Nip
and Tuck
I'm an 8 and my boyfriend is a 6... we're having
trouble relating.
First, I recommend the hardest possible
task for
an Eight: Make yourself vulnerable in the relationship. Move away from any criticism
of your partner and focus only on yourself. Before you faint, read
about Keyes'
four relationship stages.
All relationships go through conflict on the road to intimacy. First review all four stages, paying special attention to the fourth
option under Stage (3): "Move our attention away from how we and our partner
should
be and toward who we and our partner are." Then try out the
following exercises (it's ideal if your
Six partner
does the same; if not, the important work
is with yourself, and surprisingly, even if only you do this work, your relationship
will change for the better):
PARTNERSHIP EXERCISE (instead of focusing on the other's
failings, looked at what you do to trigger, incite,
escalate conflict):
OWN UP TO THE PART YOUR
SHADOW
PLAYS IN THE RELATIONSHIP. What aspects of yourself have you disallowed and
disowned? Talk about this with your partner. The biggest
"no-no" for the Eight is weakness, so anything your partner does that seems wimpy to you will
probably trigger some
projection on your part.
Other ways to
get to
know your shadow:
a. Ask your partner for
feedback and
listen
to it -- what do you dislike/have little patience for in others? It's quite likely these are aspects of yourself you've disowned.
b. Work with your
dreams (there are a number of
good books on how to do this).
c. Even if you aren't interested in
poetry,
read
poems that evoke the underlying dynamics of
your personality style -- sit with them, and write down what comes up for
you. Talk about this with your partner.
ACKNOWLEDGE HOW THE OTHER'S DEFENSIVENESS
SHOWS UP. But instead of focusing on your partner, ask
yourself:
- What do I do to trigger my partner's defensiveness?
- What do I do to escalate the situation when my partner gets
defensive?
ACKNOWLEDGE AND DISCUSS YOUR
KEY
DEVELOPMENT NEEDS.
For the Eight it's "innocence;"
for the Six it's "courage," Now ask yourself, "What
could I do to surface and reinforce my partner's higher self?
Baron and Wagele (Are
You My Type, Am I Yours?) suggest Eights may have trouble with
Sixes because they "try my patience with their excessive
deliberating, stew about scenarios that are probably never going to happen, are afraid to
try new things." Sixes may have trouble with Eights because they're "as
strong-willed as I am, so we lock horns hopelessly in arguments; have no tolerance for my
fretting; try to boss me around."
Michael Goldberg (The
Nine Ways of Working) writes: "If you blow off (the) Six's concerns as
weak or pointless (as) some Eights do, you stand a good chance of missing
something important." Or (to the Six about the Eight) "She's tempted to
test you constantly (Are you a wimp? Do you mean what you say?), but you don't have to
rise to the bait. Your strong sense of your own authority -- all the best Sixes have
it -- will save you."
Helen Palmer moves closer to mutual development in
The
Enneagram in Love and Work: "The subtext of this struggle is power.
The Eight can't surrender control until a mate looks strong and trustworthy, and the Six
can't commit fully until the Eight looks less dangerous. Paradoxically some
horrendous battles can have positive repercussions in this relationship. The Six has
been goaded into terrifying displays of anger, has said the worst, and has
survived." Or, "The Six has been bullied into setting the necessary
boundaries. The Eight sees the limits and doesn't have to push further for the
truth."
For
mutual development,
you and
your partner might consider these ideas:
-
Because you feel so responsible, there may be times when you focus
over-much on what your partner needs to do developmentally. This is particularly likely to
happen when there's no challenge that draws you together against a common
issue. (When things get quiet, we sometimes create business
to avoid the anxiety of looking deeper into ourselves.) He, on the
other hand, may become defensive if he feels attacked (don't we all?). Some of your focus
on on him could be avoiding looking at your own "weaknesses," and some of
his defensiveness may be reluctance to confront any sense of incompetency he may carry.
You can turn this around if you ask your partner to disclose what he
thinks he needs to work most on, using
active listening/no
judgment so he feels safe. You can then ask him what he thinks
you
need to work on -- here it's important for you to listen
without
defensiveness. By turning the tables this way you
create trust, which is important to both of you. Furthermore, this pre-empts any tendency he
has to accuse someone he perceives as powerful. Opening yourself up (in a structured
way) to his criticism is a kind of reverse psychology. From your point of view, it's an
opportunity to experience "weakness" and to discover you're strong enough
to accept being weak.
-
In your relationship, your partner
may be the more willing to be vulnerable than you are. You can set aside time together to
describe the things you love most about each other -- ask him to go first as a model for
you. When it's your turn, notice how it feels to focus only on loving feelings, and
stay with whatever rises up for you. Share that with him as well.
And appreciate how his intuitions about your needs are on target. This is
mutually developmental because:
(1) You're
honoring his ability to express his feelings and intuitions, which enhances his self-esteem and reinforces his
strengths. Further, he's hearing some disclosures that mitigate against any
tendency to stereotype you as "powerful," "controlling."
(2) You're strengthening the positive aspects
of your development path (nurturing qualities) -- showing
unconditional love, building empathy.
-
Eights tend to
"plow ahead," whereas Sixes are usually more strategic.
Again, as a kind of reverse psychology, invite your partner to help you consider
all the negative ramifications of something you plan to do together. Whatever he brings
up, ask for more specifics, then
look for solutions to the
potential problems. This will help you develop patience, and will help him develop a more
realistic and optimistic scenario.
-
For a further refinement of your interaction dynamics, take a look at
your and
his subtypes to see how these
energies play out with each other:
If your subtype is
One-to-One,
for example, and his is
Self-Preservation: You're a
stable, consistent person, whose very nature can reassure his undercurrent of fear; but
you can be particularly controlling under stress and even become insulting when you're
angry. He's likely to be a warm and charming guy who shares your passion for
championing the underdog, but he's sometimes overly focused on being "nice," and
under stress will particularly want your protection and not your ire.
If you're a
Self-Preservation subtype and
his subtype is
Social: Your role in the relationship is
probably to maintain order -- which matches your partner's need for security with
rules. This may have been attractive in the beginning, but it doesn't "do"
anything for either of you developmentally -- and if you change how you behave, make sure
you tell him about it because otherwise he'll feel you "pulled out the
stops." Further, you're likely to be a very private person who can be
independent, withdrawing, even antisocial at times. Your partner, on the other hand,
will be passionate about his causes and possibly accuse you of being
"unfeeling."
If you're a
Social
subtype with a
One-to-One
partner: To a degree your stereotypical "types" are reversed. You
may be quite friendly, focused on group cohesion, full of gusto, less dominating than you
could be, the social organizer of the couple. Your excessiveness may seem
overwhelming to him at times. He will tend to be forthright, truthful, willing to
confront. But he's also "counterphobic," driven to deny his fear, so under
stress he'll be on the offense -- in other words, somewhat dominating.
Of course, you can mix and match all three subtypes, leading to nine
potential combinations. The $24,000 question: given any subtype combination, what
could you do that would be mutually developmental?
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