Almost four years ago, in our home in Zadar, Croatia, it was nothing more than a normal argument, my husband cried out unimaginable words: “You've abused me for 20 years!”
The battle began the night before. He snapped our daughters to be their usual wild self as they were preparing their beds. I was working on a laptop and his nervous tone ripped my focus away, so I was troubled by having to go back to him quickly and refocus that late hour.
We then lay in the bed with our backs on each other. This is just a handful that has done it in 20 years. I was frustrated but not worried. It was a stupid fight. He would have been under some stress. Tomorrow he apologizes and we will continue as always.
He was frustrated for days due to the Enneagram personality test I sent him a link. His face flapped up when he came out of our room with the results, and it was strange.
“I'm nine,” he said in a daze. “Peace Maker.”
“That's great,” I said, a bit envious. I was four individualists, and to me I was the frivolous and selfish type compared to Peacemaker's altruism and kindness.
“I'm pleased the official people,” he said. “My personality is the entrance mat.”
That day he hugged his outcome and I felt it was hilarious. Who gets mad at the pop psychology personality test?
“That's what I love about you the most,” I said. “Being understandable, supportive and considerate.”
But he shook his head as if I didn't understand it, he didn't understand. And in the next few days he became increasingly irritated, bursting in annoyance when he had to remove the trash, or when the kids weren't lined up like soldiers the moment they barked orders to “brushing their teeth”! Or “Sleep!”
It reached its peak on the day of battle, when he spewed those words to me, I was abusing him.
When he said it, I laughed – the accusation was ridiculous. We were best friends and through our relationships we were helping each other work through the wounds of our respective childhood. I hit me like a bad joke after being accused of fighting.
But after I laughed at his accusation, he stuck and after I pushed back he insisted. Years of voice frustration seemed to leapt out of him.
“You're in great control,” he cried. “I can't go anywhere without stumbling on me. When I say I'm going to run or kitesurfing, you always give me evil eyes. I can't do anything for myself without resenting it. Everything I do has to serve you and my children.”
Some of that may have been true early in our relationship. But it's been years since I overcome my anxiety. Now I actually liked him when he went kitesurfing and running. And I never thought he would gruesome everything he was doing for our family. I thought we were just splitting the chores. I cooked. He forced the children into action. He took out the trash. I did the laundry. But now he said I felt like I was giving him those chores and stripping him of his freedom.
Old horror raised an ugly head. What if he felt calm and oppressed all this time and just found a way to express it?
Shocked by the fear and shock, I took the car keys and left.
For a long time I paced the westernmost sea promenade of our town and got mad. From where I was standing, I saw the promenade on the other side of the cove. Twenty years ago, while we were in love, we sat on that promenade, as I told him about our fight with our parents. He listened, but offered no comfort or committee, but found it strange. And when I asked him what his parents were like, he said, “I'm lucky, my parents are amazing.”
Those words were jarred. Not only did we get 18 years old, but we never met a teenager that our parents liked. But because I was given my own pain and there was nothing bounded insensitive about the enthusiasm that he said.
It took him years to realize that he wasn't rude or insensitive. He worked so hard to convince him of his words.
The truth about his parents revealed themselves to us slowly in the first decade of our lives, often through their own words. His mother told me she had no plans to have him. When she got pregnant, his brother was four years old and his father was stationed. She was struggling and she made plans to have an abortion.
His father intervened, but I felt the sanctuary remained – perhaps some of her didn't fully accept him?
Over the years, my husband told me that from an early age he thought he was normal but that he felt like a burden, not visiting him in the hospital when he was a toddler or visiting him as if the money for lunch at school was a big expense.
My husband cut off connections with his parents a few years ago, but only after he got mad at the way they treated me. I don't think he thought it was worth fighting for.
He may have cut off the bond, but the feeling of being a burden remained. He was still censoring himself, making it invisible to ask for nothing. It wasn't something I was in control. He had preemptively trimmed his wings before he could ask what he wanted or needed.
I went back home and found my husband sitting on the couch with his head in his hand. He saw me, all the fights had already been ejected from him. “Sorry, I've taken it all out for you,” he said. “You weren't abusing me. I can't believe I said that. That damn energygram. It really hit my head.”
He was doing some calculations of himself while I was away and he realized why the Enneagram caused him so much. And there was a deep crack between these two versions. After Enneagram raised the mirror to him, he couldn't reconcile himself with it, but he didn't know what to do about it either. It totally overwhelmed him.
“I thought cutting the bond would be enough,” he said. “But there's still work to do. Lots of work.”
“I know,” I said, hugging him.
The next time the wind blows a constant 20 knots – the perfect kind for kitesurfing – my husband was wobbling as usual, firmly coiled and wired like a spring. Only now I knew I was consuming him, wanting something, and then trying to speak myself at the same time. “The wind is amazing,” he said. “But it may rain today. The kids need to get in school. When they get in the car -.”
“We'll do it,” I said. “You should go – if you want to.”
I gave him a meaningful expression and he thought about it for a while with my emphasis on my desires.
“I want to go,” he finally said.
“Then we'll go,” I said.
It was a nasty first choreography and a dance that we had to learn to perfect over time. However, in practice it became easier for him to put his feet in the right place and move me out of his way.
I recently asked him to take the Enneagram test again. He was passive and worried that he would be triggered in the same way. But I insisted. When they were made on baby steps, I once said it was so easy to miss the most monumental transformation, and this time I would not be disappointed with his outcome.
He then showed up with the broadest smile and said, “I'm seven years old.”
I laughed. “I know that.” Seven. Enthusiasts. Optimistic, enjoyable affection and extroversion.
