and try to give my perspective, usually advocating that treating people with kindness takes less effort than constantly throwing shade at everyone, but it feels a lot like I’m lecturing her and I don’t like that. I’ve taken to just listening and not offering my two cents. I don’t think she has even noticed really.

And don’t get me wrong, she has more than her share of moments where she exhibits empathy and understanding. Her default setting is generally negative though. Almost every morning she lists things she doesn’t like about how the house is, things I don’t help with, or something dumb our roommate has done. Not always, but sometimes, one of those negative comments really touches on something with me, and I usually spend way too much time going through a negative spiral of thoughts for that morning. The kicker is if I let it go, she will completely forget about it too, so is that my hang up?

Every relationship has these push and pull aspects. Not every partner will vibe with every single thing you do. I’ve read it is natural for people to get 80% of what they want in a relationship, but obsess over the 20% they perceive as missing. The grass is always greener. So my question is, how does one know when to let some expectations go and stay in a relationship, or that the person is actually incompatible? Is it accepting flaws in our partner, or settling for less than what we really want?