LIVING WITH TYPE A’s: THE “USING OUR GOOD STUFF TO MAKE IT BETTER” PATTERN
All is not bleak for Type A couples. There certainly is such a person as a healthy Type A individual, and many healthy Type A marriages exist. These are the people who collectively use their considerable resources to create thriving, productive lives and intimate, stimulating marriages.
In presenting workshops about how to modify dysfunctional Type A characteristics, I always challenge the participants to begin using their wealth of psychological and physical horsepower to create a higher quality of life. A Type A person who accepts this challenge inevitably begins truly to change in many meaningful and lasting ways. And these changes in living style often come about rather quickly. This makes sense; the Type A does everything intensely, including learning to be less intense. So, too, with couples who organize around Type A reactivity. When such people decide to take seriously the task of enhancing their marital and family life, they make smoke on the tracks of progress in accomplishing this goal.
The healthy Type A partners do two basic things: (1) They implement the suggestions for creating marital intimacy; and (2) they use the marital process as an aid in changing Type A reactions. Most important, they approach the process of improving their health and their marriage in an open and gracious manner. They honestly and caringly identify Type A patterns, and they use the nurturing environment of their family and marriage to help each other learn to be more comfortable in efforts to reprogram old Type A reaction habits. They cooperate rather than struggle or compete with each other in this regard.
The marriage then becomes a place of increasing intimacy. Such couples provide each other with a place of trust and emotional refuge as they work together to overcome Type A patterns, using strategies like those outlined in the following chapter.
Obviously, a Type A behavior pattern can be either a source of energy or the destroyer of intimacy in a marriage. It should also be obvious that if either of you is Type A, you must work consciously to keep this coping style in check. Otherwise, this way of reacting to the world will seriously hurt your marriage.
In the following chapter, I outline various strategies that successfully control the effect of Type A patterns on marriages. I also outline many strategies that researchers have found effective for individuals who want to modify their Type A style. This list of strategies is no more exhaustive than the energy level of a Type A reactor is exhaustible. I have learned to respect, appreciate, and admire the endless energy and creativity of Type A individuals and couples who decide to use their good stuff to make their marriages better. I hope that the following pages will simply stimulate your own creative processes.
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