As we talked about in our last post, there are 6 people who enter into a marriage. The first set of two are who you believe your spouse is and who your spouse believes you are. The second set of people is who you want your spouse to be and who your spouse wants you to be.

The little bits that you have seen of your future spouse that do not attract you to them, may lead you feel like you can help them change into the person you want them to be.  The idea that you want your future spouse to change can be a pretty harsh way to look at it. Let’s think of it as you would love to see your spouse ““grow” in certain areas.

It could very well be that you do actually want your future spouse to change in a few different areas. You may even be hopeful that you can change your spouse to be the man or woman you want them to be. The things that attracted you to your future spouse may somewhat annoyed you at times and you might think that over time he things can be worked out. A lady may think if she works on her man long enough you will change to be the way she wants them to be.

 

Opposites Attract

When two people meet their differences actually attract them together. Very rarely do you see two people of the same personality stay together for a very long. Just think back to when you were in high school and how friends of yours, and possibly even yourself, went into and out of relationships almost as often as they change their shirts.
When you’re young, attraction seems to start with physical appearance and if you are physically attracted to the person. When you’re older on the other hand, most people have learned that beauty is only skin deep and they look personality characteristics than physical looks. The physical looks must be there in order for the attraction start, but as you get older physical attraction is less important than the connections that you make on levels that are deeper than surface level beauty.
They say that “opposites attract”. This is very true for almost everyone in the world. We know that God created Adam first in the likeness of man and then he created Eve out of man. As we talked about before, the image of God was created in man and that image was then separated into two distinct beings in man and woman with different characteristics and roles.
Now that God’s image is split into two different beings, each of the created beings is drawn to a counterpart that complements them rather than those who were exactly like them. I know my personality is the offset of my wife’s personality. She is much more common easy-going where I am more driven and passionate. Neither is wrong in their personality and characteristics, we are just different and complement each other.

 

Understanding Each Others Personality Will Help Your Relationship

Florence Littauer wrote a book called “Personality Plus” goes over four different types of personalities people can have. The four different personalities are “popular sanguine””, “perfect melancholy”, “powerful choleric”, “peaceful phlegmatic”. Her book goes into great detail on the different personalities and how each personality type has strengths and weaknesses to them.

 

The Popular Sanguine

Strengths: Likable, life of the party, talkative, funny, enthusiastic, cheerful, loves people, sincere, motivating, friendly, optimistic, energetic, spontaneous, and trusting.

Weaknesses: compulsive talker, loud, egotistical, naïve, disorganized, impulsive, flighty, self-centered, fickle, undisciplined, and insecure.

 

The Peaceful Phlegmatic

Strengths: Patient, meek, in control, dependable, practical and efficient, self-sufficient, easy to get along with, and calm and collected.

Weaknesses: introverted, un-enthusiastic, stubborn, lazy, discouraging, resist change, procrastinates, judgmental, and complacent.

 

The Perfect Melancholy

Strengths: Deep and thoughtful, talented, creative, perfectionist, idealist, logical, peaceful, organized, patient, and analytical.

Weakness: Easily get depressed, moody, critical, suspicious, impractical, holds grudges, too introspective, hard to get along with, pessimistic, and emotional.

 

The Powerful Choleric

Strengths: A born leader, decisive, adapted to change, intelligent, risk taker, independent, confident, visionary, energetic, goal oriented, and to be in charge of anything.

Weakness: Compulsive workers, controlling, arrogant, demanding, impatient, critical, unsympathetic, argumentative, know it all, rude, rash, and abrasive.

 

 

Each person in this world is different and God only created one of you.

Your personalities completely different than anyone else ever created and the combination of personality traits are different. Some people may be mostly one type of personality with very little of the others while another may be a combination of three or even four of the personality types.

What is very interesting is that the different personality strengths make you fall in love with your spouse and the weaknesses irritate and annoy. My personality is a combination of powerful choleric and popular sanguine while my wife is part perfect melancholy and peaceful phlegmatic. What attracted me to my wife is that she was much more easy-going and relaxed then I was and she is attracted to my passion and drive.

The differences between two married people attract each other towards one another in the beginning of the relationship because of the other person’s strengths. As a relationship deepens, those things that were an attraction can become more of an irritation when those strengths become weaknesses. Once the newness of the relationship is gone the weaknesses start to come out in each other and those weaknesses start to irritate the other.
The second set of people that enter into marriage is how you see the person you want your spouse to be. You possibly feel that you can change them or more of them but the truth is they are they are and only God can change them. The more nagging, complaining, and arguing that you do will only make your spouse be more resolved in their belief that they do not need to change to be the way you want them to be.

The Bible says in Proverbs 25:24, “it is better to live in a corner of the roof then in a house shared with a contentious woman.”