Art Bennett - The Temperament God Gave Your Spouse

The Temperament God Gave Your Spouse

by Art Bennett, LMFT and Laraine Bennett

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS
Manchester, New Hampshire

Copyright 2008 Art Bennett and Laraine Bennett

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved

Cover design by Theodore Schluenderfritz

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Sophia Institute Press
Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108
1-800-888-9344
www.SophiaInstitute.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bennett, Art.
The temperament God gave your spouse / by Art and Laraine Bennett.
p. cm.ISBN 978-1-933184-30-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Marriage Religious aspects Christianity. 2. Temperament Religious aspects Christianity. I. Bennett, Laraine. II. Title.
BV835.B443 2008
248.844 dc222008019526

08 09 10 11 12 13 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Also by Art and Laraine Bennett from Sophia Institute Press :

THE TEMPERAMENT GOD GAVE YOU

TO POPE BENEDICT XVI

Acknowledgments

We are deeply grateful to William and Teje Etchemendy for their beautiful example of a long, happy marriage spanning six decades. We are also grateful to Art and Mildred Bennett and Arts brothers and sisters for their prayerful support and love. We also wish to thank all our friends and colleagues who shared with us their temperament stories especially our children, who provided much material (we hope they forgive us!).

We are also grateful to our friend and pastor, Father Francis Peffley; and to our spiritual director, Father John Hopkins, L.C., a man whose unbounded zeal for souls inspires us, and whose spiritual guidance is always Christ-centered and insightful. We are grateful for the professional insights of Dr. Frank Moncher, Dr. William Nordling, and Chris and Mary Anne Yep. We also want to thank everyone at the Alpha Omega Clinics and Triune Health Group for their insights, support, and professionalism.

Finally, we thank our editor, Todd Aglialoro, who at last admitted to his true temperament, and whose vision and masterful editing brings out the best in us, and makes the final product a harmonious whole.

Preface

Someone once remarked that marriage has three rings: the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and suffering! The saying has a vein of truth, and it refers not so much to the occasional traumatic events all married couples experience through life, but more to the everyday trials, annoyances, and irritations that arise due to the couples contrasting (and often conflicting) personality types.

Over the course of eighteen years as a Catholic priest, Ive had the opportunity and privilege of preparing over five hundred engaged couples for marriage. During the Pre-Cana meetings, Ive always introduced them to the four-temperaments concept and had each couple take the simple test to determine who they are temperamentally.

Three years ago, when Art and Laraine Bennett published their first book, The Temperament God Gave You, I was delighted to be able to give each couple a copy to read and study. The results were marvelous! So many of the couples have since told me how much they learned from it, about themselves and about each other, and how much better prepared they felt to be future partners in marriage.

Now Art and Laraine have given me another tool for my pastorate: this specialized book for married couples who havent fully experienced the benefits of understanding the temperaments. It shows how knowledge of the temperaments can enrich a marriage by opening the way to deeper intimacy, more-effective communication, and greater and interpersonal compatibility. It will be especially helpful to me and my fellow priests as we are called upon to counsel couples who are experiencing difficulties in their marriage many of which are caused by an unawareness of the effects of temperament on personality.

The Bennetts are to be congratulated for giving us this tested, beneficial, and grace-filled approach to marital happiness, personal growth, and, ultimately, the strengthening of the Church and society.

Rev. Francis J. Peffley, Pastor Holy Trinity Church Gainesville, VA

Part 1

The Temperaments and Marriage

Chapter 1

What Is Temperament?

Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1643 Between you two there must come sometime Peace... though you be not of one temperament. Geoffrey Chaucer

Stacy is a vivacious and energetic mom who volunteers at her childrens school and for her parish, shuttles her five kids to their many extracurricular activities, and even runs her own home-based sales business. Her husband, Ron, is a quiet and thoughtful medical researcher who relishes time alone, reading or playing the piano.

When Stacy and Ron first married, they enjoyed their widely differing personalities. Stacy admired Rons sensitivity and his depth of reflection, his meticulous attention to detail, and his sense of order and purpose. Ron chuckled indulgently over Stacys fun, impromptu adventures and was intrigued by her larger social circle.

But once the kids began to come and the pressures of work and family increased, Ron found himself drained by all the hustle and bustle of Stacys life. He needed time to decompress after work, but Stacy wanted to talk about her day or rush off to a meeting as soon as Ron walked in the door. Stacy began to complain of suffering from an emotional vacuum because Ron rarely wanted to talk. When she badgered him, Ron only withdrew further into unwelcoming silence.

Ron and Stacy reacted to each other this way because they have completely opposite temperaments : Ron is a deeply sensitive melancholic who requires time for silence and reflection, while Stacy is a lively, talkative sanguine who needs abundant interpersonal interaction. And it was not until Ron and Stacy were able to understand and accept each others temperaments that they were able to avoid misunderstandings and hurt feelings, and to make their marriage the strong, loving union it had once been.

GRACE BUILDS ON NATURE AND NURTURE

The human personality is mysterious and complex. Psychologists have long debated exactly how heredity (the genetic traits were born with) and our environment (our parents, education, culture, and so on) combine to impact the development of our personality. Regardless of the precise manner in which this happens, we can safely assert that the human personality is a dynamic amalgam of both nature and nurture. Furthermore, our Christian faith tells us that the human person, created in the image and likeness of God, is never determined by his environment or his genes, but is fundamentally free . Our human personality, then, is influenced by biological and environmental factors, but is also critically impacted by our own free will the way we respond to our environment, to our nature, and to Gods grace.

It is in these responses, in our patterns of reaction, that we locate our temperament .

In our first book, The Temperament God Gave You, we re-introduced the concept of the classic four temperaments: choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic. We showed how understanding our own temperament helps us grow in self-knowledge, improve our relationships with our friends and family, motivate our children, and even deepen our spiritual life. In this book were going to look in much greater detail at how understanding our temperament and our spouses can lead us to happier, richer, and holier marriages.

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