Before you married, did you recognize, like and or acknowledge the differences between you and your now husband? I was cleaning out a closet and I came across some of our engagement items. I found this article that the local paper had written about us (the paper had a section on engaged couples). It showed us outside the tennis court, and it said “Couples diverse personalities temper while dating.” It made me laugh out loud. Are you kidding me? We didn’t temper anything while we were dating. But boy did I get the full effect of the “diverse” personalities once we married.
Many times, what drew us to our mate is the opposite phenomenon. We find the extreme differences interesting, appealing, and attractive. Many times, because our spouse has strengths that are not ours, many times they actually are the complement to our weaknesses. The challenge is that after we get married, we may decide that those strengths of our spouse are really not strengths, they are irritations in our life. They do not match our strengths. They are not as good as our strengths. We can begin to see their strengths, not as a strength but as a weakness, a true deficit.
I hate to admit I lived in this place of a distorted sense of my strengths being superior to his. I became blinded to thinking that his strengths were deficits, compared to mine. Wow that is strong! This is what can be so scary! We can really believe that how we act, how we function, what our strengths are is the way it should be.
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What is unbelievably awesome is to allow God to let you each lean into the strength of the other.
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My husband is laid-back, easy going; he is always a 5 on a scale of 1-10. He rarely gets upset, he doesn't get angry, he is just right there in the middle. He is spontaneous, and will just go with the flow. Now, all of those qualities I found very delightful when we dated, but not so much after we married. I married a laid back, totally content guy and then expected him to become an A-type personality, that was a go-getter, make it happen type of guy. What in the world was I thinking?
I spent so much time, convinced that he needed to be that kind of guy. I wasted time trying to change him, instead of seeing and accepting his strengths as just as significant as my strengths. Guess what my strengths are (go-getter, A-type, personality.) What I failed to see for so long was what can happen when you learn to see their strengths as equal to yours?
Guess what it is powerful? A couple that recognizes, celebrates and leans into each other's strengths. My husband will never be a go-getter, but he may also live to be 100 years old, because he is not stressed, he is filled with grace and a sense of being present in the moment. I, on the other hand, may fall over any minute because I live many times with too much action, and too much stress. What is unbelievably awesome is to allow God to let you each lean into the strength of the other. What is better than enjoying two strengths that help balance and off-set each other's weaknesses. Praying we can find strength in the differences.
~Carla
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