Strong Women and the Men Who Dare to Love Them
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Live intro - Hello my lovelies. Today we're talking about strong women and the men who dare to love them. Not sure if you’re one of those strong women? Then stick around and let’s find out. This week’s episode is a natural progression from last week’s episode about mutual understanding, so make sure you listen to both. The link to last week’s episode is in the show notes. For those who are new to the podcast, my name is Karen Bemmes, and I am a certified DISC personality consultant. We often talk about the DISC personality system to help people understand themselves better, to embrace their unique personality type and to live the best life for them rather than the one everyone else tells them they should live. The DISC system includes the Driven, Inspired, Supportive and Cautious personalities, also known as D I S and C. Each of these personalities has a unique way of moving through the world, and when you understand each other better, you minimize conflict and maximize cooperation.
One of my favorite groups to work with when I’m doing my DISC work is strong women and their significant others. Part of why I like working with these groups is because they are both so misunderstood. Far too often, people assume that strong women are not loving and the men they are married to are weak. When they’re out of balance, both groups can strengthen that stereotype, but the truth is that I have found these strong women to be more loving than most people can imagine, and those who love them to be stronger than people think they can be. I’m excited to talk about these people, so let’s get into it.
When I typically talk about the DISC personalities, I go through the DIS and C personalities and talk about them as an individual entity. For this episode, I’m going to change things up a bit, specifically because we’re talking about couples and relationships, so while I’ll talk about each personality type on its own, I’ll also talk about women with the I, S and C personalities who have the Driven personality trait as part of their personality mix because it gives them a different spin on how their strength shows up. That secondary trait has a huge bearing on the women who have it and the partner supporting them. Also, because the majority of couples that I’ve worked with are heterosexual, I’ll be sharing from that perspective, though I suspect the stories are relatable across the spectrum of couples. Finally, I will only be talking about one couple pairing because it would truly go on forever if I talked about all of the possible combinations of personalities, so if you want to go deeper or find out about a different personality combination, I’ll tell you how to do that later in the episode. Hint, it all starts with a personality assessment.
So, let’s start with the D personality. As I said earlier, D women are some of the most misunderstood women on the planet. When they are direct, which is their nature, they are often characterized as mean or another witchy word, when a man who exhibits the same behavior is not. I have yet to meet a D woman that hasn’t been called that witchy word either behind her back or more likely to her face, and often, they honestly don’t care because they know they can be like that, but they gain that reputation even when they’re not because some people find those who are direct difficult to handle. Most choose not to to be witchy, at least most of the time, but. D women, in general, don’t have time for sugar coating in their minds. They like a fast pace, and if people are not on board with that, it can cause friction because they have the attitude that you either need to get on board or get off the train. If everyone understands how the Driven women’s mind and pace work, things can be amazing. The house gets clean. The kids get everywhere they need to do on time. Business booms, and relationships flourish. If people, including their children, don’t understand how they are, feelings can get hurt, resistance can be at an all time high, and yelling will probably happen. If the Driven woman is out of balance - read overly tired, hangry, extremely frustrated or aggravated with something that is taking entirely too long - their responses can be short and sound much angrier than they mean to. If you’re primarily one of the other three personality types, it can take your breath away and feel incredibly cruel and personal, but often, it’s not personal at all. It’s because Driven women are task oriented, so they tend to focus on the work, not the person they’re talking to.
It’s important to understand two things here. The first is that I’m not condoning bullying, nor am I saying that it’s ok for the D personality to dictate everything to everyone. What I am saying is that the Driven woman is a person who naturally takes charge of a situation, especially if no one else does, so when she and everyone around her knows that, how she uses that tendency can be utilized in healthy ways for everyone. This is the wife and mother who very clearly will look at a family member who fails miserably at something and tell them if they had done it a different way (often the way the D woman told them to), the outcome would be different. Notice she didn’t say anything about the type of person that family member is, but depending on the personality type of the other person, that can feel cutting and personal, even when the Driven woman didn’t mean it that way.
My best friend is a D personality that has run her own company for decades. When she started in her field, women were woefully underrepresented, and my friend, being five foot eight, very thin, blond and beautiful did not fit the mold of what people expected in the role of a scientific expert. She was even more of a unicorn when she founded her own company, but people in her industry around the world now seek her expertise. We’ve taken several girls’ trips where we’ve spent a morning or two doing a couple hours of work before heading out for some fun. It never fails to make me giggle when I hear her put on what I call her “work voice” when she tells men who need her expertise that she can do what they want, but they’ll be back when they don’t pass their EPA or FDA inspections, and it will cost them even more money than her already pricey hourly rate to clean up the mess they make in the meantime. It’s the only time I’ve ever heard her badass voice, although I know her husband and children have heard it a time or two, but that’s the thing about Driven women. They often only use their badass voice when people are being disrespectful, either directly or indirectly.
Driven women often marry Supportive men, and while it can look like an unbalanced life to someone outside the marriage, if the D woman and S man are in balance, it’s a true match made in heaven. The D woman wants a life partner who will support her dreams and love her, warts and all. The S man is just the person to do that. He admires his Driven wife’s ambition, and unless she abuses him, he will be loyal to her forever. The challenge for this couple is for the Driven woman to realize that her success is amplified by her husband’s support. He is willing to take on tasks other men would balk at and actually enjoy them, and that frees the D woman to be everything her ambitious heart desires.
One couple I worked with comes to mind, where I said to the wife, you don’t strike me as the kind of mom who makes hot chocolate and watches movies with your kids. She laughed and assured me she wasn’t, but I suggested that her husband would be that person, and she agreed. The revelation came when I told her to let him be that for their children. That way, she could be happy doing something else while he entertained their children and enjoyed himself. Both were raised in traditional families, so this was an adjustment, but one they were both excited about implementing exactly that. Their relationship may look different than others, but it works for them and everyone in their family is happier because of it, so yay for them!
When an I woman also has the D personality trait, she is a force of nature. She’s extremely outgoing and determined, and when she gets a vision, you might as well just get out of the way because she won’t rest until she gets it done. If she’s in balance, she will remember to stop and take a breath and a break now and then and take care of her relationships, preventing trouble in paradise. Often, these women end up with men who fit the C personality, and without a deep understanding of each other, it can become a tug of war about what is actually important in life because the C personality lives for the details of life and the I/D woman does not really care about those details. Let’s just say that even with a digital calendar, it helps if the I/D woman has an assistant that keeps her on track to show up for appointments, even the ones she wants to attend but can’t seem to remember to put in her calendar because she is focusing on the new, exciting thing that she’s doing.
One client of mine manages a home, a family and multiple online businesses, but at one point, she and her husband were at odds because no matter what she did around the house, he wasn’t happy. One day she got fed up and told him everything she had done around the house that day, and he wasn’t impressed, which infuriated her, but it prompted them to sit down and discuss the problem. The things that mattered to him were the dishes, the laundry and the kids being clean, or at least having on different clothes than they did yesterday. As long as those things were dealt with, he honestly didn’t care what else she did or didn’t do. That thrilled her no end and gave her a wide berth to spend more time on her business, which led to a level of financial success she was delighted to achieve that included paying someone to do the other house cleaning she didn’t want to do anyway. How cool is that?
Then we come to the S woman who also has the D personality, is truly in a unique bind. While every woman who has a paid career as well as a family struggles to find the “sweet spot” of life where they feel like they give enough to their family and their career, for the S/D woman, that struggle is so much bigger and more difficult because those two personalities truly fight things out, and there can be an enormous amount of guilt involved, especially if they marry their opposite because each one can have a different spin on what enough truly means.
We’ve already talked about how a D woman feels, so imagine the monkeywrench it throws into her life when she has the propensity of an S woman to take care of people and having to decide whether that means focusing on family or work. While everyone says that family comes first, when there is an incident where an S/D woman has to choose to unbalance that, it can be physically as well as emotionally painful for her. Their heart actually aches, and if you’ve experienced it, that can be excruciating.
If that woman is married to a Driven man, the choice is more difficult for her because her D husband can easily choose the tasks of his job and then come home to his family. If the Supportive and Driven woman chooses the same, she feels as though she is neglecting her family. On the flip side, an S/D woman’s career is incredibly important to her, so when she feels as though she is failing at that, it’s almost as excruciating. For that woman, she needs to process and decide very carefully what “enough" means with the opportunity to rebalance when things get stressful. The greatest gift her husband can give her is not only the opportunity to rebalance, he must demand it. I rarely say things like that, but the S woman who is also Driven is at odds with herself every day, so the support of her Driven husband is invaluable and can be the difference between a wife who is fulfilled and balanced and one who works herself into a very ugly place mentally, emotionally and physically, and that’s no good for anyone.
Moving onto the C personality with a Driven personality - Do not question this woman about what they know because they have the facts to back up their assertions, and they have no problem calling you out on your bs. What they struggle with is people who don’t understand their task oriented intensity and sometimes people in general. These women want things done fast and they want them done right. They have very high expectations of themselves and everyone else around them, and when they are not self aware, they can become overbearing. They don’t mean to be, but these are truly the women that will take something out of your hands because they know they can do it better than you’re doing it, especially if you are slowing them down. They geek out over spreadsheets and intricate recipes, and actually have fun with both. They’re intense, and they can be truly scary for people who are not secure within themselves, so the man that loves this woman has to be special indeed, and they often are because they bring out a softness in these women they struggle to access on their own because they worry that vulnerability is weakness, so the man who can bring out the softness and hold it with respect will earn the undying loyalty of this woman, even when she’s complaining about him. Let me state again that these women don’t intend to be overbearing. That happens when she is out of balance. In balance, she is someone who gets things done, with every I dotted and every T crossed.
This woman’s relationships definitely benefits from a bit of levity, which is why these women often marry Inspired men because they bring the levity this intense personality needs while providing structure the I man needs in his life to be successful as well. The Inspired man benefits from the structure, rules and consistency of the Cautious woman as much as the Cautious woman benefits from the joy for life, relaxed nature and optimistic outlook of the I man.
As I said earlier, there are so many other personality combinations, but this gives you a start on understanding how important it can be to understand either your strong woman or your supportive man. To go deeper or find out what your personality type or your spouse's personality type is, go to the Moving Toward Better dot com home page and hit that Take an Assessment button or click the link in the show notes. I promise it can truly help you find your way to a better path in your business and your life.
Speaking of understanding different personalities, I’m currently working on a project with my friend Jeannine of Sweet, Humble Home on some fantastic ways to help you navigate the many personalities you’ll deal with this holiday season. We’ll be unveiling that in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned for more, or better yet, head over to the Moving Toward Better website and sign up for our email community. And if you want to learn more about understanding those you love, check out last week’s episode about mutual understanding. The link is in the show notes. Until next time, keep moving toward better and shining your light as brightly as you can. Love you all!
Show Notes
Are you a strong woman who loves a supportive man? Maybe you’re a supportive man who loves a strong woman, or maybe you know someone like that. This episode is for those strong women and the men who dare to love them. These are some of my favorite people, so come along and maybe you’ll see them with as much love and respect as I do, and if you know someone like this, please share it with them
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To listen to last week’s episode about mutual understanding, click below. https://www.movingtowardbetter.com/podcasts/moving-toward-better/episodes/2148169923
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Intro and Outro music licensed from Melody Loops.
