Diving into the dark together: The 4.5 space in marriage

Often in your relationships, especially for those of you who are highly conscientious live in busy spaces, you may often forget to visit the depths together.

You goal-get, care for those you nurture, and seriously get it done on budgets, work, or self-care. You may even be good about getting bodywork in together, where you release stress together.

But when you don't connect in spaces of depth - in Enneagram terms, the space of 4.5 “the dark night of the soul” individually and as a couple too, your deepest hearts fail to meets your deepest thoughts and you miss the very fullest of relationship.

And just as we need the rhythms of busyness and production, so too do we need this poetic and even at times dark space too for marriage.

Yes, to really know one another's light and darkness is a gift, so we can share fears, hopes, dreams, and emerge into wisdom after we have done so again and again, deeper and deeper into connection and wisdom too.

We have this space personified in the pairing we interview, the lovely Sharleen Joynt and Andy Levine here. 

Sharleen is not only all over the world gorgeously singing opera with philharmonic orchestras and on award-winning stages, but she's also been on the show, The Bachelor, and she loves to have redemptive and also pure fun conversations about that time period. 

In fact, together, she and her husband Andy Levine (whom she met after The Bachelor) lead a podcast where they do just that and where couples write in all kinds of questions (nothing is off the table!) called Dear Shandy, which is super popular on YouTube and all over!

I'm so glad Sharleen and Andy share a piece of their deepest story with us here, as we talk about how they as a 4w5 and 5w4 couple take time together, time apart, and continue to find respect and connection together in that 4.5 space!

I hope you enjoy delving deep with us today in this at times comedic but also very meaningful and REAL episode!

Find more ways to connect with your spouse in our 5 week relationship course or in our book, “Enneagram in Marriage.”