Home > Marriage > Communication > He's Practical; I'm Not
He's Practical; I'm Not
How I learned not to take our personality differences personally.
By Dianne Barker | posted 9/12/2008
 2 of 4
I silently nursed my wounded feelings, wondering if I could ever please him.
One morning, nine years into our marriage, I rushed into our couples' Sunday school class frazzled and irritated over James's critical remarks about my being late as usual. He'd made no effort to help dress the kids—and I'd even laid out his clothes!
I vented, "Someday I'm writing a book about how to be the perfect husband."
One woman grinned. "I think I just read that book."
The next day I hurried to the bookstore and found Understanding the Male Temperament: What Women Want to Know About Men but Don't Know How to Ask.
The book explained temperament as inherited characteristics that strongly influence behavior. It described four basic temperaments, listing strengths and weaknesses.
I identified James's choleric strengths: strong-willed, productive, decisive, practical. Weaknesses: insensitive, inconsiderate, sarcastic. He had a generous blend of melancholy: gifted, analytical, perfectionist, yet negative, critical, rigid.
As for me, sanguine to the core! Outgoing, friendly, talkative, compassionate, but undisciplined, disorganized, insecure. Throw in some phlegmatic weaknesses: stubborn, indecisive.
Epiphany! Our conflicts mostly resulted from temperament differences, not malicious intent.
Remembering my wedding-night heartbreak at the car wash, I realized James wasn't intentionally cruel and insensitive. He was being what he is—a practical man taking action to prevent damage to the paint.
My insecurity made me overly sensitive, vulnerable to constant wounding by his weaknesses and strengths. As I stopped taking everything personally and considered the circumstance behind James's behavior, it helped me to remember a few things.
Accept each other as is. Understanding temperament helped us move from frustration to solution. We learned to accept each other as is, weaknesses included. We're both flawed (it's a humanity thing). Nobody got all strengths. We married the whole package, and living with another person's weaknesses is difficult—for everybody!
When I'd start to criticize, the Lord spoke quietly: Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your [husband's] eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (Matthew 7:3). A plank—in
my eye? Did it irritate James as much as his "speck" annoyed me?
Then I'd hear that inner voice: In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you (Matthew 7:12). Reluctantly, I tried to show the same patience with James's imperfections that I expected to receive. What I gave was returned abundantly. It's the way God works. Accepting the whole person as is reduced tension, allowing patience, affection, and friendship to grow.
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