They say ‘opposites attract.’ Are you as different from your spouse as I am? Especially in times of stress, our differences can cause us to live in clanging dissonance. But when we honor each other’s differences, we live in a spirit of harmony.
Opposites Attract
As God created the heavens, the earth, and everything else in the universe, he repeatedly said, “It is good.” But God finished creation by saying that something was not good. He gave voice to what we all realize deep down inside: it is not good to be alone. God said he would make a helper for Adam who would have a special kind of relationship to him, using a word meaning “complementary” or “opposite” from.
Now the Lord God said, It is not good (sufficient, satisfactory) that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper (suitable, adapted, complementary) for him.
Genesis 2:18 AMPC
It’s interesting that God didn’t create a person who was exactly the same as Adam, but complementary. There are many ways men and women are different, certainly we are physically different, but we are also different in the ways out brains work, which affects our personalities, gifts, weaknesses, and preferences.
If you imagine that the tips of your fingers represent your strengths and the spaces in between your fingers represent your weaknesses, you can see a cool picture of “opposites attract.”
If each hand represents one spouse, when you clasp your hands together, the strengths of one spouse (tips of their fingers) cover the weaknesses of the other spouse (spaces between their fingers).
Such a beautiful picture! And isn’t it interesting that this is also a picture of prayer??
Spirit of Disharmony
But why is it so common that this cool picture of harmony is rarely experienced in marriage?
Research shows that most of us do marry people who are different from us. The Prepare-Enrich company did a review of 1.5 million of their marriage assessments, focusing on the SCOPE personality section. They found that of the 5 personality traits they measure, 69% of couples differ in all of them!
Instead of honoring and respecting our differences, what happens so often is we get annoyed by how different we are, and we naturally think “I’m right so therefore he must be wrong!”
We often see this in couples that we mentor, and it has been true of our marriage as well. Bruce and I are about as opposite as a couple can get. In the early days we were working against each other a lot.
One of the areas of great division for us was in disciplining our kids. I was the easy going one, he was the strict one. We each thought the other was wrong. If Bruce seemed to get more strict, I would respond by being even more easy going. And when Bruce sensed me waffling with discipline, he would get even more strict. It was like we were magnets with opposing charges. We repelled each other!
The default mode of the human heart is self-justification, where we cannot understand the other sex we assume inferiority.
Timothy Keller
How to Live in a Spirit of Harmony
Learning to live in a spirit of harmony where personality is concerned means becoming an expert in your spouse’s personality. Learn about the different personality gifts of your spouse and how they can complement your own gifts.
Take this fun, free personality test. If you each take it you can compare your results and learn about how wonderful each of your strengths are!
He’s not wrong, he’s just different!
Emerson Eggrichs
Once you have both taken the test, discuss these questions:
- How can our personality similarities be a positive?
- How can our personality similarities be a negative?
- How can our personality differences be a positive?
- How can our personality differences be a negative?
Live happily together in a spirit of harmony, and be as mindful of another’s worth as you are your own. Don’t live with a lofty mind-set, thinking you are too important to serve others, but be willing to do menial tasks and identify with those who are humble minded. Don’t be smug or even think for a moment that you know it all.
Romans 12:16 TPT