This Mother’s Day, I awoke to hearing my husband curse as he walked downstairs. I immediately knew that he was cursing at me because I opted to skip doing his laundry. I did the rest of the family’s laundry, just not his. I did it a few days ago and he just figured out that his laundry wasn’t done. He’d expected me to do it because I usually always do. My point was made – the only time he notices that I do the laundry is when I don’t do his. Ha!

So he did his laundry – washed it and put it in the dryer. When I heard the dryer buzz, I quietly went down and folded some of it – his shirts and those clothing items that will wrinkle easily – because I know he will just leave them there (sometimes for days) and they will wrinkle. He will likely not talk to me about at all or if he does he will make me wrong for it.

This may just sound like typical marital tension, and perhaps it is, but it has me contemplating the why behind all our disagreements. What I concluded is that it all comes down to our different Human Design Type. He is a Manifesting Generator and I am a Projector.

My biggest complaint about my husband is that he seems almost incapable of stopping, slowing down and just being. When he does slow down, he usually falls asleep. Then when he wakes up, he is off again. The Energizer Bunny – literally. All I have ever wanted is one-on-one time with him doing things we enjoy together. We have the most fun when we go on hikes or runs together, but we have fun doing others things, also. The keyword here, though, is “one-on-one”. It’s not that I don’t want to share him but that I prefer this dynamic. I feel closer to him, more heard, more seen, more recognized. When we do things in a group, I feel invisible not only to the group, but to him. Sadly, many times when we are one-on-one and talking, he will fall asleep on me. OMG it is infuriating! Or even worse, someone will call him and he will end up walking out because he hasn’t spoken to this “good friend” in ages (the person is just an acquaintance but he says they are all friends). Time and time again his actions say to me, “You are not as important as [insert group, person, activity].”

His typical routine is to go non-stop all day, get home, crash on the couch and fall asleep. If he isn’t on the couch asleep, he is almost always on the phone talking to someone. On the weekends he has a to-do list/plan. Sometimes he will come to me with his list/plan. He will start off by asking me, “What do you have planned for this weekend?” I say, “I don’t know. Nothing?” lol Very rarely do I have an actual plan! Yet, in 13 years of marriage he still asks me this question.

What typically happens, is his plans end up forcing me into the position of taking on whatever tasks he doesn’t want to or like to do – babysitting, housecleaning, buying groceries, weeding the lawn, mowing the lawn, meal prep, etc. So, if I decide on something I would like to do, say go on a solo hike, it must work around his plans. If call him out on this problem, he says his plans come first because he had a plan and shared it with me ahead of time. Besides, my plans usually involve me being alone in nature – but being alone – and to him, those kind of plans don’t count because they don’t involve other people. The only important plans are those that involve being with a group doing some kind of activity. My alone time is insignificant in comparison. My favorite thing to do? Be home without any plans. LOL

Most of our arguments are about him wanting me to come with him to do a group activity. Groups are most definitely bigger than just our family, but even if they are just our family I don’t often have interest. What ends up happening is he guilt trips me into going, I don’t act like I’m having fun (because I’m not), and he gets mad at me because I embarrass him by not making an effort to go along with the group. I despise idle chit-chat, so parties and gatherings can be almost painful for me. It takes a lot out of me to endure torture like that (and it IS torture). And you may ask, “Why don’t you just tell him? Sure he will understand.” Trust me, I’ve told him over and over. He doesn’t get it. He says to me, “Just change your mind.” I’ve tried. The only thing that ever works is if I find a nice corner somewhere far away from the group and wait to go home. Every so often someone will see me in the corner and talk to me, but not often, and that is okay by me. But if I resort to my corner tactics he gets upset with me, saying it is obvious to the rest of the group I don’t want to be there. Ugh! I can’t win.

Through the years, he has learned to just let me stay home, but he makes me wrong for it over and over again. This has grown into him venting about me to the people he says I “alienate” so that I am even more uncomfortable when I do decide to go to gatherings with him. I can literally feel their thoughts despite their pretense of pleasantries. If someone asks him, “Where’s Dayna” he might say, “Oh you know, Dayna. She doesn’t like people (meaning them).” WTF?

The thing is, deep down, I don’t care what anyone thinks about me. My husband can’t relate to my being this way. No matter how much I try to explain myself, he is unwilling to except me as I am and continues to try and force me into being who thinks I should be, which is like him (and 76% of the population).

What all these difference boil down to is energy type.

This quote from an article I read recently describes it perfectly:

A Generator naturally wants to spend most of its time expanding its energy and being engaged in satisfying activity. That’s their general natural state. There may be moments to pause to reflect and to just be still or whatever, but if you look at a Projector it’s going to be different.

The majority of the time, Projectors are more likely to enjoy being still, going deep into their awareness or deep into the relationship with the other. I often hear Projectors in relationship expressing that they just want their Generator partner to stop and be with them, sit still, and just be with them and see them. The important thing is that there is a depth of recognition and the other is with them in it. Source

I’m sure there are Generator/Projector relationships that work but it would mean both individuals recognize and respect the other for who they are without trying to force them to be something they are not. For my marriage, it has meant that we agree to disagree on most topics, that I opt to not join in on most group outings and social events, and we each do our own thing. Sure, we do things together, but over time those things are less and less. I let him be himself but he can’t seem to let me be myself. I take the blame for that because, when we met, I was still very much trying to be a Generator, pushing myself to my limits, doing what I thought I should do and not following my Strategy and Authority. So technically, I presented him with a lie, a version of me that was false, and now he is stuck having to accept a version of me he probably never would have married in the first place! What can I do but admit fault but that doesn’t mean I am going to go back to being that other version of myself to keep the peace.

Ideally, Projectors would be with Projectors and Generators would be with Generators. I’ve never been in a romantic relationship with another Projector, so I can’t say how that would turn out. Good? Bad? Who knows. I would think it would be hard to initiate initial interest because both Projectors would be waiting for an invitation from the other. However, all my good friends have been Projectors, so I know that with a Projector-Projector relationship things don’t work the same as with Generator-Projector relationships. I feel generally more at-ease with other Projectors. I don’t feel an urgency off of them that says to me, “I need this” or “want that”. Instead, there is a general acceptance of what is and it is easy to go deep and connect when both are so open to doing just that. It is an automatic one-on-one connection with both giving the other recognition and acknowledgment. I’ve also been told that a romantic Projector relationship can be quite focused, like an energy vortex, because they both have that focused, penetrating aura.

Sadly, I’ve also read that it is difficult for Projectors to resist the invitation/call from a Generating type whose sacral provides a never-ending source of energy to draw from. In a way, a relationship with a Generating type can become a trap for the Projector because when they withdraw from their energy source it can result in a kind of withdrawal period. I’ve read that Generator energy can be like a drug in that way, and I can totally relate to that. However, I find it no fun to be revved up to extremes only to crash down when the energy source is removed. It gets tiring and at the very least leaves me confused and wondering if something is wrong with me.

After a lifetime of being with Manifesting Generators as partners I think I’ve learned a thing or two. I’ve never felt more energetically balanced than during those periods in my life when I lived alone. That in itself says a lot!