Phlegmatic woman and sanguine man
Compatibility
Bingo! The perfect combination of temperaments, where everything fits together. Since each temperament comes in three personality types, here too the relationship may be perfect, or a little more complicated, or downright impossible.
He is a handsome man with a strongly developed ‘masculine principle’. Social attention matters to him — to her it does not. She is quite content on her own or just the two of them. And that is the ideal combination for a harmonious personal life in which both of them grow: she does not stand in his way, and he gets the hearth and home he was missing.
Accordingly, there is no competition at all in their private life. He is not especially keen on fussing over the children; she adores it. He is busy at work; she will always make sure there is food at home. He seeks recognition from society; she gives him recognition freely and willingly. He needs to be the best; she needs harmony and agreement.
Who is the PHLEGMATIC woman?
- Introvert
- Passive life position
- Knows everything about themselves, explores the world
Who is the SANGUINE man?
- Extravert
- Active life position
- Needs feedback in order to understand themselves
p.s.: Want to know your own temperament?
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♫ Read stories of how couples met ♡ with commentary and examples from films
What are the prospects?
Marital happiness: excellent!
The compatibility of an active extraverted man and a passive introverted woman is harmonious in every way. He is socially active and ‘wins’ public recognition for the couple. For her the main thing is not winning but taking part, and that balances the couple out: when he gets carried away, she brings him back down to earth. When he plays the star, she admires him.
The same harmony shows in their internal conflicts too. It costs her nothing to give way — harmony is what matters. And what matters to him is always being first, best and most handsome. There is nothing even to quarrel about!
Sexual compatibility: good
An aggressive, dominant man and a harmonious woman who wants attention. What could be better for the classics and the missionary position?
Everything is in its place here, in the right, fitting and natural position. Of course, that is not always exciting. But since a couple made up of a phlegmatic woman and a sanguine man are on the whole in agreement, they have free time (the time that other couples destroy sorting out ‘who is in charge here’), and so there is room for all sorts of experiments. Bon voyage!
Growth and prosperity: excellent!
Since the couple do not devour energy from within (on quarrels, negotiations and sorting things out), that energy is freed up for the outside world. In couples like this, one partner earns very well while the other backs them up at home, creating support and comfort.
Inside, the couple are very stable: the choleric man, from his active life position, is out conquering society, opening up new territory and expanding — and bringing the trophies home to show off.
The woman takes care of the household, and she does so not because society tells her to. She does it because a phlegmatic is a person in a passive life position. She is happy just being the two of them.
Because the man brings in resources and the woman provides support on the home front, the family's resources grow. All in all this is a 1960s classic, backed up by temperaments.
For children: good!
The same traditional family model is also traditional for the children: dad at work, mum — she is always mum, right there. Everything is fine, right and just as it should be for children.
Not quite you? Pick a different temperament!
Relationships by personality type: an overview
Sanguine women come in 3 personality types:
- In the antisocial sphere — the autistic personality type
- In the social sphere — the compulsive type, and
- In the extra-social sphere — the paranoid personality type
Phlegmatic men likewise come in three types:
- In the antisocial sphere — the hysteroid personality type
- In the social sphere — the narcissistic type, and
- In the extra-social sphere — the frustrating personality type
Three scenarios for this couple
Depending on the combination of these three personality types, the relationship between a phlegmatic man and a sanguine woman will be either absolutely perfect, or quite successful (we jokingly call it a ‘second-best’ marriage), or held together by a deep neurosis. But in any case these couples are harmonious; the two partners complement each other. This has a positive effect both in their private life and in their social life. On a scale from 5 (perfect) to 1 (a complete fail) they can build:
5Analysis and 3 stories
Perfect relationships
can be built by an autistic woman and a hysteroid man, a compulsive woman and a narcissistic man, a paranoid woman and a frustrating-type man
4Analysis and 3 stories
Second-best marriage
this relationship is ideal too, just slightly complicated by their different understanding of how society works. It can be built by an autistic woman and a frustrating-type man, a compulsive woman and a hysteroid man, a paranoid woman and a narcissistic man
1Read the analysis
Impossible relationships
If people like these do meet, it is only in order to experience what the other has and they lack. Absolutely unrealistic relationships, which we have only ever come across in films, are the combinations of an autistic woman and a narcissistic man, a compulsive woman and a frustrating-type man, a paranoid woman and a hysteroid man
Below are real stories of relationships between personality types like these. We have added examples from films and, of course, analysed them through the commentary of our counsellors.
Perfect relationships
Here a man who craves social attention has met a self-sufficient woman for whom the two of them are quite enough. Everything about it is wonderful: the way the masculine and the feminine complement each other, and the exchange between the introverted woman’s self-knowledge and the extraverted man’s need for a response from the world around him.
The couple also share a common understanding of how to deal with society:
- The hysteroid man and the autistic woman are both geared to satisfying their own personal needs first and foremost. Materialism makes sense to both of them
- For both the narcissistic man and the compulsive woman, social norms and morality matter
- The frustrating-type man and the paranoid woman both stand above society, far from its prescriptions
The harmony of relationships like these has been celebrated in many films. Read the real-life stories, complete with examples and commentary from our counsellors:
Second-best marriage
We only call combinations like this ‘second-best’ as a joke, because there is an even more ideal pairing, as above. But everything is excellent here too! It is the same traditional marriage along male lines: the man is socially active, the woman is responsible for harmony and comfort.
The only thing that complicates the relationship is their differing views of their role in society.
- For the hysteroid man, attention matters at any price — even if that price is a bad image. For the compulsive woman, what matters is that laws and rules are kept. She will not accept just any behaviour from a man
- For the narcissistic man, unlike the hysteroid one, aesthetics, ethics and morality matter. Social recognition is important to him, but it has to be done beautifully. The paranoid woman, on the contrary, is wary of society and keeps her distance from it. And that is where the potential for conflict comes from
- The frustrating-type man, like Karlsson on the Roof, can turn everything upside down. The autistic woman will suffer badly from that: what matters to her is preserving the status quo and keeping the world around her unchanged.
Impossible relationships
For the sake of completeness it is worth mentioning the couples in which the man and the woman are each other's ‘Shadow’. The ‘Shadow’ is the skills and the features of the nervous system that come hardest to us and that other people have. Understandably, meeting people who possess qualities that are ‘unique’ to us feels like magic.
But they also repel: what is beyond our reach breeds incomprehension, rejection and contempt. That is why couples made up of an autistic woman and a narcissistic man, a compulsive woman and a frustrating-type man, a paranoid woman and a hysteroid man are unrealistic, even if they turn up in literature.
A couple with your own Shadow is what the paranoid-schizoid types keep trying to form with the hysteroid-epileptoid ones. They are each other's Shadow. No one else feels an erotic attraction to their own Shadow — only these types do. A relationship with your own Shadow keeps pushing the partners into the Shadow dynamic. Romances like this never last.
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