Connie Durham (00:15.916)
As we begin today, let me ask you, how often do you pause to reflect on your emotional triggers and how they impact your marriage? Think about it. Those days we're a bit emotional and we react differently, maybe, than other days, or maybe it's your norm. Number two, in what ways do you think your personality style influences your relationship dynamics?
Ever thought about your personality styles? Yours, your spouses, maybe even your kids? How do they all interact? And three, when was the last time you expressed your love in a way that truly resonated with your spouse? Welcome to the Extraordinary Marriage Podcast. Today we're going to explore how the lack of self awareness can lead to conflict with your spouse. Why this happens?
And we're simply unaware of it. Then we're gonna incorporate the five concepts of happiness. Have you ever heard of them? They're simple but profound. Stay with me and begin to feel better about your relationship with your spouse beginning today.
Connie Durham (01:52.121)
So, why the importance of self-awareness? Self-awareness is crucial in relationships, allowing us to understand our emotions, triggers, and our behaviors. However, your personality can also color how you perceive the world, leading you to assume that your spouse sees things the same way. So when you make these assumptions, it can lead to misunderstandings and conflict. Anyone shaking their head?
Well, let's begin with the disc personality styles and their impact on love. Basically, there's four different styles. Every so often I speak of these because these are the core of many challenges in marriage. We're gonna discuss how each of the personality styles, the four styles, feels, how they feel loved, how they give love.
How they react to stress, and that's a big one that comes between you, how they show emotions and what sets them off, causing anger to show up. And for some styles, anger comes up a little quicker than others, but it's important to know that sometimes anger is a top emotional style, and anger shows up in every area when the person's tired, stressed, whatever. So understanding these personality styles.
It's really important because it's like you can move past your differences if you know that it's really not about you and it's about how this person is feeling. So, what you're gonna learn is fully covered in risk rediscover your spouse. It's my workshop, it's online. This program is transformative and an experience that can.
Connie Durham (03:41.219)
This program is a transformative experience that can redefine your lifelong relationship. You can understand how your spouse perceives the world. Move past irritations that cause friction in your marriage. Embrace and celebrate your spouse's unique strengths, the things that are good about them, right? And strengthen your marriage. How would you like a more harmonious marriage?
A sweet marriage, a loving marriage, a kind marriage, a respectful marriage. I think that we all would like that. And this is what you begin to find when you go through the workshop, The Extraordinary Marriage. And you can find that on my web page. All right, so let's think about the four styles. one of my friends at church said this the other day, and it's the most absolutely profound thing because we all assume that our spouse sees things the same way that we do. She said, Perception.
Is reality for the perceiver. Perception, how you see things, is the reality for the perceiver, perceiver. So if I perceive people don't like me, then it's my reality. If I see that I don't get along with people, then it's my reality. So perception is the reality.
To the perceiver. So you might be thinking that you have a lot of trouble with your spouse. Maybe they're not being loving enough. They're not doing enough things with you. You're not number one. And that's your reality. But because of their personality style, they may not be thinking that way. So here's the four styles. Again, it's gonna be how they feel loved, give love, react to stress, show emotions, and what sets them off, causing anger to show up. So are you ready? They're short.
They're profound. Are you ready? You might want to go back and write them down later. All right. number one, dominant. Value the dominant person, and this is the D of the D, I, S, and C. The dominant person values power and control. Yeah, so that is going to affect your marriage. Power and control. It also means in in their work and everything that they do, they value.
Connie Durham (06:07.79)
Power and control. And if you're an opposite style person, this can be very frustrating because maybe you don't step up to this or stand up to them whenever they're insisting on these areas. The second thing is they feel loved, the D, through respect and achievements. They feel loved through respect and achievements. And I always teach on the crazy cycle.
It's like men want to be respected and women want to feel loved. And when women don't feel loved, maybe they don't respect their man. And when women aren't respecting their man, their man's not loving on their woman. Do you see it goes round and round? But the D personality, especially, needs to feel respected. Number three in the D on the D, they react to stress. This is a really big one, and it's a big challenge in most marriages with this personality style.
They're dynamic, they're awesome, but this is a challenge. They react to stress with anger and frustration. That might mean they're stressed at work. It might mean you're having trouble getting your bills paid. It might mean they're doing too much that day or they have a deadline at work and they show anger. And when they show anger, you take it personal. It might be loud, it might be forceful anger. Yeah.
Nobody wants to deal with that all the time. And so if you are a D, you need to pay attention to how you are showing your stress and your anger. Four, sh they show emotions through assertiveness. Yeah, they show emotions through assertiveness. Meaning, if the going gets rough, they're just more assertive. Ice, right? And the last one is they get angry when feeling disrespected. So if they're feeling disrespected, there goes that.
Love and respect thing, then they get angry. They get angry, that is their top emotion. This is one of the most challenging personalities, one of the most dynamic personalities. So if you can understand your challenges, then you can move past them. The second of the disc personalities is the eye, and we're gonna call that influence. They're influencing, they value relationships and connections.
Connie Durham (08:26.616)
They're all about the party. They're like getting out with the friends, having a good time. They're about people. They're about family. They feel loved through social interaction. Loved through social interaction. Or, you know, when that comes to marriage, they feel loved by time or touch or doing things together. They react to stress with optimism and avoidance. Those are kind of.
Like opposite. So, what does that mean? They react to stress by thinking of the best scenario. Optimism. Thinking of the best scenario. So sometimes there's stuff going on and they always like think, and they tell you the bright side of it. And sometimes that can be irritating. But the other side of that optimism is they just avoid. So if they feel if they feel stressed, they just avoid. They show emotions.
Through enthusiasm, passion, excitement. Yeah, they're energetic and they show emotions through enthusiasm. Now they do get angry when feeling ignored or unappreciated. Maybe somebody puts them down, ignores them, unappreciates them, then they might feel angry, but not like the D. All right, and the third one is the S, and this is steadiness.
This really describes the S personality because they're very steady and level-headed in mostly everything they do. They value harmony and stability. So let's think if that S is married to that D, the S likes harmony and stability. And the D has very highs in in their emotional levels, right? So the S, the steady person, feels loved through support.
and reassurance they feel loved through support and reassurance. What is that? Maybe a little help, maybe thanking them for the things that they do. They react they react to stress. This is a big one, especially if they're married to the D. They react to stress with withdrawal. Now it doesn't have to be that there's a stress just in their marriage
Connie Durham (10:51.788)
If they have too much stress, they're not feeling appreciated, things aren't going well, they may withdraw. And that may also mean they have a little trouble forgiving a spouse or someone for things. So they react to stress with withdrawal. So they get quiet. And it's important to pay attention when that person gets quiet. They show emotions through calmness. They are not emotional, they don't show emotions.
That means you don't really know what they're thinking. They get angry when feeling overwhelmed or pressured. I mean, that's to the hilt. In other words, they rarely get angry, but they will get angry if they're super stressed. Then, last we have of the four is the C. D-I-S-N-C. Conscientious describes the C. They value accuracy and quality, and this is really important.
They might be a perfectionist. Yes. They might even say they're a perfectionist, or maybe they don't like to be called that. I don't know. But conscientiousness, they value accuracy and quality. That means they're gonna research anything that they buy to find what is the best, what lasts the longest. They feel loved through acknowledgement of their efforts. Thank you, honey, for
getting our insurance plan and and going through all those details. Thank you, honey, for a wonderful meal. If it's, you know, a a man at or whoever cooks these days, not just females cooks, but men men cook also. But they feel loved by acknowledgement and acknowledging their efforts, the things that they've done, give you know, giving them a little heads up, thank you. They also react to stress with analysis and criticism.
Now I'm gonna focus in on criticism because this happens a lot. First of all, remember they want everything correct, they want it all done just right. And remember, I said they might be a perfectionist. And so if you're not a perfectionist, they may criticize. And that kind of hurts sometimes. when you feel like you're criticized a lot, you feel like you can't do anything right, and you feel frustrated, you feel unappreciated. So the C
Connie Durham (13:13.742)
criti may criticize a lot and hold a very high standard in everything they do and they want to hold a very high standard in everything you do. They they show emotions through logic. Super logical. Super logical not very emotional. And they do get angry when feeling unrecognized or undervalued because
They go at everything in order to do it to the best of their ability, to do it right. That if you undervalue them, then they get frustrated with that. All right. So you can see how the four personality styles, when you understand them, you start to understand how your spouse thinks. Remember, they they may think differently than you do. And remember the statement I said earlier perception is reality.
To the perceiver. So each one of these styles looks at life differently. They look at life differently. So if you're an opposite style or a different style, they think, act, and respond to everything in life differently than you do. So sometimes you just don't understand what's the matter with them. But the more you talk, the more conversations you have.
The more things you do together, pay attention and you'll start to notice these things. These are the things I teach in rediscover your spouse workshop online. I promise that that will change your perception, change your life. It'll change how you look at your spouse, look at yourself, how you understand your teenagers, because personality styles are across the board. How you understand your boss at work.
If you learn them and really put them to use, like pretend it's a $3,000 class. You know, if we pay a lot for something, we really pay attention to it. It doesn't cost a lot, but pretend it costs $3,000 and make your way all the way through the course. All right. Now for the five concepts of happiness. I found these a few years ago and I thought, man.
Connie Durham (15:36.899)
That also is profound because how do we find happiness? What makes you happy? And sometimes it's not what you think it is. These are the deep down foundation of happiness. Because you know, you see people in poor countries who we would look at and think they don't have anything like compared to what we have, but they're happy. Sometimes we have too much stuff and we're not happy with all that.
All right, here they are. Number one is love and belonging. This is the need for emotional connection and intimacy. Love and belonging. And that might be belonging in that love and belonging. You you belong to a big family or you belong to a group of people. I have said before in other trainings, like let's think of gang members. Gangs, young people might become a part of a gang.
Because they don't have that love and belonging. They don't have that support at home. And so they join a gang in order to have that feeling of being loved, valued, and belonging. So love and belonging. Yeah, different reasons, right? But love and belonging in your marriage is having that connection with your spouse and and and intimacy. Number two, one of the happiness concepts, freedom and choice.
The importance of autonomy and the import excuse me. The importance of autonomy and decision making. So I can answer for this one freedom and choice. I'm kind of a free spirit. I like to make my own decisions. I don't really like to be told what to do too much. I don't mind, you know, stepping up to things I'm supposed to do, but I don't like to be told what to do. I like to be a part of the decision. Freedom and choice.
Meaning I get to choose what I say yes to. I get to choose what I do each day. So I have had an instance in my life where something came upon me and I didn't get to choose it at all. And it was about a three year commitment, and I was miserable the whole time. And I didn't really understand until I saw this freedom of choice. I have to be able to make my choices. Is that you? Is that your spouse? Let's think if you're married to a D personality.
Connie Durham (18:01.43)
And they made all the choices, all the decisions, and you got no say so. Yeah, I would have trouble with that. Number three, safety and security. The need for physical and emotional safety in the relationship. Well, my spouse turned out to be safety and security. He's so easygoing. He's so supportive. he's a very much of a people person. And so I was surprised when this was a part of his happiness thing. His top thing was.
Safety and security. That means having a job that you can rely on, a family you can rely on, a home to live in, safety and security. The fourth one is power and achievement. Now you put this with the D personality and you've got it going on here because remember they like that anyway. But the fourth one is this person is happy and fulfilled when they have power and achievement.
The desire for accomplishment and recognition. And let's face it, some people need that recognition and they have that drive for accomplishment more than others. And the fifth one is fun and pleasure. This is my second one. Yes, I'm a free spirit. I like to have fun. I like to do crafts and travel. I have a little adventure. Fun and pleasure. The need for joy and enjoyment.
Inner in the relationship. And the thing with the five concepts of happiness is if you don't have one of these, you feel unfulfilled. Yeah, it's like keeping your cup filled. And actually, when I first heard these, they said this is the five concepts of happiness. Which one would make you cry if you didn't have it? Which one would you?
really fold on which one would you really get hung up you know if you didn't have that for me it was freedom and choice and I had a hard hard time for like about three years but I also need fun and pleasure. Which one is important to you and what is your second one? All right so now let's look at the impact of of not being self aware because this is one of the big things you know if you have an explosive temper or you have a tendency to criticize and
Connie Durham (20:24.616)
And you're unaware that this is happening. I mean, what does it feel like when somebody explodes with their temper on you? What does it feel like when there's somebody who constantly criticizes? Can you see how these things come into marriage? And when people are not aware that they are doing these things, it causes havoc in their marriage. And sometimes the person who's receiving these things feels unloved and they don't really even know why.
But put all these things together I'm sharing with you today, and you start to understand how we feel loved because we stop, we reassess it, and we pay attention to how what makes us feel loved. So just look at the impact of not being self-aware and how we act under stress. And these are like some self-coaching questions. So these are things to ask yourself. Self-coaching costs you nothing, right? Self-coaching. So
I want you to think about it. What in your personality style did you hear today that could be causing a disconnect with your spouse? Did you hear something in your personality style? Because I, you know, we can't answer for our spouse. Maybe we get them to listen to this too, or to tap into the rediscover your spouse class, like you take it, learn it, and then have them take it and learn it. Now you got it going on. But what in your personality style could be causing some strife in your marriage?
Then, do you have a need for perfectionism? Most of the time I don't. I would like to be perfect, but most of the time I don't have that perfectionism thing. I do like things that I plan and certain things to go a certain way. So we all have some little area in that. But do you really have perfectionism in your home and every area where you're really pounding your spouse because of your need for that perfectionism? And what could you do about that? three.
Maybe you need everything in its place, or do you show anger and harshness to your spouse way too often? Do you blow up? Do you talk nice? Do you talk respectful? You know, I think that's one of the major things in marriage is to be respectful to one another, to talk to each other the way you would like to be talked to.
Connie Durham (22:44.002)
Four, could these things lead to misunderstandings? Mm-hmm. Resentment or fuel conflict. Yeah. So you can see that any of these things could lead to misunderstandings or fuel conflict. Yes. One spouse constantly is dissatisfied or they have a lethal reaction, can shut down the love response in the other spouse.
Let me say that again. One spouse's constant dissatisfaction or lethal reaction can shut down the love response in the other spouse. The crazy cycle. I don't respect him, so he's not loving to me. He's not loving to me. I feel disrespected. It goes round and round and round. Now let's turn the corner on this. Have you ever thought about what makes your spouse the happiest?
What makes you happy? How does that feel when you feel happy and fulfilled? And when you're feeling happy with your spouse, are you more compassionate and loving towards them? I think that everybody's head would say, Yeah, of course I am, right? So here's a few things to incorporate into the five concepts of happiness into daily life so you can find out what your spouse needs from you.
If your spouse is, like you know, you have to sit down and ask your spouse those five things. Which one of these is the most important? Because you might not know. I bet you don't. So which one? You've asked your spouse what's most important. So if their top need is love and belonging, make time for connection and intimacy, kindness, time together, appreciation. If your spouse's top happiness is freedom and choice.
encourage open communication and decision making together, like collaboration, right? Don't be controlling. If you are controlling, you gotta pay attention and try to pull back on that. Don't make decisions without them or for them. Safety and security. Create a space for expressing emotion and concerns. Safety and security. Create a safe space.
Connie Durham (25:04.75)
For expressing emotions and concerns. Listen attentively. Don't put them down. Talk together about concerns. And the last one: power and achievement. If your spouse has power and achievement, you know it. They work hard at everything they do. And getting that promotion is important. doing whatever it is they're leading, they want to do it right. Celebrate each other's accomplishments and support each other's goals.
Celebrate and support. Be there for them when asked. And and let's see, be there for them when they ask, and they may work long hours and give them public praise. Fun and pleasure, schedule regular date nights and fun activities. That's not so hard, right? Check out the chemistry of lasting love, 50 couples activities, and help keep their cup.
Full, doing things together, spending at least 15 hours together every week. So which did you relate to? Freedom and choice, safety and security, power and achievement, or fun and pleasure? Focus on what you need and then equally on what your spouse needs most. I actually have a free gift, and it is called The Chemistry of Lasting Love.
So many people look at that and don't download it. Why would you not download it? There are 10 areas in life that everybody has 10 10 needs, but only one, two, or three top needs. Find out what your spouse needs. Find some activities where you can have some fun together. Did you find triggers in your personality style that could be causing division? Any kind of bitterness, unforgiveness?
Not feeling loved, all of these things divide you. Could your personality be dividing you? Because you're repelling your spouse and don't mean to? Could you not be paying attention to what makes you happiest? And some people go, happiness. What is that? Who's happy? Well, I've been married over 40 years. You can be happy. You practice what you want. Practice and be what you want.
Connie Durham (27:29.74)
Go back and ask yourself the question featured today, all those questions, and share this podcast with your friends, subscribe and review so that more people see the Extraordinary Marriage Podcast. I'm Connie. Thanks for listening.
