Enneagram Type NINE – Tales from the Therapy Room:
Waking Up!
Jane has an Enneagram type NINE personality structure. She came in with her husband Bill for marital therapy, was shocked when her husband announced he was leaving the marriage to live with a woman he’d been having an affair with for some time. Although she had voiced some complaints over the years, she mostly had allowed him to dictate the terms of the relationship. Since he hadn’t been very good at asking him for what he wanted it had been easier for him to meet some of those wants within another relationship. Jane’s way of coping with her lack of satisfaction was to get involved with other activities, study, grandchildren, housework, etc. What I discovered when she did complain, is that she spoke in a monotonous voice, with long roundabout explanations. As she spoke her husband’s eyes would get very heavy, as if he was about to fall asleep. She said there were times he actually did fall asleep.
When I asked her why it was important to be speaking in this monotone, she said she didn’t want to him to get upset. When I asked Bill what he thought she was trying to communicate to him, he said he wasn’t specifically sure, but that this happened quite often. Bill’s sleepy, bored, unanimated state confirmed her fear he was bored with her and was going to leave. Her boring monologues confirmed his perception of her as being boring and not interested in a more passionate relationship — leading him to further consider the possibility of leaving. As is the case with all of our compulsions, the way we try to prevent our worst-case scenarios creates the very circumstances we fear most.
As Jane connected with her right to protest and to ask for what she wanted, her voice became more animated and he came to realize she actually wanted many of the same things he did. Because she actually showed her anger to him about these things, he took it to mean she felt what they had together, was worth fighting for. Her emerging assertiveness led to new sexual and intimate relating and his decision to end the affair. Although it was difficult for her to forgive him for the affair and the lying that surrounded it, she at one point thanked him for waking her out of her complacency and slowly fading into a sort of sexless, selfless sense of early grandparenthood. Over the following months she became the motivating force in helping both of them realizing their potentials for a more intimate, passionate marriage.
Type NINE’s Hero’s Journey — Stuck in the Ordinary World
You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there. Yogi Berra
On the Hero’s journey, NINEs try to stay comfortable in their ordinary world. They limit their awareness of problems or opportunities — resist calls to adventure by minimizing the value, importance or urgency of issues — positive and negative. So even when an opportunity for a new job, relationship or anything novel arises, they pass it by in favor of maintaining predictable day-to-day routines.
Aldous Huxley reminded us, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored,” yet NINEs, more than any other personality type, believe ignorance is bliss. NINEs are wearing blinkers that block-out anything but the well-worn path, the set routines. They the same mistakes over and over, even with feedback (consequences or friendly advice) to help them make different choices. Because they fear the need to change, they easily forget about problems of the past; each time a problem arises, it is like it is happening for the first time.
Without awareness of their ideals NINEs fail to set goals for themselves. In relationship counseling one NINE proudly proclaimed, “I’m not the one who has changed. I’m the same as I have always been!” Which, of course, is exactly what their spouse was unhappy about. If our relationship skills haven’t improved in fifteen years of marriage, we have missed many opportunities to grow, and probably haven’t had any goals other than staying together. The longer we resist change, the more any relationship deteriorates. This leaves the NINE with the perception that life is something merely “to be gotten through.” Many NINEs take pride in the ability to endure impoverished, unpleasant and unjust circumstances; even to the point of thinking that we show love by putting up with someone’s crap. Because of this lack of assertiveness, some NINEs never achieve much individuation from parents or significant others. If allowed to, they might never leave home — especially if they are the youngest child — choosing instead to stick round and hold the family together.
NINEs are able to begin their heroic journey to a richer and more meaningful life when they are honest within themselves about their frustrations and disappointments and heed the call to adventure. They begin asking themselves what is worth giving up their comfortable habits for. While acknowledging how uncomfortable their ruts have become.
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