Does anyone's counselor talk about personality adaptations with them and use them in therapy? Doors, etc? Brief summary: http://www.psychsongs.com/adaptations.htm
I test high on Brilliant Skeptic (Paranoid) for survival and Responsible Workaholic (Obsessive Compulsive) for performing. He tests high on Creative Daydreamer (Schizoid) for survival and Playful Resistor (Passive Aggressive) for performing.
It is interesting, trying to learn how to communicate. I want answers, I obsess over them, I demand them, I get angry (consistent with paranoid skeptic), he withdraws (consistent with creative daydreamer). It is uncanny just how accurate our adaptations are. Because of our "doors" I can't just go after his behavior and expect to have effective change. I have to relate to him on our feeling levels and from there appeal to his thoughts to affect change in his own behavior to make me feel safe (feeling safe apparently necessary for a Brilliant Skeptic to continue a relationship, and feeling safe is dependent on being able to trust, so it is no wonder that my paranoid nature is coming out, as I've been given reason to not trust; for his playful resistor, feeling safe is dependent on not feeling like someone is trying to control him... I don't think that expecting honestly is controlling but he triggers really fast, you can see the conundrum).
I have no ideas how to assert boundaries with our adaptations... I'm working through this in IC but not sure how to bring it into MC, maybe I'll just directly state it at our next session. My "open" door is Thinking and my counselor knows this, and he relates there first always when we talk, and after rapport he goes after my "target" door which is Feeling. When he asks how I feel about something, I fight him on it, saying things like "it doesn't matter how I feel about it, this is the reality of the situation and I have to act/deal" i.e. I always steer it back to "thinking" and avoiding my feelings. But when I allow my feelings to be engaged then I'm open to changing my behavior (which is my "trap"door). Which I guess is sort of where I am with my husband who is lying to me. Every part of me screams why the fuck can't you just be honest with me. But if I do that he feels criticized and his passive aggressive nature kicks in and then he withdraws. It is not practical for R. I'm ultimately pragmatic, I want R, I want my husband to feel safe talking to me, and as I result I feel that I have to be more aware and conscious of overcoming my own adaptations to avoid invoking his, and frankly that feels unfair, that I'm more willing to make changes in how I'm doing things but if I tell him I want him to make changes I encounter so much resistance. And unfortunately it makes sense since I'm driven to "be perfect" (thanks responsible workaholic!) and he's driven to "not make waves," he's not used to speaking up for himself, and will tolerate a fair amount of a dissatisfactory situation without speaking up for himself, just going along, building resentment all the way, and then acting out. That seems to be the mechanism for his recent transgressions, acting out in a fantasy world because I just became too much to deal with and avoiding reality while simultaneously being passive aggressive.
My OCD nature is coming out in full force, ever since recent new discoveries of lies I have been obsessing over why someone would choose to take the actions my WH did, spending more time on these boards than I should be, looking up articles, reading books, strategizing what to do next. I don't confront him because I don't want him to withdraw. With his personality adaptations I have to make him feel safe or he'll withdraw for weeks at a time. My counselor implies it is because his behavior is being attacked and his survival instinct kicks in, and he's such classic Creative Daydreamer that they always withdraw.
Which basically means that if I have any hope for R I can't just go after his behavior, I have to relate to him on a feelings level to access his thinking level in order to willingly change his own behavior. Basically make him feel like he decided on the boundaries that I want of his own volition, otherwise his Playful Resistor will come out, accusing me of trying to control him (which is consistent with the past, I've tried to establish boundaries and he rebels).
And now I'm thinking that counseling and communication is all about manipulation. I say to my IC why can't people just be like me and just directly state what they want/need, what bothers them, how to fix it, and so on? Other people are so annoying! Ah, classic Brilliant Skeptic, he says.
Anyway I'm frustrated and just trying to navigate this. I don't see my IC for another few weeks but my OCD nature has been researching this as much as possible before MC (which is coming up soon). My OCD nature has also been consuming me for weeks, at the expense of my sleep sometimes which affects my work and studies, and I'm behind on schoolwork and not doing well in my class, which is extra painful considering my Brilliant Skeptic nature (the idea being that the message I received as a child is that I must always be perfect, always work hard, etc., and frankly this is true too, I'm a perfectionist more with myself than with others, and beat myself up really hard when I fail, and I recently failed a midterm in part because I've been obsessing over this issues, so my brilliant skeptic is beating up my responsible workaholic and, well, I'm a mess, which is why I called up my counselor in the first place, it had been a little while since I'd gone).
Our adaptations and related doors are so fucking different that it is hard to communicate effectively sometimes, I'm so frustrated. Really it's a wonder anyone ever has effective relationships at all, like we're all guaranteed to never see eye to eye on anything, we're always attracted to different adaptation types with whom we cannot communicate, and when we encounter the same adaptation types for some reason those relationships are either boring or competitive, according to my counselor, most people end up with types that are dissimilar. Do we all just love drama or something? Apparently not, we just get attracted to other types, and then don't understand why they don't think like we do, and then feelings get all screwed up.
My counselor seems to be trying to desperately appeal to my feeling door to affect change in my behavior by helping me realize that taking better care of myself and not obsessing over this (basically doing 180, which I have been doing on the surface but not as well in private, in public I have it all together, in private I'm obsessing and depressed and let's just say that a lot of pizza and netflix has been utilized instead of smart things like exercising or focusing on my schoolwork) is the more pragmatic way of dealing with this, as I cannot change my H and I will never know when he is or being honest with me, and what then? "I don't know" I said. And he knows that I mean that since I'm not a Playful Resistor, even though I've talked to a divorce mediator and can have papers served in under a week if/when I'm ready, I'll keep justifying reasons to give him another chance to come clean. I guess we'll get more into that next time. He knows that a lot of my "patience" results from my need to be dutiful, again thanks to "responsible workaholic." Really I'm fed up but I feel that I have to keep working on this until my husband has given up, and he says he still wants R. I'm going nuts!
Sorry for all the rambling, I don't know if this makes any sense at all. 
I guess I just needed to vent about this and see if anyone else has worked with this stuff.
