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Dr. Joe Beam
Kimberly, let’s talk about something I think that you would know something about, because you’re a pretty strong personality, right?
Kimberly Holmes
I would say that, yes.
Dr. Joe Beam
I would say that.
Kimberly Holmes
I would agree.
Dr. Joe Beam
I think anybody who’s ever met you would say that you’re a strong personality.
Kimberly Holmes
Probably so.
What Difficulties Might Exist For This Couple?
Dr. Joe Beam
Recently, I interacted with a couple… The wife had a very strong personality and the husband was more laid back. Now that doesn’t make her better than him or him worse than her, that’s not what we’re talking about here. It’s just very different temperaments, very different ways of approaching life.
Dr. Joe Beam
Now, Kimberly, what kind of difficulties do you think might exist? Just maybe an example or something that might exist if the woman is a stronger personality and the husband is not as strong a personality. What kind of conflict or difficulty might come from that?
Kimberly Holmes
Well, here’s the first one that I’m thinking of: a societal perception of what marriage should be. The husband is more domineering, he’s the one who’s going to make decisions, be more strong-willed and strong-headed. So, automatically, you’ve turned that idea on its head to where the woman is the one who’s more driven, more like that, and maybe the husband doesn’t care as much. He’s going to take a little bit of a second seat to her and society’s already going to look at that and tell them something’s wrong.
Dr. Joe Beam
Many times I have worked with couples over the years where they were being told by either people at church, or by parents, or by friends saying, “You need to toughen up, guy,” when actually she was the stronger personality. And people would ask me, “What do you think?” Well, I think you need to be who you are, but as you’re being who you are, understand some conflicts that can come between the two of you if that occurs.
Kimberly Holmes
It’s absolutely true. One of the things that could happen between that is the wife could start disrespecting and running over her husband. Now, it could also happen the other way. When the husband is more strong-willed and the wife is more of that laid back personality, that happens, but unfortunately it’s just more expected, more commonplace, even though it’s not right.
Dr. Joe Beam
So people don’t necessarily raise an eyebrow.
Kimberly Holmes
They don’t.
Dr. Joe Beam
But if the woman’s doing it, all of a sudden they’re calling her names.
Both Need To Be Careful: Steamrolling & Losing Respect
Kimberly Holmes
What’s sad is that when each of these people, when they’re working in their strengths and they learn how to work as a team in this, they can be a great team. But if the wife is disrespecting her husband or she starts to say, “Well, why can’t you be more like me?” Or, “Why don’t you stand up to me more like people are telling me that you should?” Then that’s when their marriage can start to break down.
Dr. Joe Beam
And that’s why both of them have to be careful. She has to be careful, not to run over him, but he has to understand that if he acts as if he’s Caspar Milquetoast, if he acts as if he’s this mild, meek little guy that has no backbone whatsoever, she likely will lose respect for him.
Kimberly Holmes
Right.
Dr. Joe Beam
And then will run over him just because of the fact that she doesn’t respect him.
Kimberly Holmes
Right.
Two Examples…
Dr. Joe Beam
I’ll give two quick illustrations of this. The first was a case many years ago, I interacted with a couple where the husband was the milder personality of the two. When his mother died, his wife stepped in, took over, and did everything for the funeral… all those kinds of things, and then later in front of me she was complaining that he’s a wimp.
Dr. Joe Beam
And I said, “He’s not a wimp. He just wasn’t operating at your speed.” His mom died, first of all. But because he wasn’t acting rapidly enough, she stepped in and took over and did everything because she had a strong personality. And then she resented him that she did.
Dr. Joe Beam
But not only that, he resented her. He’s like, “I could have taken care of my mom. Why did you do that?” The word he used, he actually used this word, “I felt emasculated,” so it’s got to be, give yourself some patience, some time, understanding, so not only should she be careful not to run over him, but here’s another recent situation I ran into…
Don’t Be A Doormat
Dr. Joe Beam
… another woman, the stronger personality, is now involved with another man. And because the husband is more laid back and easygoing, he was thinking, “Well, maybe she just needs to work through this.” Rather than standing up to her, he actually bought the tickets for her to fly to the new lover. And knows that she’s going to be with him for three or four days. Like I said, he bought the ticket. He’s going to drive her-
Kimberly Holmes
Oh no.
Dr. Joe Beam
… to the airport. Not only that, one day he actually drove her to meet him. Now he’s thinking, “I’m showing her how much I love her, how much I’m trying to understand, how compassionate I am,” how much he wants to be with her, but how do you think she’s reading that, Kimberly?
Kimberly Holmes
She’s seeing it as, “He’s okay with this.”
Dr. Joe Beam
Exactly. Well, she knows he’s not “okay” with it, but she’s reading it like this, “You’re not fighting for me. You must not care if I wind up with this other guy.”
Kimberly Holmes
Right.
Dr. Joe Beam
So what we recommend in a situation like that is that he does stand up. Now, it may not be his nature to be confrontational, but sometimes you have to be. He needs to look at her and say:
“If you want to buy a ticket and fly to see him, I can’t stop you, but I will not help you. And I’m not about to drive you to the airport, I’m not about to drive you to meet him because I love you, I’m fighting for my marriage, I’m going to be strong.”
Dr. Joe Beam
And so when you were younger, Kimberly, you probably were given advice to date strong young men.
Kimberly Holmes
Yes, I was given that advice (and it is probably smart that I did) but I will say that you gave advice to my fiancé before we got married and told him that he had to be strong-willed against me. You took this person who probably could have been so meek and mild-mannered and turned him into someone who gives me a run for my money, which in the grand scheme of things is good for us.
Dr. Joe Beam
It’s what you need.
Kimberly Holmes
It’s what I need.
Dr. Joe Beam
You need people that can be strong enough to interact with you. Even if you’re the person who’s laid back, mild-mannered. We’ve been talking about if the guy is a more mild-mannered guy and the woman is stronger, but as you already pointed out Kimberly, it’s equally applicable if the genders are reversed.
Dr. Joe Beam
Be strong enough to stand up for yourself and to stand up for your marriage because people who are strong personalities will end up disrespecting people who appear to weak. And just because you’re laid back doesn’t mean you’re weak. Just because you’re mild-mannered does not mean that you’re weak, so demonstrate your strength.
Kimberly Holmes
But they might not like conflict, so it can look like they’re weak because they’re trying to keep peace.
Kimberly Holmes
For example, I was doing a “lunch and learn” training at an organization a couple of months ago. There was a couple in the training at this business, and at one point the husband spoke up and said, “But what if you just have a situation where I’m high-paced, I want to make decisions, get things done, and she needs more time… but things have to get done, so what are we supposed to do!?” Right? Clearly he is the-
Dr. Joe Beam
Dominant one.
Kimberly Holmes
… strong dominant one and she’s the one who’s-
Dr. Joe Beam
Laid back and all that.
Kimberly Holmes
… trying to catch up. And so I looked at him and I said, “Well, what if you just slowed down a little bit, got her input on things, and then brought her into the decision-making process? Because she doesn’t want to fight with you.”
Dr. Joe Beam
Right.
Kimberly Holmes
“She’s not going to fight with you.”
Dr. Joe Beam
But she does want to be involved.
Kimberly Holmes
But she does want to be involved, to which she spoke up when I said that and said, “Amen, say it again.” She said to her husband, “Listen to her.” Literally, it was like I started doing a marriage coaching session for this couple in front of 35 other people. You could tell pretty quickly exactly what needed to change. He needed to slow down, he needed to take a step back, and she needed to step up a little bit.
Dr. Joe Beam
And to be able to voice that, “I need you to slow down. I’m all for you being who you are, just like you were for me being who I am,” but she needs to be the one to say, “Slow down and involve me.” And that’s what we’re saying.
Kimberly Holmes
It is.
Dr. Joe Beam
If you’re the laid back partner, male or female, be strong enough to do that.
Kimberly Holmes
Yes.
Dr. Joe Beam
Right?
Kimberly Holmes
Absolutely.
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