Couples Compatibility Test

You take it first, then send your partner a link. They answer the same thirty questions on their own phone, in their own time. Once you have both finished, you both see the comparison at the same moment.

Neither of you sees the other's individual answers. You see how similar you are in each area, not who said what. That makes it easier to answer honestly, which is what makes the result worth having.

The questions cover how you are as people and what you want from life together: whether you would rather live in a city or the countryside, how social your weekends should be, how you handle a disagreement, how much personal space you need and what you want for the future.

Your result shows how closely you match in five areas. Any of them can come out as the place you click most, and any can be the place you most need to talk.

• Temperament: how alike your personalities are, from curiosity and organisation to sociability, kindness and how you handle stress. A close match means your everyday rhythms fit.
• Connection: how similarly you approach closeness, reassurance and independence. A close match means you want roughly the same amount of togetherness.
• Lifestyle: city or countryside, social weekends or quiet ones, routine or spontaneity, how often you see family and whether you would move abroad. A close match means the shape of your days lines up.
• Priorities: money, career, household fairness, family traditions and whether you want children. A close match means you are heading in the same direction.
• Conflict style: whether you want to talk a disagreement through straight away or cool off first, and how much space you each need. A close match means your rows resolve more easily.

We use our own proprietary structure: thirty items in three blocks. Ten come from our Big Five personality test, eight from our attachment style quiz and twelve are about life and values.

For every question, we measure the gap between your two answers. The smaller the gaps in an area, the higher your similarity score for it, on a scale from 0 to 100. Your result is five bars, one per area, rather than a single compatibility percentage, because two people can match beautifully on lifestyle and be miles apart on conflict style, and one number would hide that.

One question gets special care. If you are far apart on whether you want children, that is mentioned only on your private results page, never on anything you share.

Your highest bar is where you click: the part of the relationship that comes easily and that you can lean on when other things are hard. Your lowest bar is where to talk: not a problem, just the area where you are most likely to assume the other person wants what you want, and be wrong.

Every couple has a lowest bar. Differences are normal and often useful. A planner and an improviser can have brilliant holidays if they talk about it first. A talker and a cooler-offer can handle arguments well if each knows what the other needs in the first ten minutes.

The bars in the middle are worth a look too. They are the areas where you mostly agree but may have one or two small surprises, such as the same view on weekends but different ideas about how often to see family.

Compatible couples are not identical. They agree on the things that are hard to compromise on and handle the rest with good humour.

The big, hard-to-move things are usually in Priorities: whether you want children, how you think about money, how much career matters and what a fair split of the housework looks like. A gap here needs a real conversation, because neither of you can meet halfway on having a child.

The everyday things are in Lifestyle and Temperament: city or countryside, busy weekends or quiet ones, planner or improviser. Gaps here are normal and often good. They give each of you a reason to try something you would never have chosen alone.

Connection and Conflict style sit in between. How much closeness you each want, and how you each handle a row, can be learned and adjusted, but only once you know what the other person needs. That is exactly what the result is for.

No test decides that. What lasts is two people who understand their differences and handle them kindly. A compatibility test gives you a map of where those differences are, which is the best possible start.

Couples with very different scores can be very happy, and couples who match closely can still drift if they never talk. The result is most valuable as a conversation starter: something specific to discuss over dinner instead of a vague "are we all right?"

Start with your highest bar and say what you love about it. Then move to your lowest bar and ask, rather than tell: "What does a good weekend look like to you?" or "When we argue, what helps you most?"

Pick one small thing to try from that conversation, such as a five-minute check-in after a disagreement or alternating social and quiet weekends. Small agreements beat big promises.

If you want to go further, each take the attachment style quiz. It shows how each of you handles closeness and distance, which explains a lot of what sits behind the Connection and Conflict style bars.