In terms of academics/paper qualifications, being well read and general maths and English skills (mumsnet posting typos etc aside!) I’d say I was probably significantly more ‘intelligent’ than my long term ex, and possibly slightly more so than current DP – but I don’t necessarily think that’s a true definition of intelligence anyway.

Ex brought lots of other things to the table and it didn’t massively bother me at the time, though we were together from very young and there’s an element of ‘didn’t know any different’ there. He would very occasionally get a bit chippy about it, and I think I maybe dumbed it down a lot more than I realised, but we could and did have great conversations and there were still things he knew more about than me.

Current DP very knowledgeable on certain subjects, similar level of education though again I did better ‘on paper’, I have good general knowledge with some glaring gaps and so does he (better general knowledge overall I’d say, but bigger gaps – popular culture of the last 20 years or so for one) but we can both learn from the other so that’s nice. He’s interested in things, the world around him, different cultures, new experiences, history etc and that’s what I really value, it means we can find things out together. He doesn’t read much though, (or not any more). which is a shame as I’d love to talk books with a partner.

Kind, funny, caring, honest, interested – all much more important IMO.