Personality Differences & Love
How your personality affects relationships
and how to overcome self-limitations
We all know that different people have different personality types. But how many different types are there? What are they? And how do they effect our relationships?
According to the most useful system I have encountered — it’s called the “Enneagram” — there are nine basic personality archetypes. We all have some of each archetype within us. But we tend to concentrate most of our energy in just one type, or a couple of types.
In this series, I will describe the nine archetypes in the Enneagram system of personality profiling, and the expected problems each type will have in love and relationships. I will also describe how each type can personally grow to overcome any of their self-limiting beliefs.
As you read through these different types, you may get a sense of where you fit — or you may not clearly see it. The Enneagram is a robustly rich and complex system. And we each have a little of all types.
Like many people, I did not intially like the idea that we had to be one of the Enneagram types. It felt like being put into a box. But I gradually realized how we all were, in fact, already in a box — that we were repeating some very similar patterns that kept us from achieving ongoing satisfaction in love. So I wanted to see the box I was in — to help myself get out of that box.
This system, the Enneagram personality types, has helped me better see my own patterns and overcome them. This has increased my flexibility and resourcefulness with others. It has helped me better understand and work with differences — and move beyond personal beliefs and limits that were previously obstacles to joy and happiness in love.
Understanding the Enneagram has also enormously expanded my ability to work in depth with all kinds of different couples — regardless of their personality types. Knowing this system will not only help you in personal relationships, but it will assist you professionally as well.
Read the nine follow-up parts to this article.
Each starts with the name of one of the personality types.
This is followed by a thumbnail sketch of each type. In this sketch, I do not look at the strengths of each type. Rather, I briefly portray how each type may tend to self-limit or suffer in love and relationships. This is very simplified and abbreviated. Don’t worry if you do not recognize yourself right away. Just get a gneral sense of which aspects of any description apply to you and which things may point you towards some personal growth.
To start, I show the “core beliefs” at the root of that type’s suffering. Our core beliefs were adopted in childhood, and are like water to a fish — an unseen force that influences and shapes all interpersonal reality for that type.
The core beliefs paint the world a particular color for each type, and leads to predictable problems and issues in relating. These problems may be enacted differently depending on the type of our partner. But until we examine and overcome the effects of our own core beliefs, we will continue to experience reactive patterns that will make us unhappy and damage our relationships.
If you want a longterm, satisfying and joyful relationship, the true solution is not to find the “perfect partner” — because we all suffer from having some core beliefs that interrupt happiness in love. The real solution is to look within and overcome the limits of our own type’s subconscious core beliefs. In each type description to I will offer ways that type can do such personal growth.
Read the first personality type now »
See all types in ‘Personality and Love’ category »
Nice blog you have here. I pretty much lurk the internet when I’m bored and read all I can about the organic lifestyle, but I really liked you view on things. I’ll bookmark the site and subscribe to the feed!
Hello Dr. Gray, My boyfriend and I are quite different, i’m more of and extrovert, and he is more of a intervert. I’m learning to appreciate our differences because i can learn more about him and how he see’s certain situtation and how he reacts to them verus how i would. He lets me see another world, just based on his view point, and i really love that about him. I just love and appreciate him even more.