Personality Chasms Between Partners Seem to Widen If Not Addressed
Have you ever noticed how certain personality differences between partners in a relationship can grow larger if the partners are not aware of them and careful to address this diverging tendency? In working with couples, I have seen how personality differences can reverberate between two people over time, making their differences seem larger and larger. Eventually they become major recurring themes in couples' struggling or growing apart. For example, so many times I've seen couples where one person is "The Worrier" while the other is "The Laissez-Faire." The Worrier does not feel better to hear from the Laissez-Faire partner, "Don't worry about it," "You worry too much," or "Just forget about it." The Worrier may conclude that the partner "just doesn't get it," doesn't understand, believe or respect his or her concerns. The Worrier feels increasingly alone with the worriers, bottled-up, not und