First off, I need to caveat and stress that this is a snapshot of an INTP's perspective from a Male INTP - Female ENFJ marriage. There are gender roles that play into this, and I have suspicion that some of this advice will be way off if the genders are reversed, but there will be some aspects that are applicable to any gender-pairs.
When it’s working - What are the joys and positive aspects of these relationships?
How compatible do you think these two types are in general?
As almost-opposite types, these two have the potential to be either really terrible, or really great. Maturity has the lion's share to do with this, but individual life experience, age differences, and gender roles all play into this as they do with any other type-pairings. I am happy that I met her in my mid-late 20's, and I feel like I was ready for it. She's older than me FYI.
Why are they attracted to each other?
I can speak from the INTP's side - She's very nice, has a stable perspective on people and social situations, has a wide breadth of information to draw from based on her copious past experiences with other people, large family she grew up with, and general life experience. ENFJ's tend to befriend a lot of people over their lifetime and this endows them with a mass of anecdotes and information ... not all of which will be "logically clean", i.e. some of it may be hear-say or logically inconsistent, but they get a wide perspective from it all and can advise an INTP on different subjects at times when they may feel lost. Ni and perspective in general is one of their strengths.
Also, they tend to take care of themselves and their bodies in particular, so they're beautiful. But not in a flashy manner - they dress in a "tasteful" and "appropriate" manner. Probably draw a lot of parallels with other FJ types here. Lots of good primal reasons why I wanted to snag her for life.
From my wife's perspective, she has a thing for nerds ... Not sure why, an ENFJ would have to chime in here and explain that, but when she made a "list" of qualities she wanted in a mate, a lot of them seemed to line up with the idea of a general "nerd" with an outdoorsman bend to the whole thing. I definitely matched that.
How to they compliment each other?
I think I explained some of that up above - ENFJs have a wide breadth of knowledge they acquire from all their dealings with other people, particularly as they get older. That's an awesome asset for an INTP. Their warm and loving demeanor is pretty much impossible to understate. An INTP with enough experience dealing with his own feelings should have come to terms with a "loneliness" that comes about here and there if they haven't had much luck or experience in relationships, and ENFJs have a wonderful nature that can smother those feelings into submission. It's like a gravitational pull - you can feel their presence in your life even when they are thousands of miles away.
For the ENFJ, an INTP offers them an alternate perspective on matters, but also a lot of help in some of the more technical and tedious stuff - I have noticed my wife can generally handle most things on a computer, but she just hates trudging through some of it when I can show her (or help her) do these things in like 2 minutes. She also hates driving, it generally stresses her out, whereas I can go for hours and hours without tiring...
One thing ENFJ's can get wrung up about is personal matters - when friendships get rocky, or issues arise with caregivers or whatnot, they tend to get a bit flustered by the drama and stressed out - It helps for an INTP's personal-detached nature to help anchor the discussions so they don't get hung up on emotionally-charged threads of thought, but instead look at it somewhat matter-of-fact like. Helps them strategize what to do next with an air of confidence, like having a coach.
On that last point, they live and breathe Fe in the same way that we INTP's live and breathe Ti, so to speak. So when feeling-related matters go bad, it cuts them pretty deep, sinks their ship. They live much better with an anchor and an island to make it through. Younger ENFJs probably seek that island in other people & friends, and drama can ensue when those other people also let them down or betray them. I think we INTP's tend to be simple folks when it comes to relationship matters and feel "safe" to them, less likely to hurt them
out of overt malice or intent. But long-term friends of theirs generally stay close to their inner circle, so they usually have plenty of support.
How well do they understand each other and why?
I doubt these types truly understand each other as well as they think, but NT-NF communication with mature individuals can really sort that out in a useful way. She naturally "gets" people, and to a certain extent can remember and read my own needs based on past behavior and experience (Se-Ni axis continuously developing a composite image of who I "am"), but might not always predict my own needs based on that - so I have to speak up and talk to her about it rather than mope about it privately for matters that I need from her.
She's still a mystery to me. I hear ENFJs tend to keep their inner selves very private, and while I feel like I've seen plenty of her, I always feel like there's plenty about her past she doesn't open up about at all. That does make the "journey" an exciting one in some ways. Past relationships still have slight relevance to her, even if the partners are far, far away and out of contact. It's a little weird reconciling with that but you have to understand it in the overall perspective of who she is. Her life experience is part of who she is, and a lot of that has revolved around the people she's met along the way.
What are they like together raising children?
She's definitely the warm "attachment-parenting" one. She holds them to a schedule for bedtime et al, and has no trouble maintaining their schedules for various stuff (speech therapy/etc). Also is not shy AT ALL about getting as much "help" for the kids' development as any of us can stomach.
I am more stand-offish, but enjoy playing and roughhousing with the kids. She gets stressed out very quickly when the kids are misbehaving in hurtful ways, which one of ours is wont to do. Her stress level is steadily relieved when I get home and start putting them back in line.
When it’s not working - What are the challenges when two people of this type are in a relationship?
What are some of the communication challenges they can have?
I tend to leave a lot of things unsaid that probably should be said - it all seems so obvious to me, so why not to her? But speaking up is important; she will go and do things her own way and I will go and do things my own way if we don't talk about it, and it doesn't take much for those approaches to clash hard. Being an ExxJ, IMO, lends her a propensity to just assert her perspective and do what she wants. That can get frustrating and I'll definitely admit to having "yielded" to her plans a lot. An INTP's challenge is to get his own needs identified in such a way that he can explain them to her in finite terms. She's always accommodating when I do that.
An INTP can sometimes (especially when pressed on time or stressed) resort to quick "Yes/No" type of responses, as in "No, we can't do this, and I can't tell you why" (read: No, there's a shitton of reasons why I don't want to do this but I have not the time nor desire to go into the 25-minute tirade which would be minimally adequate to explain my rather extensive reasoning.) I try not to do that, sometimes it happens though.
I have noticed sometimes ExFJ's tend to adopt theories that others have told them as truths to follow - this is most often notable when it's based in pseudoscience. I suspect there's a failure of inferior-Ti to protect them from these, instead dominant-Fe thinking makes such theories "plausible" because it's someone else they know & trust who is espousing it, and an INTP can and should use their strong logical skills to evaluate and refute these theories, explaining exactly how they fall apart and offering alternative ideas to fill the void these "theories" typically occupy. Strategies for healthy living, eating and diet, etc. are typical examples of what I'm talking about. After all, how could dominant-Fe argue against another well-loved and trusted person in their life giving them solid reasons why the other guy's theory is bullshit? Satisfies both functions in the end, less cognitive dissonance = Happy Psyche.
What are the biggest frustrations between these two types?
How can they take each other for granted?
What happens with things "go wrong" between these two types?
(I started writing all of this under the first heading, but realized I was answering all 3 in the same narrative.)
For me, I desire a LOT of alone time to go off and play with my hobbies or whatever. Children complicate this something fierce. She needs her alone time too, a break from the kids, and that means I'm watching them when I really just want to go write code or solder some boards or clean up my horrendous mess of a workspace downstairs or take a walk or whatever.
But if we spend too much time apart, or if we disappoint one or the other over something big, or don't accommodate each other's needs for alone time, I blindly tend to forget to offer affection and reassurances to her, or it just comes through so infrequently... I notice she gets less "happy" ... my attempts at showing affection seem to fall on slightly-dull responses, things gradually get less "passionate" and just more "formal" or "ordinary" between us. We'll still go on dates once a month or so (when we can get a babysitter) but the conversation will be ordinary, not as much "magic" in the air, just going through the motions. I won't go into detail how this affects the sex life; you can imagine it tanks in response. This is an inferior-function grip and the two of us feed back onto each other automatically.
To me, this is particularly frustrating because I feel I'm not a party to this behavior - like I'm being intentionally "pushed out", and it can be a feeling that is both lonely and frightening, not to mention angering. That in turn fuels my own negative moods and if I'm not prone to depression already, I'll get a taste of it then. It feels like you're being used, just hung onto for support but no dignified reciprocation in return. Life continues but it gets dull, it gets boring, and tempers start to flare from time to time.
This is the couple's darkest hour. I would be willing to bet this is the turn of events that precede most INTP-ENFJ breakups or divorces. This
degenerative process happens slowly, as the ENFJ's Ni tends to operate over a long time period, watching the patterns as they unfold over the time-domain, giving her the advancing perspective that the love is fading, or that he just doesn't care about her anymore. Likewise, fixing this isn't an instantaneous event. It takes a few high-profile breakthroughs followed by continuous effort to improve the communication - and most importantly for the ENFJ, IMO - affection that was neglected for so long.
Talking about it is something that needs to happen. One or the other needs to acknowledge that they're not going down this path, and that things need to improve. I'm not sure how much of this is gender roles and how much is type, but it seemed like most of the effort was on my side, like I was the one who needed to "make it happen" the most. Affection for her takes many forms, and I have to keep remembering them all and to e.g. buy her flowers out of the blue once in a while, since it's shockingly easy for me to forget that kind of stuff. This will all look a little different for everyone.
But when it's effective, moods start to improve and the "spark" comes back. Affections are reciprocated. Happy nights out recur. She's not shy when you're watching her try on new sexy clothes with a grin on your face. Confidence comes back. Sex revs up.
Advice for couples - What recommendations do you have?
What things should each type do to facilitate better communication?
Among the many things you do during your day, your weeks, your years ... Time "alone" with your spouse is of utmost importance, particularly with children in the house. Shared time with the children isn't really time alone. It's a time when you can sneak in affections - I rub her skin or brush up against her pretty much every time I pass by her in the house - but the distraction of the kids prevents really "meaningful" communication from happening.
So when they're in bed, you need to find time to connect (physically and/or mentally or emotionally) before you go off and do your hobbies or play around on the Internet or do your gaming or whatever. Top kudos to you if some of those activities are shared; they generally aren't in my case.
ENFJs seem to love being spoiled, but that will probably take different forms depending on the person. However it's the *serious effort* of giving that they notice most, it can take many different forms and still seem to "count" to make them feel good. When both spouses are happy, communication just seems to figure itself out.
I also highly recommend the 5 Love Languages book -
Home | The 5 Love Languages® - Once you cut through all the Christian-inspired rhetoric in there (sorry if pointing that out offends anyone, I am not a religious person at all) you get the basic gist of what he's saying. This will help you optimize how you approach your expressions to one another. (I think knowing you read that book probably scores you a level-up in the eyes of an ENFJ)
What advice do you have for each of the two types?
INTP guys - Make a schedule or something for when you buy her flowers, or do some other XYZ she really loves. Randomize the timeframes a bit. Don't tell her about it. And for goodness sakes, touch her every day, when appropriate (not inappropriately in front of other people where her embarrassment will close her up like a shell of ice and get you cold-shouldered treatment for days). A neck massage, a stroke of the back, the shoulders, the face, everywhere else... Just do it, damnit! They eat that stuff up like candy. It's easy insurance against the degenerative process described above. It's easy to do, and it might not be obvious to you at the time, but to her it's probably like "Well, if he can't bother to stroke my neck or my back or do some sort of basic physical indication that he loves me when he's clearly had 1234324321321321 opportunities over the past month, what the hell?! Does he not love me!??" But it's not the only thing she needs, of course. Spoil her when you can, like she's your prize in life.
Also- We love to analyze things, but my experience has been some people just don't like having themselves picked apart and analyzed, my wife being a striking example. Analyze other things, analyze other people, but don't tell her your own analysis of her, or at least you should come up with a VERY tactful way of conveying it if it's that important.
Share your sexuality with her (I hate using that term generically, sounds like something you'd read in a women's magazine). What I mean is, totally CATCALL her in private (meaning NOBODY AROUND!) and tell her how freaking HOT she is. Do it in the nerdiest way possible, that'll get her laughing. It's not creepy to her when she's sexually attracted to you - it's another piece of "candy Fe" from the one she loves the most. It's better that you tell her this before someone else starts to, right?
It's been my general impression that ENFJs love art, music and all aspects of creativity. That's often the basis for their hobbies. You might not partake in that, or you might like it; either way let her have her outlets and make sure you have your creative outlets too.
I have heard and read before, and believe it to be true, that most relationships have a "2-3 year honeymoon" period after which things change. The "easy passion" starts to die off. That's where the degenerative process described above may begin, and it's important to know this so you're ready for it. If you make it through the next 3 years after that with a renewed passion in your relationship, you're probably in good shape for the long-haul.
If you are an INTP, what advice do you have for the ENFJs?
ENFJs - Be patient with us, we are as child-like as we seem sometimes. We don't naturally "get" the scope of your innate need for love and affection, it's hard for us to grasp but not totally alien either. We need it too. Many of us have just spent too much time without it and have hardened our shells. It's frustrating, yes, but the rewards are worth the wait. That's a big part of your "work" in the relationship, waiting and watching us open up to you.
Also, you have a lot of perspective on things, but you need to respect that in anything regarding logical consistency and analysis, we possibly have the ability to run circles around you and then some. It's not a bad thing, and we love to use those skills to help you, but you have to make sure we have all the information for the topic, and you need to acknowledge where our analysis fits into the whole puzzle. Logic and technicals and all that crap is our strong suit. We can get into some awfully heated discussions when our logical analysis thought processes are revved up.
So after all this, I want to underscore the role of maturity - and for the INTP especially, the role of feelings - have in this pairing. It's a pairing that can be particularly stressful if the two aren't ready for it, maturation-wise. And the quirks between the two may be too difficult to bear, so some folks who just can't hang with the requirements of their spouse's needs shouldn't pursue such a relationship if they feel they're just not suited for it. But when it works, it's amazing.
