Relationship problems with personality differences

Relationship problems with Personality Differences – Making It Work

Here is my relationships story. My name is Ann and I am 22. My boyfriend, Jake, and I live together in an apartment and have done so since we were both 18. We had some serious trouble after we started to see each other for our true selves. I eventually had to learn why that happens, what I needed to understand about this problem, and how to make it work. This is the story of how I learned to understand what our personality differences are, and how that relates to our interactions with each other. Understanding that plus the real differences in how men and women relate has made all the difference.

Our relationship problems began after just about two years. We started fighting quite a bit. We didn’t know what had changed. So we sought the help of a counselor who introduced us to two new ideas. The first of these two ideas is personality type. As it turns out, I was the one called a “Choleric” and he was the one called “Phlegmatic”. This means that I am a control freak and he doesn’t really have much of an opinion about things. We have other personality differences too, but these are our strongest traits. Understanding where our decisions and opinions come from made it easier to accept our differences.

Our relationship was also helped by understanding the difference between the way men and women think. Women have essentially a “ball of wire” for a brain that is powered by our emotions. Everything is inter-related, while for men it is completely opposite. Men think in terms of compartments. The compartments are one section of thought and only one compartment can be examined at one time. Also, men do not associate everything the way women do. They see each thing separately and unconnected. These differences between men and women plus our personality differences explained most of our problems.

Once I learned this information from our counselor, things started to make much more sense. We learned to talk more about our problems, understanding that our personality differences offered us each a different point of view and that we were also operating from different motivational spectrums. We made it work by working through our problems one at a time. It doesn’t mean we don’t have disagreements, but we at least understand why we disagree and we can try to achieve a middle ground on each situation. It’s work, but it’s worth it. Contact me if you want any help in this area, I know we were on your path before!

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