The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships

by Suzanne Stabile

You can’t take care of yourself without the number you go to in stress.

Twos assume that any problem in a relationship is their fault. They are very slow to leave relationships and generally fall into the trap of believing they can make a big enough commitment to cover both sides.

“What kind of man pets bees?” For years I didn’t have an answer. But I have some land of my own now, and a hive of bees. When I heard your dad died, the answer to my question was clear: a man who pets honeybees is a man who believes that it’s worth the risk of a sting for the possibility of a connection.

it’s a lifelong challenge for them to accept that not every connection is intended to become a relationship.

Twos have to learn to let others make their own free choices and then either suffer or celebrate the consequences.

Every yes you say in one relationship requires a no in another.

you are worthy of being loved and you are wanted.

Twos experience anxiety when they recognize that they are feeling their own feelings. They don’t know a lot about how to act on their own behalf.

Twos want honest feedback, but they take everything personally.

In an intimate relationship, Twos need to hear you say, “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. There’s nothing you need to do, there’s nothing you need to be, and there’s nothing you need to help me with. I love you for you.”

Twos need a partner who wants to meet and know their friends.

Anger or disproportionate emotional responses usually signal unmet needs.

They work very hard to be who they think you want them to be.

Those with whom Threes have the most intimate relationship may not ever get to know them for who they truly are. As a result, Threes keep believing that they are loved for what they do instead of who they are.

Sometimes Threes know what they’re feeling, but they just don’t want to deal with it.

Threes cannot tolerate feeling uninformed or inadequate. This is a result of their propensity for comparison and competition.

Threes don’t like to be wrong, so they justify their behavior by reframing the story—and they are good at it, often believing the story themselves.

At some point in childhood they came to believe that it was not okay to have their own feelings and their own identity.

They can belong to as many as fifteen to twenty groups, from family to professional to voluntary, and be the poster child for each of them.

it is very important that you understand that every “me” they present to you or to someone else is an effort to give you what they think you want because they believe that if they offered you what was behind the image, it would be neither lovable nor desirable.

If Threes cannot slow down, they will find it very hard to be affected by intimate feelings, leading to all sorts of negative consequences for their relationships.

Threes come on strong, but they need you to be softer than they are.

Give Threes accurate and upfront information about what you need. They have a desire to meet your needs—they just struggle to know what they are.

Fours have a deep desire to be known, really known, for who they authentically are. Experience has taught them that most people don’t take the time to get to know others, much less understand them.

I’ve often wondered if it’s because a Five doesn’t want to have to manage any feelings other than their own.

Fives are in the Fear Triad on the left side of the Enneagram and they manage their fear by gathering information and knowledge.

Fives’ boundaries do allow for the exchange of personal information, but only on their terms.

Fives respond to life by asking, What do I think?

Relationships are risky for Fives.

Getting the Five to emerge from that safety has conditions, so if you want time with a Five you will generally need to request it. An average Five will carefully evaluate the validity of your request and then weigh the time and energy it will take to accommodate it before responding.

Fives who are aware that they are often misunderstood would do well to spend some time explaining their way of seeing and sharing their needs early in the process of getting to know someone.

We all avoid something, and Fives avoid being dependent on others. In fact, they over-value independence, so establishing and maintaining boundaries is second nature to them.

when it comes to a narrative about their personal lives or their views on a timely or controversial subject, Fives tend to withdraw.

believing that they don’t have enough inner resources to meet the demands of life, including relationships.

Fives often look at life through a lens of scarcity: they withhold their resources so their needs will never present a problem for someone else.

The vulnerability of need is one of the ways we learn to love, but it has to be a two-way street.

The ability to move to the stress number is good for relationships in every Enneagram number, and it’s especially good for Fives.

Fives should risk being known. They are sure to discover that the mutual benefit in the relationship outweighs their personal cost.

Enneagram wisdom teaches that Fives are the only number capable of true neutrality.

Good language would be, “I want to tell you what I want and then you can tell me whether you can give it to me.”

If you ask a Five what they feel, they will tell you what they think. You will have to be persistent to move a conversation to the feeling level.

Fives have a strong desire to live life so that they never have to depend on someone else to take care of them. If they are in a position where they need your care, offer it with as few words and as little fanfare as possible.

In response to fear, the motivation for Sixes is to feel safe and to be secure.

phobic Six.

counterphobic Six.

Jill allows community to form, and Dana creates the community.

Sixes: their passion is fear, and that can escalate exponentially in a myriad of ways.

there are times when a Six’s need to feel safe trumps relationships.

Sixes manage their anxious feelings by imagining the worst thing that could happen and then planning for it.

Sixes are the people most concerned with the common good and, when given time, Sixes see things that the rest of us miss.