Mojo, I don't have time to do justice to your question at the moment, and I want to. I'll think about it and get back to you.
P.S. The key to the 5 is information/knowledge. The 5 is the scientist. It's the 7 that is afflicted with gluttony and greed. The 7 wants it all and cannot get off dead center because that means eliminating some options.
But just let me say that abandoning trying to "please" your H is an excellent plan. Not with a grudging "no one can please you anyway" attitude, but in a gracious, "pleasing you is YOUR work, not mine." This will liberate you tremendously.
karen, now that I know you're an ENF, I don't think you are a 4. The 4's are almost universally introverts. You said you like the extroverted functions related to your job, and that makes me think you're a 3.
Quote: I do sympathize the fact that you seem to be required to spend a great deal of time on your H's needs while yours remain largely unmet.
Well, the fact of the matter is I'm not "required" to do anything. I can and will kick his azz to the curb when and if I feel I "need" or "want" to.
Quote: Sounds like you can fairly well predict your H's moods/availability for sex based on what you know of his personality and behaviors - does that make it harder or easier for you?
Easier in the sense that I can avoid wasted effort. Harder in the sense that I must give up my overly optimistic delusion that my H will ever be Steady Eddie the Happy Husband and Stud.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
I have a bit more optimism about your future, Jenny. I think that when your kids are out of the house and there's less household/financial stress, your H may come into a better space. He may have more mental relaxation and a chance to bring out more of his male muse ( musician) stuff, along with his sensuality. Unless of course, he starts obsessing about aging in his spare time. Anyway, keeping the differentiation going seems to be the way to go.
Quote: P.S. The key to the 5 is information/knowledge. The 5 is the scientist. It's the 7 that is afflicted with gluttony and greed. The 7 wants it all and cannot get off dead center because that means eliminating some options.
The chart I was looking at said that Greed was the vice of the Type 5.
Quote: But just let me say that abandoning trying to "please" your H is an excellent plan. Not with a grudging "no one can please you anyway" attitude, but in a gracious, "pleasing you is YOUR work, not mine." This will liberate you tremendously.
I should note that I wasn't making a "plan" to not "please" my H. This is just naturally the place I find myself in lately. It's pretty clear that I can't count on him for anything so why should I bother to try and please him. However, you're right about it being liberating. Most of last week I was pretty much thinking along the lines of "Now I will cook some dinner for the father of my children." or "Now I will pick out a nice birthday present for the father of my children." and when we had sex, I was thinking "Now I will enjoy an erotic encounter with this handsome man. Hopefully he will bring it on in such a way that I have a nice, strong orgasm.". It's like my "husband" or the part of him that played the role of "husband" for me, quit his job and took off in his car out west and abandoned me last week, leaving behind this person to whom I have no real bond or attachment and no real desire to form one.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Quote: overly optimistic delusion that my H will ever be Steady Eddie the Happy Husband and Stud
Steady & Happy-- that is not who your H will ever be. Nurturing that hope is not optimistic; it is delusional.
Quote: Psychiatry. a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact
Believe me, in my next life, I would love to be Steady & Happy, but 30+ years of therapy in this life along with massive insight, smarts, and willingness and the desire to change have not made me into that-- and your H seems to lack most of my willingness to look honestly at myself and try to find better ways of functioning as a 4. He hasn't got a prayer of ever becoming steady and happy.
You cannot do this for him and you cannot make him into this.
Still haven't gotten to your first question... I will.
Edited to add: After reading IHJ's post, I'll say that your H can indeed become a good partner; he'll just never be the steady happy guy you are hoping for.
Quote: I have a bit more optimism about your future, Jenny. I think that when your kids are out of the house and there's less household/financial stress, your H may come into a better space. He may have more mental relaxation and a chance to bring out more of his male muse ( musician) stuff, along with his sensuality. Unless of course, he starts obsessing about aging in his spare time. Anyway, keeping the differentiation going seems to be the way to go.
If I was in an optimistic frame of mind, I might agree with you. I certainly agree with your theory that he will find something new to be miserable about, such as aging. Anyway, even if I believed your theory, I might tend to think that I could think of better options for my midlife than financially and emotionally supporting an ill-tempered slacker musician type in exchange for the occasional hot throwdown. I should add that I do have some optimism for the future because I do believe that my H knows that my willingness to tolerate his temper tantrums will end pretty much the moment our daughter leaves for college. Actually, my tolerance will end the moment that I figure out how to kick his azz to the curb without feeling guilty about the effect of my actions on the kids.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Quote: The chart I was looking at said that Greed was the vice of the Type 5.
For the 5, greed is more like hoarding, gathering more and more information and stuff as a buffer against the world. The Enneagram Institute site describes it like this:
Quote: Want to possess knowledge, to understand the environment, to have everything figured out as a way of defending the self from threats from the environment.
The 7 type of greed is wanting to experience everything. This is the way the Enneagram Institute describes it
Quote: Want to maintain their freedom and happiness, to avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, to keep themselves excited and occupied, to avoid and discharge pain.
You wrote
Quote: So, maybe my sister and my H are trying to push me towards higher development, enneagramwise
Here is a step-by-step description of the levels of relative “healthiness” of the 7 at all stages. I strongly suggest you start at the bottom and read to the top. (You can find this for all of the types at http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/)
Quote: Profile Summary for Enneagram Type Seven
Healthy Levels
Level 1 (At Their Best): Assimilate experiences in depth, making them deeply grateful and appreciative for what they have. Become awed by the simple wonders of life: joyous and ecstatic. Intimations of spiritual reality, of the boundless goodness of life.
Level 2: Highly responsive, excitable, enthusiastic about sensation and experience. Most extroverted type: stimuli bring immediate responses—they find everything invigorating. Lively, vivacious, eager, spontaneous, resilient, cheerful.
Level 3: Easily become accomplished achievers, generalists who do many different things well: multi-talented. Practical, productive, usually prolific, cross-fertilizing areas of interest.
Average Levels
Level 4: As restlessness increases, want to have more options and choices available to them. Become adventurous and "worldly wise," but less focused, constantly seeking new things and experiences: the sophisticate, connoisseur, and consumer. Money, variety, keeping up with the latest trends important.
Level 5: Unable to discriminate what they really need, become hyperactive, unable to say "no" to themselves, throwing self into constant activity. Uninhibited, doing and saying whatever comes to mind: storytelling, flamboyant exaggerations, witty wise-cracking, performing. Fear being bored: in perpetual motion, but do too many things—many ideas but little follow through.
Level 6: Get into conspicuous consumption and all forms of excess. Self-centered, materialistic, and greedy, never feeling that they have enough. Demanding and pushy, yet unsatisfied and jaded. Addictive, hardened, and insensitive.
Unhealthy Levels
Level 7: Desperate to quell their anxieties, can be impulsive and infantile: do not know when to stop. Addictions and excess take their toll: debauched, depraved, dissipated escapists, offensive and abusive.
Level 8: In flight from self, acting out impulses rather than dealing with anxiety or frustrations: go out of control, into erratic mood swings, and compulsive actions (manias).
Level 9: Finally, their energy and health is completely spent: become claustrophobic and panic-stricken. Often give up on themselves and life: deep depression and despair, self-destructive overdoses, impulsive suicide. Generally corresponds to the Manic-Depressive and Histrionic personality disorders.
Key Motivations: Want to maintain their freedom and happiness, to avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, to keep themselves excited and occupied, to avoid and discharge pain.
I don’t think my desire to bring out the unrealized potential of partners is necessarily part of my 4-ishness.
Here’s the same breakdown for the 4 (Frankly, I place myself at around level 3 or 2 about 72% of the time, with most of my life having been spent at Level 5, and still very capable of dipping down to Level 8 or 7 with certain kinds of self-talk. Your H I would put at 7 or 6)
Quote: Profile Summary for Enneagram Type Four
Healthy Levels
Level 1 (At Their Best): Profoundly creative, expressing the personal and the universal, possibly in a work of art. Inspired, self-renewing and regenerating: able to transform all their experiences into something valuable: self-creative.
Level 2: Self-aware, introspective, on the "search for self," aware of feelings and inner impulses. Sensitive and intuitive both to self and others: gentle, tactful, compassionate.
Level 3: Highly personal, individualistic, "true to self." Self-revealing, emotionally honest, humane. Ironic view of self and life: can be serious and funny, vulnerable and emotionally strong.
Average Levels
Level 4: Take an artistic, romantic orientation to life, creating a beautiful, aesthetic environment to cultivate and prolong personal feelings. Heighten reality through fantasy, passionate feelings, and the imagination.
Level 5: To stay in touch with feelings, they interiorize everything, taking everything personally, but become self-absorbed and introverted, moody and hypersensitive, shy and self-conscious, unable to be spontaneous or to "get out of themselves." Stay withdrawn to protect their self-image and to buy time to sort out feelings.
Level 6: Gradually think that they are different from others, and feel that they are exempt from living as everyone else does. They become melancholy dreamers, disdainful, decadent, and sensual, living in a fantasy world. Self-pity and envy of others leads to self-indulgence, and to becoming increasingly impractical, unproductive, effete, and precious.
Unhealthy Levels
Level 7: When dreams fail, become self-inhibiting and angry at self, depressed and alienated from self and others, blocked and emotionally paralyzed. Ashamed of self, fatigued and unable to function.
Level 8: Tormented by delusional self-contempt, self-reproaches, self-hatred, and morbid thoughts: everything is a source of torment. Blaming others, they drive away anyone who tries to help them.
Level 9: Despairing, feel hopeless and become self-destructive, possibly abusing alcohol or drugs to escape. In the extreme: emotional breakdown or suicide is likely. Generally corresponds to the Avoidant, Depressive, and Narcissistic personality disorders.
Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a "rescuer."
Finally, here’s the breakdown for 5 (where is cobra, anyway?… and with insufferable presumption, I’d put cobra at level 4)
Quote: Profile Summary for Enneagram Type Five
Healthy Levels
Level 1(At Their Best): Become visionaries, broadly comprehending the world while penetrating it profoundly. Open-minded, take things in whole, in their true context. Make pioneering discoveries and find entirely new ways of doing and perceiving things.
Level 2: Observe everything with extraordinary perceptiveness and insight. Most mentally alert, curious, searching intelligence: nothing escapes their notice. Foresight and prediction. Able to concentrate: become engrossed in what has caught their attention.
Level 3: Attain skillful mastery of whatever interests them. Excited by knowledge: often become expert in some field. Innovative and inventive, producing extremely valuable, original works. Highly independent, idiosyncratic, and whimsical.
Average Levels
Level 4: Begin conceptualizing and fine-tuning everything before acting—working things out in their minds: model building, preparing, practicing, and gathering more resources. Studious, acquiring technique. Become specialized, and often "intellectual," often challenging accepted ways of doing things.
Level 5: Increasingly detached as they become involved with complicated ideas or imaginary worlds. Become preoccupied with their visions and interpretations rather than reality. Are fascinated by off-beat, esoteric subjects, even those involving dark and disturbing elements. Detached from the practical world, a "disembodied mind," although high-strung and intense.
Level 6: Begin to take an antagonistic stance toward anything which would interfere with their inner world and personal vision. Become provocative and abrasive, with intentionally extreme and radical views. Cynical and argumentative.
Unhealthy Levels
Level 7: Become reclusive and isolated from reality, eccentric and nihilistic. Highly unstable and fearful of aggressions: they reject and repulse others and all social attachments.
Level 8: Get obsessed yet frightened by their threatening ideas, becoming horrified, delirious, and prey to gross distortions and phobias.
Level 9: Seeking oblivion, they may commit suicide or have a psychotic break with reality. Deranged, explosively self-destructive, with schizophrenic overtones. Generally corresponds to the Schizoid Avoidant and Schizotypal personality disorders.
Key Motivations: Want to possess knowledge, to understand the environment, to have everything figured out as a way of defending the self from threats from the environment.
Edited to add: Note that one of the key motivations of the 4 is to attract a rescuer...
Not to hijack but I was thinking more of a "2". As I've gotten older I've gotten into more acheiver behaviors and stuff but I think at the core I'm a 2. Feel free to answer on my thread.
Well, probably I'm usually bouncing between levels 5 and 3. The description of level 2 pretty much describes my experience of sexual activity- especially the "stimuli bring immediate responses" part-LOL.
I would say that my H bounces from 7 to 5 and sometimes up to 3 (he can be quite honest, ironic and very funny on occasion).
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
