The Intimate Five
IT'S JUST YOU AND ME
All of the intimate styles tend to gravitate to one-on-one relationships. In the case of the intimate Five, the relationship is often one of shared secrecy. It's you and me against or at least without the rest of the world.
In the case of the intimate Five, part of the focus on the partner is parsimony. "I only have enough emotional juice for one person." The other person becomes the focus of attention, but also the only place to put the precious resource of time and affection. There is not much, so they don't waste it on anybody other than the chosen one.
Because Fives live in their head (remember Descartes, "I think, therefore I am") a primary way of showing affection is sharing secrets. While everyone else in the world is kept at arms length and privacy is an obsession, Fives can share everything with this one person.
Sometimes sharing information can actually replace sexual intimacy. Sex, Lies and Videotape is an old movie that has stood the test of time. It may seem a bit kinky to some because James Spader plays an intimate Five who substitutes video taping girls talking about sex but does not have sex with them. The movie is an Enneagram clinic and Spader nails the dynamic of an intimate subtype Five.
Fives have a general fear of being overwhelmed by the demands of others. They are acutely aware of their emotional poverty, feeling unable to meet the expectations and desires of others. So when an intimate Five falls in love, there is often an accompanying fear of being owned. The relationship can feel like a contract with terms they can't meet.
Like everyone, Fives want to be loved, but they also fear being loved because they understand that love and affection can only be repaid by love and affection. Their central fear is around the difficulty of adequate emotional response.
However, if an intimate Five can become confident of their ability to respond, then they can make wonderful spouses and lovers because they focus all their attention on the one they love. Like someone on a strict budget, they do not waste their resources on impulse or adventure.
Perfect love, imperfect relationships:
Choose to fall and stay in love with a compatible partner who is good for you in a co-created healthy, sustainable relationship by successfully navigating states (or phases) of lust, attraction, infatuation, uncertainty, courtship, curiosity, romance, exclusivity, jealousy, heart-brokenness, intimacy, boredom, attachment and commitment that couples may experience differently in time, kind and degree over the course of their union.
Understand the impact of the different hormones that accompany and impact many of these phases.
Guide your clients through the phases/states that every love relationship evolves through. Help them to determine in which phase they and their partner are at any given time so that they can stay in sync with each other.
Integrate head, heart and gut on the path to a lasting and rewarding love relationship.
Provide feedback if it is wise to continue or to end the exploration of a love relationship.
Realize the importance of Intimacy, Passion and Commitment at similar levels in kind and degree for a healthy, sustainable love relationship, indicated by the “Triangle of Love”.
These insights will allow you to help clients to stay focused on the ongoing development and deepening of their healthy love relationships through curiosity and mindfulness in all its phases, or to end their journeys with love and understanding if their relationships are no longer evolving. You will be able to guide them when differences emerge and hormones and emotions rush in to sabotage what could be otherwise a wonderful partnership.
Pushing buttons we have not installed:
Understand five forms of the unconscious and how they create different forms of attraction, attachment, conflict and healing/growth opportunities in love relationships.
Support your clients by revealing false identities and shadow elements by bringing them into the light.
Learn and practice a process that you can utilize and share with your clients to identify false identities/shadow elements that are projected onto their partner.
This practice will allow you to deepen compassion and intimacy between you and others, and to guide your clients through a process that they can apply in their own relationships on an ongoing basis.
If I’m so wonderful, why am I still single?
Help others to attract or find a compatible partner if they are single by supporting them to remove inner blocks and changing outer circumstances.
Create a realistic and compelling dating profile that focuses on what is truly important in relationships in the physical, material, intellectual, interest/passion, emotional, ethical, spiritual, and sexual realms.
This part of the training will help your clients to stay open for love if they are single, to identify a perfect mate, and to be fully available when he or she shows up in their life. If you are in a rewarding love relationship you will be able to support your single friends and clients in moving towards a healthy relationship. To be or not to be, that is the question:
Continue to learn, heal, grow and contribute together with your partner, or consciously uncouple if you don’t share an authentic purpose and/or are at different levels of consciousness and other crucial developmental lines without a realistic chance that you will be able to align yourself.
This knowledge will allow you to make your own decision and to support your clients in deciding if staying in a relationship or ending it with love and compassion is the right choice.
While both Enneagram types 5w6 and 6w5 share a need for safety and a cautious approach to relationships, their fears of intimacy stem from fundamentally different core motivations. 5w6s fear being drained, overwhelmed, or unable to meet the needs of others, causing them to withdraw to maintain independence. 6w5s fear being unsupported, betrayed, or left vulnerable, leading them to hold back to test the loyalty of a partner.The fundamental differences in how they view and fear intimacy include:1. The Core Threat5w6 (The Problem Solver): Intimacy feels like an invasion of energy and privacy. They pull away because they fear that getting too close will mean losing control over their time, their boundaries, and their ability to stay self-sufficient.6w5 (The Defender): Intimacy feels like a potential setup for betrayal or abandonment. They hold back because they are constantly testing for inconsistencies in their partner, asking themselves if they can truly trust and depend on this person long-term.2. Coping Mechanisms5w6: They safeguard themselves primarily by distancing and withholding. If they feel an emotional demand, they retreat into their own head, reading or analyzing instead of engaging, so they can recharge without interference.6w5: They safeguard themselves primarily by mental preparation and projection. Because they don't trust their own feelings entirely, they project doubt into the relationship, testing the partner or fixating on worst-case scenarios to prevent future heartbreak.3. Vulnerability and Trust5w6: They naturally prefer to keep people from fully figuring them out, fearing this information might be used to control or drain them. They avoid sharing their inner world out of a belief that others won't understand, or that it’s simply too much work to articulate.6w5: Deep down, they desperately want to trust and be known, but their anxiety and anticipatory vigilance block them from opening up completely. They project an outward wall of rationality or skepticism to shield their vulnerability
