Complementary Strengths

As I write this, the ACFW conference is only a few days away, and Laura is preparing pitches and finalizing one sheets. This is always an exciting time of year for us, with optimism and anticipation abounding. It also reminds me of our differences, though. I am not a brilliant writer, and frankly, I don’t want to be. But I’m so glad she has found this thing that she is both passionate about and very talented at. As her husband, I get to use my business and management talents and have the chance to help her network and make career turning decisions. That is very exciting for me! I’m thankful that we have different strengths and weaknesses so we can complement each other.

I can’t think of a single couple whose strengths and weaknesses even come close to aligning. We all have different things we are good and not good at. For a big part of our dating and then early marriage relationship, these opposing strengths and weaknesses really seemed to make our lives more difficult. We each had expectations of the other to do and think like we did. Guess what, folks?! We didn’t. I see this all the time in other relationships, and sometimes it evens tears them apart.

If you are reading this, have you recently thought this about your spouse: “Why would he/she say/do that?! It’s infuriating and makes no sense!” Well, your spouse is different from you. They see things differently, and they may just not be as good as you at certain things. For example, I have a terrible memory. If I’m going to remember something, I have to write it down. Laura remembers just about everything. It was really hard for her, for a long time, to understand how I could forget that we had this or that event coming up or that I needed to take care of this or that. Once she realized that remembering wasn’t my strength, and I realized that I needed to try to write things down more, we rarely argue about that issue. I have other strengths that she finds really helpful, and we balance each other out.

Looping back to ACFW, we are a team. Each of us has different talents and strengths that offset one another, and hopefully, someday, we'll get to see Laura share her incredible stories with the world. As her husband, that teamwork makes me very happy. So, if you find yourself bothered by your spouse’s differences, try teaming up by aligning your complementary strengths. I think you’ll like it much better.


~Howell

@G2WHubs