Break Out of The Box : Enneagram Type One: Perfectionist – Expectations, What Are They Good For?

This series is dedicated to illustrate and explore every day human communications.  It is my desire that hearing the breakthrough experiences of others, that it will present an insight or opening in how you can create conscious communications with everyone in your life.

 

In my work with my clients who have the Enneagram Structure One: Perfectionist, they come to me very successful in their careers and what they have created as their professional livelihoods, yet when it comes to personal relationships and matters of the heart, their experiences are not thriving in the same manner.  Why?

For the Enneatype One, the Perfectionist does very well when working in a professional environment where rules, regulations, processes and systems supports their “right way, wrong way” mindset.   They thrive where the expectations for the outcome is met or exceeded and thus the controlled environment is a good fit when everything is going according to their high internal standards to uphold the established rules.

This way of “being” does not serve well in personal relationships because of the inherent need for Ones to change anything, something, everything.  Yet, the rules in a personal relationship, where the heart can get hurt, are not as clearly defined as in a professional environment.  As the One engages in continuous improvement in a relationship, it is often met with resistance by the partner who does not want to, or see the need for this for themselves.  This often creates unrealistic expectations and misunderstandings between the couple.

A client of mine, Sam, was experiencing this exact scenario repeatedly throughout his life with multiple unsuccessful relationships and he didn’t know why.  When we started working together, his desire was this:  To be able to recognize when my emotions of rejection and disappointment are dictating my actions and keep me limited.  “Guarded” was his term.

This played out in an amazing self-discovery that opened his awareness of how his thinking and acting created the disruptive behavior pattern in his personal relationships.

This was the Scenario:   The relationship would start out relaxed and fun, each curious and interested to learn about each other, playful and attentive.  As the relationship grew and moved into a mutual commitment, the “expectation” for certain behavior and how the relationship “should look” became the predominate energy.  My client began to recognize and observe the expectations he unconsciously held for his partner, and for her to respond and behave in a particular manner for him to NOT feel rejected or disappointed.

Because he was guarded in how he was communicating, not fully opening up himself, some of his perceptions to his partner’s reactions and responses was seen as not being totally up front and truthful.   His blind spot was his fear of rejection and disappointment and this became what he experienced because that is what he expected to happen.  It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and a vicious cycle.

As he experienced more of these incidents, they validated his belief and perception of dishonesty or withholding, even though his partner was communicating no differently from when they first started out.

The attraction, desire, and his need to be in the relationship created a frantic energy to want reassurance, a promise and guarantee of an equal, devoted love from his partner.  His communications changed, pushing for a commitment, attempting to feel a greater sense of security that he was not feeling.   Disappointment and frustration built up and fueled the energy as his partner was not meeting his relationship expectations.  He started to think, here we go again, another unsuccessful attempt at love.

What broke this pattern for my client was his personal work around his expectations in relationships, which turns out to be the growth work for all Ones.  First, came the acceptance of his Type and the understanding of what is important to Ones in the perfect partner, such as shared values, honesty, and integrity.  These are great qualities to be experienced together in a state of awareness, not as an expectation in an “ego” state of mind.  This is where it shows up as unhealthy behavior that causes trouble, such as the expectation of loyalty driven by the energy of jealousy.  Or the mistaken belief that your partner can be compensation for your own lack of perfection, if unconscious to this belief.

Sam wrote of his self-discovery and transformation work on expectations in personal relationships in a letter he wrote to his partner entitled “A Letter from a Perfectionist”.  Click on the link to read his powerful, heartfelt story.

Ways to support yourself if you are a Type One in relationship:

1. Learn to be present in the moment and go with the flow as you grow together
2. Be aware of placing your own standards on the other person and expecting them to live by those rules.
3. Begin to develop a warmer approach when communicating your own full range of feelings, including discontent or anger, in a healthy way.