He Broke Up With Me Because We Are Not Compatible

If I had a penny for every time a guy used the “we’re not compatible” excuse for breaking up with his girlfriend, I’d be rich by now. I’d have bought a yacht and have plenty to spare. Unfortunately, I don’t get rich off dumpers’ excuses.

I just listen to their reasoning and shake my head in disbelief.

After years of analyzing breakups, I’ve realized that many dumpers think a breakup happens because they’re not compatible with their partner rather than because they stopped bonding with their partner and investing in the relationship.

They blame incompatibility for their problems and lack of feelings instead of reflecting on their actions and inactions and admitting they fell out of love due to neglect or self-neglect (depression, insecurities, anger, etc.).

Dumpers like to blame their exes and things that were out of their control. They don’t like taking responsibility and admitting they played a role in the separation.

Pride, bitterness, and excessive power don’t let them be honest because honesty would give their ex hope to fix problems and make dumpers scared of their ex’s reconciliation attempts.

Dumpers don’t want their ex to reason with them and try to get back together. They want their ex to know the relationship has ended for good and that they don’t plan on reviving it. This is why they try so hard to keep their ex away from them and minimize their guilt in the process.

In a long-term relationship, compatibility doesn’t have anything to do with a breakup. Couples may grow apart, but that doesn’t happen because they’re fundamentally incompatible. It happens because they stop watering the relationship and get (or want to get) their wants and needs met elsewhere.

They may say they weren’t compatible, but if they were compatible for months or years before the relationship ended, something other than incompatibility broke them up. Something that is entirely their fault.

Usually, a long-term relationship ends because couples don’t grow together. And they don’t grow together because they can’t outgrow themselves and want the relationship to succeed.

Instead of addressing their shortcomings and working on deepening their connection, they establish unhealthy routines and slowly disconnect from each other.

When they disconnect, they don’t immediately break up. They stay together and wait for problems, temptations, stressors, and better opportunities to arise.

These relationship killers are a part of every relationship. However, a relationship with an emotionally disconnected couple is much more likely to give in to them and think the relationship itself is the problem.

Their poor relationship mentality and determination to resolve issues convince them they’re incompatible, that their relationship is too damaged to continue, and that they deserve to be happy.

They basically gaslight themselves into thinking they’d be foolish to stay in a stagnant relationship that lost all hope and sparks.

Yes, some relationships are not compatible. Couples or potential couples don’t find each other attractive, have conflicting beliefs, communicate differently, struggle to connect emotionally, and want different things in life.

But such people typically don’t commit to each other. They go their separate ways before they become official or shortly after. They stop seeing each other within months of dating because they’re so fundamentally different.

In such cases, differences don’t attract. They repel and make people feel disconnected and unheard.

Sadly, couples can feel unheard and disconnected in long-term relationships as well. They can feel like their partner is neglecting their needs and that it’s safer and more convenient for them to abandon their relationship before they get even more hurt.

Due to fears of getting hurt and cravings for stability and happiness, they often start experiencing doubts and think they could be happier on their own. Unhappiness and desires for happiness tempt them to entertain the idea of breaking up and relying on themselves or others.

If they don’t find a way to stop thinking negatively and liking the idea of being single or with someone else, there’s a big chance that they eventually associate negative beliefs with their partner and get repulsed by him or her.

Sometimes people let themselves go or get busy, depressed, and stressed with work, family, and life in general. They put their partner to the side and do what makes them the happiest or the least stressed.

That can happen to anyone but doesn’t mean the relationship is over.

Couples go through ups and downs together. If their communication is good, they can get individual or couples therapy and resolve their problems while staying together. As long as they have the will to heal and grow, the relationship can survive anything.

Even cheating.

The problem is that couples don’t always want to resolve their differences. Many times, they only focus on the negative aspects of the relationship and become resentful. Their unhealthy emotions then tell them to give up on the relationship and pin the blame on incompatibility or each other.

Such couples are determined to leave and shouldn’t be reasoned with. They should be left to their devices so they can think, feel, and do what they want. That’s the only way they can regain their independence, relieve their pain, and see things from a different perspective.

In this post, we talk about what it means when a guy breaks up with you because you aren’t compatible. We point out when he’s telling the truth and when he’s making an excuse. 

He broke up with me because we are not compatible

Couples often mistake arguments, differences, and poor ways of dealing with difficulties for incompatibilities. They think they’re incompatible as a duo solely because they don’t communicate well and feel angry and unhappy.

What such couples need isn’t more compatibility. They need to mature (improve the way they perceive hardships) and learn to express themselves better.

When they learn to communicate and not respond impulsively, they’ll be able to see that they’re perfectly compatible as couples and that they can get along like any other couple.

They just need to want to stop trying to change their partner and be more accepting. 

Every relationship has problems and things we don’t like. But incompatibility is something entirely different. It’s when two people are so different in nature that they can’t physically and emotionally coexist.

For example, a couple is incompatible when someone badly wants children and the other is set on not wanting children. That makes them incapable of changing their views and reaching a compromise. They should break up to avoid stringing each other along.

Another example of incompatibility is when a couple has religious differences and doesn’t want to accept each other or convert. An incompatibility is when they insist their way is the only way and that their religion, beliefs, or values are more important than their partner.

So again, couples can have different lifestyles, interests, love languages, senses of humor, libidos, and communication styles. But these things don’t automatically imply that they’re incompatible and that they should break up.

The above things can be worked on. It may be difficult, but they can learn to accept each other, adapt, and be grateful for their relationship. Couples who don’t want to adjust have a big problem. They think their partner should adjust or that they shouldn’t have to adjust so much.

Such beliefs tell them their relationship isn’t making them happy and that they need to get out of their relationship and find someone who’s more like them.

Sometimes people find the smallest faults in their partner or potential partner and claim they’re incompatible as a couple. Some say they’re not compatible because they argue occasionally about whose turn it is to do chores. Others claim they’re incompatible because they disagree about how they should spend their money.

I find their reason for breaking up ridiculous because it has nothing to do with incompatibility. It’s got everything to do with openness and communication. Poor communication isn’t an incompatibility. Not unless it’s unhealthy or incapable of improving.

Things that can change but don’t due to a lack of drive to improve aren’t just incompatibility. I don’t have a word for them, but the closest things to them are bitterness, pridefulness, and immaturity.

Even cheaters sometimes say they were unhappy and that they had no choice but to cheat.

They rationalize their immoral behavior by lying to themselves and blaming it on their relationship not working out. If I remember correctly, my ex did that too. She tried to assuage her guilt by coming up with excuses that were acceptable to her.

Fortunately, she eventually realized she couldn’t lie to herself forever and that she needed to take accountability for her actions. 

Your dumper ex probably won’t do that anytime soon. He will likely continue viewing you as an incompatible partner and blame you for his unhappiness and the breakup. Most dumpers justify their behavior, lack of feelings, and negative perceptions of their ex because doing so allows them to take the moral high ground.

It tells them that they have the right to walk away and do what they need to be happy. The last thing they want is to see themselves as quitters who threw away a perfectly healthy relationship.

With that said, here’s what to make of a guy when he breaks up with you and claims you aren’t compatible.

You weren’t compatible if you wanted different things from the relationship and weren’t willing to adjust your life. If you were long-distance and weren’t willing to move places for each other, we could say you were incompatible due to stubbornness, limiting beliefs, and unwillingness to leave your comfort zone.

You could have found a way to be with each other physically, but because you weren’t able to agree on who would move, you let the distance get between you and break you up.

How to tell if you’re incompatible or unwilling to adjust as a couple?

You can tell if you were incompatible with your ex by looking at the length of the relationship and the problems you faced as a couple (the reasons you broke up). You can also talk to your ex about it during the closure conversation and see what he thinks.

If your ex can’t provide clear reasons for breaking up, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you were compatible.

It could mean that he or she doesn’t want to tell you why you broke up and that you’ll need to figure things out on your own. Exes don’t always tell us how they feel or don’t feel, so you’ll need to remember the last few arguments or problems and analyze them.

If your ex was miserable because he lacked the space and time to do what he wanted, your attachment styles were probably very different. Your ex wanted to focus on other things and people but couldn’t, so your ex felt smothered and angry.

The lack of freedom made your ex think you were incompatible when it came to bonding and that it was better to separate.

As you probably know, attachment styles and relationship needs differ from person to person.

But despite that, they can be improved. An avoidant person can become secure and take his or her relationship to the next level. All he or she needs is understanding from the other person and a strong desire to evolve.

If this desire was lacking for your ex, you had an incompatibility issue because there was no way to overcome your bonding obstacle.

Your ex liking different food is not an incompatibility. It can grow into an incompatibility if your ex only wants to eat the food he or she likes and doesn’t want to compromise once in a while. Closed-mindedness can grow into resentment and cause an emotional withdrawal.

I hope you see the difference between incompatibilities and things that can be worked on when couples want to work on them. It’s important to understand this so you can hold your ex accountable for the things he or she didn’t want to improve.

So if a guy broke up with you and said you weren’t compatible, figure out if you really weren’t compatible. Did you have big differences and issues that couldn’t be resolved with communication and effort or did your ex merely make it look like you were incompatible to justify his or her decision to leave and get you off his or her back?

Think about the reasons you broke up and you should soon realize if you were incompatible as partners or not mature and willing to compromise and grow together.

If the relationship was long-term, healthy, and had no major issues, it probably ended due to a poor relationship mentality rather than incompatibility. Inadequate relationship skills and determination to succeed destroyed the relationship from within and caused your ex to run away from problems.

I don’t know your situation, but I know that long-term relationships (especially healthy ones) don’t end because couples suddenly become incompatible. They end because they take them for granted and expect them to maintain themselves.

Their poor self-awareness and willpower force them to grow apart, argue, and give up if a solution isn’t found in time.

If you truly were incompatible, you probably couldn’t communicate efficiently and adjust to each other. You didn’t want to because you expected things to go your way. In that case, it’s good that you broke up so that you can both reflect on your shortcomings and do something about them.

If you improve the things you need to, perhaps one day you’ll give the relationship another chance and have a better relationship because of it. But right now, this isn’t the time to think about getting back together. You must first rebuild your self-esteem and forget your ex.

This will help you distance yourself from your ex and see that you weren’t happy either and that the relationship needed to end.

Did he break up with you because you were not compatible or was it just an excuse? Share your breakup experience with your ex in the comments section below.

And lastly, if you’re trying to figure out what went wrong and get closure, get in touch with us, and we’ll do our best to help.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Learn more about me or get in touch today.