Marriage is teamwork, a partnership. Marriage is two people coming together and learning how to mesh one another’s strengths and weaknesses. In some marriages, one person may seem to have a lot more strengths – particularly if the other one is feeling under the weather or unstable for some reason – but it’s important not to undercut each other’s potential.

I did a strength-weakness analysis several years ago when I decided to start my business. I wanted to make sure that I was cut out for entrepreneurship and that my choice of business venture was appropriate for me.

I learned that I am a great project manager – that I can see both the big picture and the small details, that I can stay on track, that I am a good researcher and analyzer, that I can come up with out-of-the-box ideas and follow through on them long-term.

I also learned that I get bored easily, so I fill my life with a lot of activities and can sometimes overwhelm my schedule. And even though I am good at estimating the time needed for a project, I tend to procrastinate because I get stuck on a certain interest or just plain need a break, which of course just adds to the overwhelmed feeling.

My husband and I are progressing on our discussions of turning his gardening hobby into a business. A couple days ago, I urged him to do a strength-weakness analysis. It’s more than a matter of writing down what your good and not-so-good points are; you have to come clean with yourself, you have to come to terms with some aspects of yourself that perhaps you had hoped you could change but that are really just a part of how you work. It’s so much easier, though, once you accept yourself – every part of you, the good, the bad, and the ugly – as you are.

It also allows you to objectively work on areas that need improvement. You don’t waste time trying to convince yourself that, “if I just try harder, it’d work out.” Knowing that I procrastinate, I learned to pare down my to-do list and to lower my expectations of what I can get done in a day or week; rather than being disappointed if I don’t get my to-do list done or, on the contrary, stay up until the early morning hours trying to get it done, I prioritize tasks and then work down the list, carrying over undone items to the next day.

And knowing that I tend to overschedule myself, I only add one new project at a time, leaving plenty of time between new projects to be sure that I can handle the new workload without overloading myself.

So, what did my husband find out about himself? That he can be very creative and is a hard worker, but his motivation only lasts in short bursts. He gets bored easily, so he needs a lot of different projects, but he’s easily distracted by small details, tending to overlook how all the details systematically fit together to form the big picture. Organization and time management can be a challenge, especially in complex projects.

He can take this information and try to work on weaknesses if he wishes, as I did. Or, he can try to find someone to work with him who complements his weaknesses. And that’s how we are trying to work together as we move forward. It turns out, if you look at each of our strength-weakness analyses, we have the potential to complement one other quite well. He enjoys the physical labor of gardening, but while he can come up with some wonderfully creative ideas related to marketing, plugging them into an overall business structure is quite boring and a bit daunting for him. For me, this seemingly mundane work gets my blood flowing.

Of course, we still have to work with the challenges of attention deficit disorder and, at times, bipolar mood swings. And we have our usual gender differences in communication and conflict resolution. But even with these factors, we can find ways to complement our strengths and weaknesses. In fact, if you look above at his analysis, you’ll find that it has a lot to do with his ADD/ADHD: highly creative but also easily distracted, a lot of different interests but difficulty in organizing them. So, in effect, we’re already a step closer to learning how to work ADD/ADHD in to our relationship – it’s a matter of not viewing every ADD/ADHD characteristic as a negative, but seeing how they can be strengths in different situations.

It’s a huge plus for me that he enjoys physical work. I do, too, but am restricted by arthritis. I like the thought of kneeling in the dirt and working the soil, but the reality is, if I got down there, I’d have a really hard time getting back up. It’s just not in the cards for me. And it’s a huge plus for him that I like organization and time management and all that “boring” stuff that comes with managing a business. I’m sure he likes the thought of being his own boss, doing things his own way, but ADD/ADHD presents certain limitations for him. That could change – after all, ADD/ADHD coaching can be very effective – but for now, I can help him reach his goals by complementing his differences with mine.

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    Last reviewed: 20 Feb 2012