Posted by Dorga on December 30, 2000 at 18:24:17:
In Reply to: Five Breaking up With a Four posted by Not Thinking Anymore on December 30, 2000 at 00:11:50:
: I am just curious about other people's experiences.
: I am a female 54 married to a pure 4. (Ok, that probably isn't possible...just seems that way!)
: We have gotten to the point where there is no true communication happening. It has become a disasterous relationship, and there are new horrors daily. Yet, I don't seem to have the motivation to leave. Or to do anything at all except hide and wait. Anyone have any tips about hurtling yourself out of stagnation?
: I know, this probably belongs on the "Care Board". I couldn't bring myself to post to that board, however. This is my first time
here.
"She endured. And Survived. Marginally, perhaps, but it is not required of us that we live well." (Anne Cameron) Scarey thought, no?!
I don't have any personal insight into "A Romantic-Observer Couple" but I can offer an excerpt from a book: "Fives can live in a world of intellectual abstraction adn mental imagery that seems curiously devoid of emotional content, whereas fours are equisitely attentive to the flunctuations of mood. Heart and mind are such different organs of perception that both can feel misrepresented or misunderstood when theyare expressed to each other. The Romantic partner may thing "My lover has no heart," and the Observer may feel, "My mind is filled with my beloved." The partners' modes of expression are so vastly unalike that they can somtimes feel like ships that pass in the night, invisible to each other's presence. It helps when either can find the proper degree of contact, which partially explains why long-term couples begin to look alike. Each will have to adjust his or her style of relating to accomodate the other: Observers haveto stay with their feelings, and Romantics have to throttle back. The saving grace of balancing the most contracted and the most emotionally dramatic Enneagram types is that they really have something admirable to teach each other."
I have two sisters that are 4's, one of them I avoid like the plaque because she is just too emotionally self-pitying and scarey dramatic and the other I adore but admittedly can't imagine spending extended periods of time with simply because we have so little in common - and I'm sure the feelings are mutual as far as that goes.
May I suggest a book that may be very apropo? The book is entitled "Something More" by Sarah Ban Breathnach. It's a New York Times Bestseller $12 US and would offer you some very nutricious food for thought and perhaps some much needed inspiration to make a move one way or another. Best wishes!