Our Personalities Collide

He Said: "I Hate to Wait; I'd Rather Act." She Said: "Let's Wait, Then Act"

Janine Petry

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John's Side:

I Hate to Wait; I'd Rather Act

I've got a Type-A personality, which means I'm driven and a problem solver. I'm also impetuous, so I tend to act first and pray about it later, especially when there's a problem. That's when I want to take action and deal with the issue by immediately confronting it. While I know my confrontations can come across like accusations or attacks, that's really never my intent. I just want to clarify what's happening.

I admire Susan for the qualities she possesses that I don't. She's more amiable and easygoing. And she's faithful to wait out the storm and pray about it before jumping to rash judgments or actions. She's cautious about what she says and slow to enter into conflict. For the most part, our personalities help to balance us. But when we learned our daughter was abusing drugs, our personality differences began to clash.

Everything came to a head one afternoon after I'd had a particularly stressful day thinking about what drugs was doing to our family. I was anxious and overwhelmed, and when I got home that evening, I asked Susan, "Could we take a walk? I need to share some things with you." While we walked together, I talked about everything I'd been thinking. But when I was done, Susan didn't say anything. Her nonresponsive actions made me angry, thinking she wasn't interested in my viewpoint. It seemed as if she just didn't want to deal with the issues with me. Is responding too much to ask of her?

Susan's Side:

Let's Wait, Then Act

When I face a problem, my tendency is to say, "Let's wait and see how this works out," or, "Let's pray and see how God leads." Because John is more confrontational, I often interpret his bringing up issues or asking me direct questions as accusations. My way of handling anger or conflict is to either back away or become defensive.

When John asked me to take a walk that evening, I'd had a peaceful day. It wasn't that I wasn't concerned about our daughter, it was just that I'd spent time considering the best way to respond and asking God to work in her life because I knew I couldn't do anything to control the situation or force my daughter to stop her destructive behavior. I knew God was ultimately in control and we'd just have to take one day at a time.

That evening John was filled with fears and doubts and needed to vent. But his intensity made me retreat. When he was done talking, I didn't know what to say. Even though I too had experienced many of those same feelings from time to time, I hadn't had any that day and was afraid of getting sucked into them again. So I kept quiet.

That made John more upset because he felt I wasn't sympathetic or understanding. But if I'd said, "I just had this wonderful, peaceful day and haven't worried at all," I would have thrown a wet blanket over him, as if to tell him his feelings were wrong. It just seemed as though he was pushing to take action, and I didn't see a need to at that particular point. Why couldn't we wait before we acted?

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 2002, Fall

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