Reconciliation Tool #1: Myers-Briggs Personality Test [Podcast]

Your spouse had an affair. You followed the steps to end the affair, and now you and your spouse have made the decision to try to save your marriage and recover. You listened to our series about Recovering After an Affair. But now you want to learn more about the tools you can use to help you reconcile (the final step).

Today we are beginning a five-week series all about the Reconciliation tools, how to use them, and why they are helpful. Although there is no guarantee your marriage will be saved, but these tools can help you build a new, more healthy marriage.

In today’s episode we talk about the first tool–the Myers-Briggs personality test.

Katharine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, identified four criterion, or “preferences,” that define each of our personality types. Although everybody functions across the entire spectrum of the preferences, each individual has a natural preference which leans in one direction or the other within the four criterion:

our source of personal energy (Extrovert-Introvert)
how we gather and perceive information (Sensor-iNtuitive)
how we process the information we’ve gathered (Thinker-Feeler)
how we implement the information we’ve processed (Judger-Perceiver)

The first criterion, Extroversion – Introversion, signifies the source and direction of a person’s energy expression. An extrovert’s source and direction of energy expression is mainly in the external world, while an introvert has a source of energy mainly in their own internal world.

The second criterion, Sensing – Intuition, represents the method by which someone perceives information. Sensing means that a person mainly believes information he or she receives directly from the external world. Intuition means that a person believes mainly information he or she receives from the internal or imaginative world.

The third criterion, Thinking – Feeling, represents how a person processes information. Thinking means that a person makes a decision mainly through logic. Feeling means that, as a rule, he or she makes a decision based on emotion, i.e. based on what they feel they should do.

The fourth criterion, Judging – Perceiving, reflects how a person implements the information he or she has processed. Judging means that a person organizes all of his life events and, as a rule, sticks to his plans. Perceiving means that he or she is inclined to improvise and explore alternative options.

You can find links to the Myers-Briggs personality test on our Affaircare Quizzes page, or just click here to go directly to the test.

Here is a link to the Myers-Briggs wikipedia page, so you can learn more about it.

Once you have determined your personality type, here is a page that has the 16 Personalities and a description of each one. Look up your own personality type and find out your own strengths and weaknesses. Then share your personality types with each other, and look up your spouse’s description. Does it sound like them? Find out their strengths and weaknesses. Learn about what makes your spouse tick!

Discovering that your spouse is not the same as you can be shocking. But particularly while a couple is working to recover after an affair, discovering the ways in which you are the same can give you a foundation on which you can begin to build. Likewise finding out the ways in which you two are different can explain why “he” behaves one way and “she” behaves another. Maybe he’s just a Thinker and she’s just a Feeler: but that explains why he seems like an emotionless “Spock” to her, and she seems like an irrational, emotional jumble to him! If you UNDERSTAND each other, you begin to build love.

[audio: https://s3.amazonaws.com/affaircare-podcast/2016/Reconcilation+Tools–Myers-Briggs.mp3]

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