[Love] does not seek its own interests, . . . it does not brood over injury.
—1 Corinthians 13:5
Your marriage will largely succeed or fail depending on how well you understand and reconcile the unavoidable conflicts that are inherent in your relationship. No matter how compatible or incompatible you believe you are, some level of conflict is inevitable. How you understand and address these issues will make the difference between whether you have a good marriage or a poor one, or one that falls somewhere in between. If handled well, your conflicts will bring you into deeper unity and intimacy with each other. If ignored long enough, unresolved conflicts can become internalized, and cause one or both of you to withdraw your love. Understanding your conflicts does not mean that all of them are resolvable. In fact, according Dr. John Gottman’s research, most conflicts in marriage are not resolvable. It’s how we relate to each other during conflicts that matters most.
Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind, but it can’t be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage. Instead, they need to understand the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict and learn how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other. Only then will they be able to build shared meaning and a sense of purpose into their marriage.
Gottman’s conclusion came after watching thousands of hours of video recordings of married couples addressing conflicts. Most conflicts, he contends, are not about the surface issues, but rather often involve “deeper hidden issues that fuel these superficial conflicts and make them far more intense and hurtful than they would otherwise be.”
After nearly forty-two years of marriage, and more than four decades of accompanying married couples in their healing process, I find Gottman’s findings both troubling and affirming. They are troubling because we all desire to have our conflicts resolved, and it can be painful and disquieting when they remain unresolved. But his conclusions are ultimately affirming because they speak to the reality I have experienced in my marriage as well as what I observed ministering to hundreds of couples over the years.
Spouses have numerous differences in personality, values, lifestyles, and hidden expectations for their marriage. Many of these differences will remain until they die. These fundamental differences need to be understood and respected. It does no good to try to change the fundamental nature of your spouse in order to make them think and act more like you. That never works. Trust me, I tried many times to convince Margie to think the way I think, and it always failed. Instead, as we discussed in the chapter on cooperative teamwork, these differences need to be addressed with love, in a posture of mutual submission, and with reverence for each other and for Christ (see Eph 5:21). This process of mutual respect begins by recognizing your fundamental differences in personality.
Personality Differences
In their popular book The Temperament God Gave You, Art and Laraine Bennett propose that temperaments are inborn. One person by nature may be more laid back; the other more intense. One is jovial and outgoing; the other more reflective. One speaks freely; the other rarely shares all they are thinking. You can see how these differences might play out in marriage—sometimes in very complementary ways, but at other times as a source of ongoing conflict and frustration.
At the beginning of a relationship, these differences are often complementary. Consider, for example, the partner who is more expressive and likes to share her thoughts and feelings, while the other is a good listener who enjoys processing things internally. This can be a near-perfect match—an example of how “opposites attract.” This natural complementarity may play out in a positive way throughout marriage, but it can also become a source of pain and conflict if the couple doesn’t learn to balance and compensate for their natural dispositions. Over time, the good listener may build up resentment about feeling unheard and misunderstood. Simultaneously, the more engaging communicator may resent not having as much dynamic interaction and feedback as they would like to maintain vibrant conversations in their relationship.
Like many couples, Margie and I had different but mostly compatible temperaments. Despite our compatibility, there were certain ways that our individual temperaments made it more challenging to face and deal with conflicts. With my easygoing temperament, I wanted everything to be harmonious, calm, and peaceful. Margie, with a fun-loving and outgoing temperament, liked things to be congenial and happy all the time.
Neither one of us enjoyed being in a state of unresolved conflict, which meant we didn’t fight often. But when it came to addressing conflicts, Margie preferred (to use her terms) to “bury her head in the sand.” That, by itself, created ongoing distress for me. I preferred to address our conflicts calmly and resolve them as quickly as possible in order to restore peace and harmony between us. Sometimes, when the conflicts were not addressed adequately, I would internalize them, which would disturb my peace of mind and eventually hers. This sometimes led to more intense conflicts, which neither of us enjoyed.
Temperaments make up a core part of each person’s personality, but as the Bennetts clarify, temperaments are not synonymous with personality. Personality is a much broader construct that includes “the whole of the person’s thoughts, behaviors, and emotions,” which go into making up a person’s overall character. Our temperaments are the fundamental building blocks of our personalities, but our choices, training, and culture also have a tremendous impact on our overall makeup.
Personality involves our unique inborn temperament (nature) and our acquired character qualities (nurture). Both play an important part in marital dynamics. It is extremely beneficial to have a basic understanding of your own and your partner’s temperament and character qualities before entering marriage. For this reason, many pastors and counselors encourage couples to take premarital and marital inventories to assess overall personality differences as well as other areas of compatibility. These inventories can assist couples in understanding and addressing the potential areas of conflict that will sooner or later surface in their relationship.
Two of the most well known of these inventories are Foccus and Prepare (for engaged couples) and Refoccus and Enrich (for married couples). There are also other popular personality tests, such as the Myers–Briggs and the DISC assessment, which highlight several key facets of personality. If you haven’t worked through any of these inventories yet, I encourage you to do so. Then sit down with a pastor or counselor to go over your results. Understanding your basic personality differences should help you navigate your conflicts with greater reverence and mutual respect. Margie and I did not have these available before we were married. We had to gradually discover the differences in our respective temperaments and personalities throughout our marriage.
This excerpt from Be Devoted: Restoring Friendship, Passion, and Communion in Your Marriage is reprinted with permission of Ave Maria Press.
Bob Schuchts is the bestselling author of Be Healed, Be Transformed, Be Devoted, Be Restored, and Do You Want to Be Healed? He is the founder of the John Paul II Healing Center in Tallahassee, Florida, and cohost of the Restore the Glory podcast with Jake Khym.
