Have you ever noticed your behavior is determined by your values and beliefs? Do you know where your values come from? Do you know your partner’s core values? Do they align with yours?

As adults, we live and interpret life with a set of schemas. With this framework, we create a set of values that is unique to us. Schemas are subconscious– the framework or box we didn’t realize we’re in until we really allow ourselves to look at it. There is a popular assessment [PDF] to discover your schemas, which is focused on areas you tend to avoid in your life. I’ll get to why this is important shortly. One of my schemas is emotional deprivation, which means I expect that my desire for a normal degree of emotional support will not be adequately met by others (ouch!). This may mean I intuitively date people who may have been unavailable, or if they were emotional available, I’d feel suspicious, or I’ll always think that my partner will never fully understand me (yikes!).

Interestingly, one of my core values is self-reliance: the ability to rely on self emotionally and physically. Hmm, notice how core values and schemas are complementary? So going back to understanding why our schemas is so important: it is a way to truly, truly understand where our values come from. Since schemas can tell us a lot about how we grew up, the type of person we mature into, and who we are now, values tell us how we choose to live our life today based on the schemas or framework that’s been playing an active role underneath.

There is no right or wrong schemas or values. There is just adaptive and maladaptive behaviors. After finding out your schemas and values, ask yourself whether the way you are living is serving and growing you, or is it doing you a disservice? So this leads me into do you know your partner’s values? When people talk about dating, it is common to describe our romantic partner’s characters. “My partner is sweet, thoughtful, kind.” But what’s your partner’s value system? How do they make decisions? What moral rubric do they use to navigate their life? We see our partner’s behaviors and assess their characters, but underneath all this, exists a “standard operating procedure” or a values system that navigate them in their everyday life.

So what do you do with this knowledge? You and your partner can do this exercise: Each of you write down 15 values that align with you, narrow that list down to 10, then consolidate that list down to 5 values. Then, share those 5 values with each other and talk about it. Things to talk about: why this a value for you? How does this value show up in your life? What, in your life, has influenced you to have this value? How are you living out this value? In what ways do you envision this value in your future?

It’s important to have this talk with your partner. Not everything has to be perfectly lined up or similar. It’s about how you may complement or accommodate for each other’s values and visions that make a relationship work. So what new knowledge about your relationship have you identified?