I'm annoyed because you're annoyed.

Not long ago, my husband asked why it bothered me so much when people interrupted me during a conversation. At first I was annoyed…ok, I was really annoyed. Immediately, I had many mental responses to the question. Some were sarcastic questions of my own, asking how far into my answer would I get before being interrupted again. Others were immature retorts about not wanting to talk to a person who couldn’t take the time to actually listen. And then- thank you Lord!- there was the response I chose. 

Silence.

I just sat and looked at him. 

As an introvert, I’m comfortable with silence because it gives me time to sort out what I’m thinking. But it was obvious he felt the silence needed to be filled, and in typical extroverted fashion, he began talking again. But this time, he was asking a question of himself, “Why did I interrupt?”

I thought about those two questions the rest of the day. And here’s the conclusion I came to: everyone has their own unique personality and we all go about things in our own way. Here, we had two people contemplating something as simple as interrupting. I was annoyed because I had been interrupted, and he was annoyed that I was annoyed that he had interrupted!

It was quite silly actually!

Another conclusion I came to: we both just wanted to be heard! 

And the reason for our annoyance was simply the fact that we had forgotten the natural tendencies of our personalities.

My husband is an extrovert in the fullest sense. He gets excited when interacting with others. He’s full of life and enthusiastic in his communication. His responses are quick and there aren’t a lot of pauses in his conversation. 

Me, I’m more of an introvert who loves conversation as well, but I tend to be less animated. And sometimes I pause while speaking to make sure I’ve gathered my thoughts.

Neither of us are bad. Neither of us should change who we are. 

However, both of us have some things we need to work on. I should be patient when hubby gets excited during a conversation. And, my hubby needs to remember that pauses in a sentence don’t necessarily mean it’s finished.

But, there are things we ALL need to learn. We need to learn about our personality and what makes us tick. When we understand more about our tendencies, then we can also purpose to grow in the areas where we might unknowingly offend others.We also need to learn about the people around us. If we try to see everyone through our own perspective and assume they have the same thought process we do, life will be full of misunderstandings and conflict.

So here’s today’s challenge:

1. Learn about your personal tendencies. Example: love language, introvert or extrovert, thinker or feeler, etc.
2. Make allowances for personality types.
3. Remember to enjoy the differences between you and your spouse because if everyone were the same, life would be totally boring!
4. Practice saying “I hear you.” This makes an introvert more interested in talking, while making an extrovert less inclined to over communicate…helping both to have a satisfying conversation.