By: MuslimVillage
Source: MuslimVillage
Can Two Different Personalities Have a Successful Marriage?
Let’s say that you have found the person that you feel could be the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. She/He is a person of piety and good character. She would be a good mother to your future children, and he is stable and would be a good provider for the family. So everything checks out, right? Well, there’s just one little thing that causes concern. Your potential wife comes across as being indecisive and too relaxed about matters you deem important. For your part, you are very decisive and prefer a more organized life. You like to know what is expected of you at all times; and like to schedule and plan everything. Your potential husband appears to be something of a control freak to you. You hope that this will not be a problem in the marriage, because one of the things you dislike the most is a person who is rigid and opinionated, which he seems to be. You are more relaxed and care-free and dislike routine.
What I just described above are two different personality types; two different ways people run their everyday lives. The potential husband in the above example is a Judger, and the potential wife in the example is a Perceiver. But whether a Judger or Perceiver, this is just one part of a four-part personality profile, the MBTI, which is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The MBTI is based on the psychological types described by C. G. Jung. According to the MBTI, there are four basic preferences that help to form a person’s personality. The four preferences are: Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I), Sensing (S) or Intuition (N), Thinking (T) or Feeling (F), and Judging (J) or Perceiving (P). There are 16 different personality types that come from the interactions of the four basic preferences. For example, ISTJ, INFP, INFJ and INTJ are some of the personality types formed from the four basic preferences.
So should the two people in the above example marry knowing that they have very different ways of running their lives? Of course that is only one letter in their personality profile. Perhaps the other letters in their profile complement one another. Or maybe it is possible for these very different personalities to still go into a marriage, because now they know and understand each other’s personalities better. If the wife knows her husband likes routine and organization in his life, she can work at keeping the home organized and structured. The husband, knowing that his potential wife is more relaxed and care-free can adjust his expectations of how he expects the home to be; allow for more flexibility in how his potential wife will handle home affairs. In this way potential conflicts can be avoided or if they happen, they can be corrected, diffusing tense situations, based on personality types.
Get Practical Help
The best way to develop a sound understanding on how the MBTI can be used in an Islamic Marriage is to take Qibla’s course, The Successful Islamic Marriage. The MBTI is discussed in this course and how it can be used to find a potential spouse. Of course, personality is not the main consideration, but it can go a long way in helping to determine compatibility between two people.
The Successful Islamic Marriage begins on October 8, 2016 at Qibla. Registration is still open.
