|
Home / Relationships
Personality Type: A Powerful Tool for Improving Your Relationship
By:Molly Owens
Do you know the number one factor couples cite as crucial to their satisfaction with their relationship?
That’s right, it’s good communication. There are so many issues couples can disagree about—money, children, in-laws, work—but whether or not these issues become problems depends on how well you can communicate.
If you have serious communication issues, you may need couples counseling. But if your relationship works most of the time, but you occasionally find yourself at a dead end when talking to your partner—or if you sometimes just find yourself saying, “What can he be thinking?!”—then improving your understanding of each other is the key to making your relationship even better.
We often marry people who are very different from ourselves, and this can be the perfect choice. If we find a partner who excels in the areas where we’re weak, that can make for a great team. Problems can arise, however, when it comes to understanding each other’s thinking. Here’s an example:
David and Julie have been married for five years. Most of the time, their marriage works. David tends to be the forward-thinking partner; he’s always looking at some new investment for the couple or dreaming up a home improvement project. Julie prefers to take care of the details. She’s the one to pay the bills on time and make sure that the couple is prepared to take on all those projects that David dreams up. They make a good team, but sometimes Julie gets annoyed with David having his “head in the clouds” all the time. David, on the other hand, feels like sometimes Julie is just too involved with mundane details, and can’t see the “big picture.”
How can we explain this couple’s differences? There is a simple answer: personality type. Julie is a more concrete type; David is more abstract. According to the system of Myers-Briggs Personality Type, which is one of the most well-known and widely used personality theories in the world, Julie is a Sensor, while David is an Intuitive. Julie trusts what she can see; David trusts ideas. This is only one aspect of personality, however. There are four scales in total.
• Extroverted/Introverted—Do you get your energy from being around other people, or from being alone?
• Sensing/Intuitive—Do you see what’s real, or what’s possible?
• Thinking/Feeling—Do you make decisions based on logic, or feelings and values?
• Judging/Perceiving—Do you like to plan and schedule, or keep your options open?
The four scales are combined to make sixteen total personality types. Each person’s Type is described using a four-letter abbreviation; ISTJ, for example, or ENFP. The most common combinations for couples are a match for 2 out of the four scales; for instance, an ESTJ might be married to an ESFP. This means that most couples have a significant common ground in the way they think and make decisions. It also means that most couples have significant differences.
To find out your personality type, and that of your partner, the most accurate way is for you both to take the official Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This is an approximately 45-minute test that has been extensively researched and validated. Your results will tell you your four-letter type and those of your partner, and allow you to compare your similarities and differences. Recently the MBTI has become available in an online format which provides same-day results—so you and your partner can make a weekend project of studying your personality types.
Once you have figured out your Type and your partner’s, you’re ready to take a look at how they interact. Here’s a look at how differences can play out in a relationship:
• Introverted partner with Extroverted partner: Often, an Extrovert can draw out an Introvert and introduce them to social events they wouldn’t normally gravitate to. Similarly, an Introvert can help an Extrovert become more focused and self-reliant. Friction arises when an Extrovert wants more social interaction than their Introvert partner. The Extrovert may need to learn to be okay with attending gatherings alone.
• Sensing with Intuitive: As we saw in the example of David and Julie, this couple has fundamental differences in the way they think and place importance on different aspects of life. It’s important to focus here on the way these two qualities complement each other in a relationship; both aspects of this scale are needed for an effective team.
• Thinking with Feeling: This is the only scale with a gender difference—which means that women are more likely to be Feeling types while men are more likely to be Thinking. Having a balance on this scale can work well if each partner remembers that the other has something important to contribute. In every decision made together, both the logic of the situation and the values and feelings of all involved should be considered. Each partner should keep in mind that no decision should be made with only the head, or only the heart.
• Judging with Perceiving: This difference most often shows itself in a simple exclamation: “Why is he (or she) always late!?” A Judging partner will sometimes see a Perceiving partner as flighty or unreliable; while the Perceiver may get frustrated that the Judger can’t seem to be spontaneous. Again, the value comes in appreciating the difference. A more spontaneous partner can help a Judger to remember that not everything has to be planned and decided in advance, and a Perceiver can use a reminder that sometimes things do just go more smoothly when there is a plan or schedule.
If you’re coupled with someone who has a different personality type than you do, remember, most successful couples do have significant differences. In fact, ten percent of couples have none of the scales in common. The key lies in understanding your differences, and remembering that your partner’s different viewpoint is an important contribution to your success as a couple.
Digg
del.icio.us
Blink
Stumble
Spurl
Reddit
Netscape
Furl
Article keywords: relationships, marriage, myers-briggs, personality, personality type, couples
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
Molly Owens holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Psychology. She has a background in counseling, education, and the corporate workplace, and a passion for helping people discover their personality type and how it can help them succeed in relationships. For more information on Myers-Briggs Personality Type, or to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, visit www.PersonalityDesk.com.
|
|
| Top Relationships Articles |
- 1). Nurturing friendships By : CD Mohatta
When we plant a tree, we take care of that plant from the smallest stage of growth. We not only nurture that plant with water, air and fertilizers, but also protect it from any damage. Friendship is one such plant. One has to take care of friends, as one takes care of the plants, one grows.
Most of us take friendship for granted. We believe that friends are always there, whenever we need them.
|
|
|
- 3). Body Language Secrets You Should Know By : Royane Real
Even when you don’t say a word, other people can still learn a lot about what kind of person you are and what you are thinking and feeling.
How do other people do this? By studying your body language.
The term body language refers to the messages you send out with your body gestures and facial expressions.
Some body language experts claim that only about 7% of our messages to other people are communicated through the words we speak.
|
- 4). How To Make A Relationship Last? By : CD Mohatta
For a relationship to last, there are few basic requirements. The rapidity with which relationships are breaking in the modern days is a matter of concern and we should try to find out how to make a relationship that lasts for a long time. The major factors that affect the survival of a relationship are as below -
Selection Of Partner - Sometimes, our selection of partner may be wrong.
|
- 5). Happy Friendship By : CD Mohatta
How to have happy friends? This is a very important question. Who likes friends who don't smile and laugh? Who enjoys meeting friends who look serious? Not any one of us.
What about ourselves? Do we make happy friendships? Do we make our friends happy? Before thinking about others, wouldn't it be better if we first analyze our own selves? Do we smile.
|
- 6). Tips In Solving Relationship Problems By : Dana Goldberg
It can not be denied that relationships have been considered as the source of a loving relationship that is full of support, enthusiasm and pleasure, whether the relationship is in the family or to somebody you are intimately in love with. And we would like to experience such a relationship to last until death. Hence, we exert so much effort in order to nurture and to make it perfect if possible.
|
- 7). How well do you know your own eyes? By : Pradeep Aggarwal
A quote
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories that it has become to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet in this way that love begins and in this way only. The rest is only the rest, and comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these great shocks, which two souls give each other in exchanging this spark.
|
|
|
|
|
- 10). Erotic Hypnosis By : Abbas Abedi
A Little Romance Can Enhance Your Love Life
Nothing can enhance your love life better than a little romance. Enhancing your love life is something that every long term relationship eventually requires. Sooner or later your love life will be affected by the regular stresses of everyday life and many other factors that may make your love life seem lacking.
|
| New Relationships Articles |
|
|
|
|
|
|
- 4). 99 Days Left Until the NFL and Love Kickoff - Are You Ready By : Jaci Rae
With pre-season here and the NFL kickoff around the corner many men and women will have their love life tested. How will they survive? Jaci Rae, author of Winning Points with the Woman in Your Life One Touchdown at a Time - How to Score for Men and Women has the answers.
|
- 5). How Relationship Disagreements Can Make You Closer By : Donna LeBlanc
If you are like me, you’ve found yourself standing in the aftermath of a firestorm called a fight. You feel burned, damaged. Bitterness has taken root. Your heart, once open, is now closed—protected behind armor so you can’t be hurt again. Although you bury the pain, it smolders like a burning ember and pollutes your love or marriage relationship forever.
|
|
|
- 7). Pheromones To Attract Man By : Peter Vermeeren
Male Female Attraction through Pheromones
The only way the lower living beings like ants, butterflies, birds, dogs or even a tiger can communicate is through pheromones. The pheromones are the way they communicate as they cannot communicate through oral or written word. The communication starts when the particular species it at its very best to procreate and ends when the species is not in a position to attract the opposite sex.
|
- 8). Friendship Test- Do Friends Love Talking To You? By : CD Mohatta
You must be having a large group of friends. You also deal with many people in your job or business. You interact with people at every stage of your life. Do you find that you love talking to one person and avoid talking to another? You must have noticed that. What is the difference between these two persons? Why do you enjoy talking to one of them and avoid talking to another? What about yourself? Have you thought about that?
We enjoy talking to people who have the following qualities -
Listening - Good communicators are good listeners.
|
- 9). Relationship Test - Are You Continuing Without Pleasure? By : CD Mohatta
A relationship should be like a flowing river. Fresh, moving around and finding ways around obstacles. Enjoying a relationship should never be like a still pond of water that just exists. A relationship should have life and should never be a compromise.
But many relationships become like a pond. They began like river but are now stationary wondering where to go, and whether to exist at all.
|
- 10). Relationship Test - Are You Happier Being Alone? By : CD Mohatta
Many of us are of the types who are happy being alone. If such persons enter into any relationship it will invariably fail. Such loners want to be left alone and want no responsibility of others nor want others to take any responsibility of their. Are you one of them? Have you thought about this? Let us find out more.
What are the main characteristics of such people? The first is total independence.
|
|
|
