Being Married: Surviving Your Spouse’s Personality

Being Married: Surviving your spouse’s Personality

So, each person in the marriage is a product of his/her nature and nurture. Nature is what we inherit based on the genetic attributes of our parents (23 chromosomes from Dad and 23 from Mom – to make 46 for each child) – nature is also our spiritual inheritance, that being the sinful nature.

Part of human nature is our personality, no one get to chose the personality they like, we all inherit it based on whatever formula God uses. Scientists in the study of human, all agree that we all inherit one of three dominantly, Aggressive, Passive-Aggressive and Passive.

When you know your spouse’s personality, you cannot change it (the temptation is high to want to change it). Each personality has strength and weakness, and for passive-aggressive folks, they can swing on a pendulum. Don’t go look for a great personality to marry either, it doesn’t work that way, you simply ask God for grace on how to enhance each other’s personality strengths and how to extend grace to the weak areas of your personalities.

In my home, i’m passive-aggressive (closer to aggressive on the pendulum), wifey is aggressive, somehow, all three kids are passive-aggrassive (with different areas on the pendulum).

If you are married to an Aggressive spouse:

* he/she will naturally speak in loud voice and intimidating tone

* he/she or she will push to get what they want

* if he/she was raised in an aggressive home, you’ll have a supa-dupa aggressive person on your hand – with tendency for physical abuse

* when he/she gives advice, they expect you to do it, so always explain that this is an advice. Never say yes to an aggressive person to blow them away – it will come back and hunt you

* he/she wants things done like yesterday, so they’ll push for things (forget cost).

* he/she say things before thinking through it

* he/she loves affection (if you do his/her love language – you’ll have him/her on the palm of your hand)

If you are married to a Passive-Aggressive spouse:

* he/she would avoid confrontation, but would plot sabotage simultaneously

* when upset, he/she would keep quiet but is not happy – builds up crap that the enemy often take advantage off

* he/she is a good diplomat, loves to reason through things looking for amicable solution, can’t go straight to the point

* he/she would think through an issue a few times before voicing it, when he/she says something that hurts, they’ve thought about it

* he/she is great at calming down aggresives and bringing passives out of their shell – with Godly wisdom.

If you are married to a Passive spouse:

* he/she would avoid issues totally and will be cool with you leading…

* he/she would procrastinate (tomorrow is a common word)

* some are assertive (they might be quiet, but they know what they want)

* he/she would not typically talk about what’s going on, but would take drastic action when tired of the situation

* he/she is great at slowing things down – smelling the coffee

* if you are married to one – you need wisdom to help set deadline for projects (aggression won’t work)

One personality type is not better than another, each has strength and weaknesses, the above are just my own quick synopses. My recommendations are, first know your spouses personality (there are ton of personality analyses out there – I recommend TJTA). Second, don’t seek to change learn how to enhance the strength and give grace to the weak areas. Thirdly, each person SHOULD learn how the weakness of his/her personality is causing problem in their marriage and ask God for help (the Holy Spirit can help).

Please note that Personality is different from Character.