The Personality Problem

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Recently my lovely bride and I were discussing marriage coaching different types of couples and she made an interesting statement. “Not everyone will have our personalities.”

The Issue

When you first get married you will still be in the limerance stage. (If that term isn’t familiar to you check out our post What is Love Anyway.) So for many couples the first few months to 2 years will be the “honeymoon” period. Everyone is perfect; we love everything about each other, etc. But soon enough limerance wears off and it’s back to normal behavior. Which means our personalities rear their (sometimes) ugly heads.

The Question

When Sally made the statement, “Not everyone will have our personalities” what I heard was a question. The question was Is your personality a factor in whether you can have an amazing marriage? Click To Tweet The answer to that question is a definitive “Yes and No”. See? All clear? Class dismissed. 😉

The Yes Part

Your attitudes and actions will be factors in whether you will have an amazing marriage. But your personality will not be a factor in whether you can have an amazing marriage. I’m going to state this unequivocally. Any couple can have an amazing marriage. Any couple. But not every couple does. Click To Tweet Some couple use the “personality excuse” for why their marriage isn’t great. Occasionally the personality excuse is self-directed, “I’m just not cut out for marriage” or “I can’t handle this lifetime commitment.” But more often the personality excuse is based on the other person’s personality. “If he would just pay more attention to me” or “If she wasn’t such a nag.” I’m sure you can come up with many more examples.

The No Part

Your personality is not a factor in whether you can have a happy marriage. Click To Tweet  However what you decide to do (or not do) or say (or not say) will make a HUGE difference in whether or not you have a happy marriage. Sally know a couple who when they were first married had VERY forceful discussions.  Both were firstborn and had high Type A personalities. But now they’ve been married over 20 years and have (at last count) 10 children. Looks like their personalities didn’t affect the happiness of their marriage.

The Crux

One factor that makes a difference between couples that have a happy marriage and those that don’t is fairly simple. Happy couples don’t let their personalities get in the way of their happiness. Click To Tweet If I am honest with myself I know exactly which of my personality traits is unhealthy for my marriage. Once I know where the problem lies I can work on fixing it. Perhaps through books, seminars or counseling, but it can be fixed.

God makes no allowance for personalities in relation to a relationship with Him or others, so we should not use our personalities as excuses for having a less than happy marriage.

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”

-Luke 10:27

 

Love you all!

-Troy