The poet Browning talked about the joy of couples discovering each other over and over again. G and I are not ‘old’ yet, but after twenty years together we have grown up together and we’re now ‘getting older’ together! As we do - we continue to enjoy the similarity of our personalities as well as the differences. Nothing is perfect, like all marriages at times we drive each other mad, get at each other and squabble about all the usual marital headaches. Yet we’ve worked at it, worked through the problems and appreciate the peace of life with another introvert.
Before I met G I had been in love only once before. The intensity of this relationship was something else and when it ended I thought my heart would be broken for ever. This man was a big time extrovert, a big person with a big heart, loved by many and huge fun to be with- a real Mr. Big!
I’ve known G forever. We lived in the same village, went to the same school, and even had a paper round together! (though a few years apart). As a teenager I knew him because he played in the cricket team my Dad captained and at that point we started to say hello. That was it - he was a friend of my Dad I said hello to (my Dad had hundreds of friends of all ages across the planet!!) In my late teens we spoke occasionally at cricket club functions, where, like me, he’d be at the back of the room, out of the main action. I remember thinking of him as a nice quiet man.
When I found myself unceremoniously dumped by Mr. Big, I returned to my parents home to lick my wounds. I got a job at the local pub which I hated (introverted bar maids are a rare breed!) However a familiar face arrived at the end of the bar and saved my life! Every night in between serving the punters we would talk – real talk and it was easy and most importantly he was the first man I had ever met who really listened! We began to meet outside work and became great mates – he was a really good friend, somebody who I could chat to, talk about shared cultural interests, drink in tea shops together, walk the hills, wander around book shops and drive together for miles in his beat up old cars which I often had to get out to push! It was all so easy – too easy for me to see him as boyfriend material – after all ‘love’ relationships were always meant to be so intense, passionate and hard work – weren’t they?
It took a long time for those feelings to change. I started a course of study and got a proper job a long way from home and basically missed him like mad!! The feeling was mutual and we were married within a short period of time. The change from friend to lover was gradual and effortless and being together was a refuge.
However it hasn’t all been plain sailing. Yes as intuitive introverts (me-infp, - he-intp) we have a great deal in common and we understand each other’s need for space, peace and quiet. But that t and f difference, for us, is a big one! In the first couple of years of our marriage my job became very demanding and I responded to this stress with typical infp intensity – crying, depression, anxiety, and obsessions – all very weird and foreign territory to the calm, analytical nature of the rational introvert! G’s (intp) way of dealing with stress is to withdraw, to shut down his emotions and to become cold and un-communicative. Cue the infp wife to cling and chase said husband into his shell - cue intp husband to grab car keys and run away! In between the tantrums and traumas, however, the gentle companionship and feeling of being with a kindred soul continued. We bought an old house and did it up and continued to enjoy all our introvert interests together.
Despite this a couple of years later the differences became more obvious at a time of crisis in our lives. We just could not understand each other and could not give each other the support we needed. I wanted to be held and loved and told that everything was going to be ok – he wanted to be left alone, to work it all out in his head and to be given the space and time without pressure to do that. It was a terrible time. The easy companionship went and we both felt very lost and alone. I decided to move out and lived with a friend for two miserable months. G was deeply miserable and tried so hard to express how he felt and get me to come back – seeing his misery hurt me so much and back I went. Luckily for both of us I found out at that time that I was pregnant. I remember at the time being told by a very bossy midwife that children couldn’t save a rocky marriage – oh how wrong she was! Falling in love with our daughter and then our son together meant that we fell in love with each other over again. Having children has helped us both to get our act together! G learnt through the children how to deal with some really powerful emotions and I was able to get a hold on some external reality and move on from a miserable work situation.
A close friend recently told me that she envied the relationship I have with G - ‘it’s real friendship – not the most passionate thing in the world but it works doesn’t it’. I had to agree – in the first few years of marriage I found it difficult to accept that our relationship wasn’t going to be about passion and declarations of undying love! I never got flowers, despite dropping huge hints, nor did he tell me he loved me (unless badgered into it!!). At first I believed that this was because he didn’t love me as much as I did him. Gradually however I learnt that this wasn’t the case and perhaps it was other people who taught me this. Time and time again friends and family would comment on how good he was to me. G didn’t express his love through words and hugs and romance but through the practical things he did for me – the cup of tea in bed every morning, the ferrying me around everywhere, ironing a shirt for me for work, washing up, looking for the keys and glasses I’d lost three times that same day! All of these things were done quietly, no fuss, no expectation of thanks or gratitude, no power games – I know now that these are expressions of love. And they continue today and more so – as our lives become more complicated with demanding jobs and growing children these expressions of love come daily. Romance there isn’t - but real affection and taking care of each other is something we’ve both learnt how to show in ways which are meaningful to each other.
Perhaps the most wonderful thing about being married to another introvert is that they appreciate your need for solitude, peace and quiet and don’t see this as a rejection. Often in the evenings we will sit in different rooms doing our own thing – reading, surfing the net and various creative pursuits. We might only exchange a few words after the children have gone to bed, make each other a drink, kiss each other goodnight but that is often it. The acceptance of this need for quiet is very special. We also recognize in each other the signs that show us when our ‘other half’ is becoming stressed by noise or others – and will take time out in turns ‘do you want to go out for a run now and I’ll watch the kids and then I’ll have a long bath on my own’. We can also plan for stressful events together for example, family holidays, parties we have to attend, public speaking – realizing that at these times our ‘other half’ may be less than rational! And it’s so good to be able to share these feelings of exhaustion introverts often feel when forced to be sociable for long periods – ‘God they’re driving me mad!!!’
And yet despite all this shared experience we are very different people with different interests – I love anything to do with the study of people, am fascinated by healing, literature, and personal development, whilst G loves science and nature and is a logic junky with an analytical mathematical mind. Yet somehow this doesn’t matter and we continue to find each other interesting and able to enjoy the same things. It takes all sorts the saying goes, and in marriage we have to learn to appreciate the different ways we experience life as unique individuals who are linked to each other.
So our marriage, I suppose like all successful marriages has been about compromise, hard work and finding mutual joy in each other. As we have grown together and accepted each other our confidence in ourselves as individuals has grown – one important manifestation of this is the fact that we have both developed a persona necessary for mixing in large social situations and as such we are both less shy and more outgoing than previously (without ever wanting to be extraverts!).
Yes we are getting older, the middle age spread is developing nicely and I look forward to getting on in years and enjoying our dotage together!
If you would like to write an article about marriage to introverts, please email me. It can be an introvert writing, or someone writing about their introverted spouse.
