Thanks for the analysis. I am not familiar with the Enneagram. I bought a book on it so I guess I need to get around to reading it. I went to www.enneagraminstitute.com and took their free test. My results are:
Type 1 5 Type 2 3 Type 3 5 Type 4 3 Type 5 5 Type 6 6 Type 7 3 Type 8 2 Type 9 4
The summary says I am a type 6, though I scored equally in 1, 3, 5 categories. I can see a lot of myself in the 6, but also I can see some attributes of the 1, 3, 5. The description of the 4 seems a little further removed. Reading through the brief descriptions, and some other descriptions I found at www.9types.com, I think I may be a 6, leaning toward the 5 and my wife an 8, leaning toward the 7. So what does our combination of 6 & 8 mean to you?
If W is a 7/8, it seems almost contrary that she would be an avoider too. But then if 7/8 is a more aggressive, dominating type, perhaps they are this way to project the image they want to project, and then bury their heads in the sand to avoid hearing the truth of who they really are? This is what I feel I am up against. She builds walls to maintain the self image of who she wants to be. Nothing wrong with that per se. We all do it.
But I was trying to break through her walls, not to make her cry, but to achieve intimacy. If she cries that is a consequence of her FOO issues. I don’t really care whether she cries or not, just that she opens up. Like you, she deflects to avoid this.
If what you say is true, that she wants me to “be or act happy and be or act respectful,” then she really wants me to support the maintenance of those walls. I really have no problem doing that except for the fact that she also keeps her sense of intimacy and vulnerability hidden back there too, which keeps our relationship distant. If she could pull this one aspect into the open, I would not have a problem leaving the rest behind the walls. Those other issues of her boosting her self esteem do not bother me. But isn’t this one issue of vulnerability the most important one for relationships and the one over which we are all battling? If our partners can become vulnerable to us, and we to them, then all the other illusions don’t really matter.
So maybe that would make an interesting proposition for her. If I value intimacy and she values praise, maybe an explicit, openly acknowledged and “negotiated” trade-off would make sense. I give praise in exchange for her giving intimacy. But isn’t that what I have been trying to do all along, only is a less overt fashion?
