7 Things No One Tells You About Dating Someone Less Driven Than You

Of course, you and your partner don't need to share all the same hobbies or have all the same interests. You don't even need to have all the same values, as your differences are what help to challenge one another. Dating someone who doesn't care about their career as much as you, however, can be difficult.

When you're romantically involved with someone who doesn't care so much about their career, and you do, it's inevitable that you'll experience a lot of other differences, as well. Here are seven hard truths.

A true career person will make for a solid motivator, as they care deeply about their own career success and work hard to achieve it. Being around someone who works so hard to reach their own personal goals can be hugely inspiring. But dating someone who doesn't care about their career as much as you can, in turn, leave you feeling uninspired, as well.

While you may find yourself prioritizing work over other things in your life, your partner may not. This may cause complications, as they may not understand why you choose to prioritize work over date night, perhaps, while they wouldn't choose to work.

If you're dealing with stress at work, and you want to talk to your partner about it, they may not be the best person in whom to convide. That's because they may not totally understand your workplace stress, chalking it up to just a job. But, for someone who cares a lot about that job, you know all too well that it's not just a job — it's perhaps even part of your identity.

Likewise, your partner may not be the best person to have conversations with about work. Conversations are two-way streets, and if you talk about your day in the office and your career goals and the issues that your company is currently tackling and so on, your partner may not feel like talking about their work days, career goals, company politics or anything else in return. This can make conversation fall flat and, without healthy conversation, a relationship can feel dull.

While your work events may be important to you, your partner may not understand why. As such, they may not see the significance in attending your work events as your plus one.

It's probable that, if you prioritize work and your partner doesn't, you share a few different values with regards to money, household responsibilities, childbearing, etc. Whatever the case, being on the same page or at least truly respecting each other's differences is critical.

Because your partner may have different values as you, they may expect you to be home more often caring for children and keeping up with the house, disagreeing that you should be spending so much time at work. Or they may prefer to stay home more often, since they care less about work, which can be helpful or, in turn, cause resentment. Setting expectations up front and being clear about how you both plan to balance work and life is important.