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[INFJ] When an INFJ doorslams you / cuts you out of their life / breaks off contact

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I'm not sure. I definitely wouldn't do it by coming across as being critical. Maybe it would be best to express your concern in the form of an objective observation i.e. explain how a particular behavior of the INFJ seems inconsistent with their stated philosophies? You could then talk about how that affects you, in an honest, kind, loving, non-critical way. If you could help them visualize your preferred ideal scenario that might be helpful, too. Just pointing out someone's shortcomings just makes the person feel bad if you don't offer any solution. You will probably be highlighting a weak area that they feel bad about so that's why it's important to be gentle and kind while NOT allowing the INFJ to change the subject or squirm out of the discussion in some way. Also, don't get AMUSED when they attempt to do that, either! Be firm but kind and loving. -my 2 cents :)

hmm...

see, to me i was just sort of an expectation, an inner mirror, and i was surprised by its lack ther of each time the hypocracies came up... basically my gut reaction: "what? now it's wrong when i do it? you do it all the time [expend the times where she did the things she's blaming me for doing]"...

she interpreted it as me "building ammo" to win the argument because i didn't bring those things up in the first place, she couldn't get that what bothered me about it was the hypocracy, not the fact she did those things - it seems obvious to me that if i see a need to do it under some circumstances i would be understanding and tolerant towards times where she does the same thing, so i had no reason to bring it up in the first place until she judged me based on those actions and thus tried denying me the freedom to do the same things she does.

i guess based on what your telling me, maybe the alternative would have being to take a step back, notice the pattern, and - not within the conflict but after - bring up something along the lines of "sweety, you know when you did [insert item], and i completely understand why [insert the reason], but then when you [insert the reasons], you blamed me for [insert the same item]? its not that it bothers me that you did it, and if you don't like me doing that we can talk about that too, but its just important to me that we try to keep our relationship fair"... sort of lay out the groundworks that the concept is there and it bothers me.

and then maybe instead of hypocracy - which is an accusation by nature - i could have used the word "fair" as an association key to remind her of that notion? instead of just bringing up the hypocracy in her judgement thinking it will obviously be wrong for her, i could have lead to it with "remember what we talked about fairness?" or "sweety i don't think that's fair" sort of thing..., sort of like a safeword for relationship conflicts. something along those lines?

although i am not sure how i could use it at this point where the multi-layered hypocracies are the core of whats preventing us from being able to talk it out like adults.
 
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Entp/Enfp like a challenge. Sometimes they can idealize and believe can see what they want to see instead of what is there. Potential so to speak.
i doubt santa claus avoided anyone's imaginery chimney because of their type ;)
 

1487610420

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Entp/Enfp like a challenge. Sometimes they can idealize and believe can see what they want to see instead of what is there. Potential so to speak.

Yeah, but failing to realized the actual reality isn't the same as the envisioned potential, can be shortsighted.
 
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hmm...

see, to me i was just sort of an expectation, an inner mirror, and i was surprised by its lack ther of each time the hypocracies came up... basically my gut reaction: "what? now it's wrong when i do it? you do it all the time [expend the times where she did the things she's blaming me for doing]"...

I'm familiar with that scenario. :cheese:

she interpreted it as me "building ammo" to win the argument because i didn't bring those things up in the first place, she couldn't get that what bothered me about it was the hypocracy, not the fact she did those things - it seems obvious to me that if i see a need to do it under some circumstances i would be understanding and tolerant towards times where she does the same thing, so i had no reason to bring it up in the first place until she judged me based on those actions and thus tried denying me the freedom to do the same things she does.

So you weren't able to get her to see that she was being inconsistent. It's possible that she did see it on some level but didn't want to admit it. I've done that.

i guess based on what your telling me, maybe the alternative would have being to take a step back, notice the pattern, and - not within the conflict but after - bring up something along the lines of "sweety, you know when you did [insert item], and i completely understand why [insert the reason], but then when you [insert the reasons], you blamed me for [insert the same item]? its not that it bothers me that you did it, and if you don't like me doing that we can talk about that too, but its just important to me that we try to keep our relationship fair"... sort of lay out the groundworks that the concept is there and it bothers me.

and then maybe instead of hypocracy - which is an accusation by nature - i could have used the word "fair" as an association key to remind her of that notion? instead of just bringing up the hypocracy in her judgement thinking it will obviously be wrong for her, i could have lead to it with "remember what we talked about fairness?" or "sweety i don't think that's fair" sort of thing..., sort of like a safeword for relationship conflicts. something along those lines?

although i am not sure how i could use it at this point where the multi-layered hypocracies are the core of whats preventing us from being able to talk it out like adults.

That sounds like a great approach (theoretically). Although if you point out that she's not being fair she could counter with a *special circumstances* explanation for why it's ok for her to do something but not you. So, perhaps you would need to have a strategy that plans for that possibility. Maybe she could be allowed some amount of special treatment for special circumstances as long as she granted you the same thing in other areas of the relationship? Another thought is that making everything 50/50 fair isn't so ideal because each person is supposed to be generous in a relationship and give lots more than 50%. Was there some sort of balance between her being a hypocrite in some areas but being generous in others? Would an arrangement like that work?
 
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she could counter with a *special circumstances* explanation for why it's ok for her to do something but not you. So, perhaps you would need to have a strategy that plans for that possibility. Maybe she could be allowed some amount of special treatment for special circumstances as long as she granted you the same thing in other areas of the relationship? Another thought is that making everything 50/50 fair isn't so ideal because each person is supposed to be generous in a relationship and give lots more than 50%. Was there some sort of balance between her being a hypocrite in some areas but being generous in others? Would an arrangement like that work?

i'm not sure, there's definetly many areas where i don't expect or want a mirror image within an SO, and i can give a pretty big leeway for subjective context - and its sort of unavoidable in an Ni/Ne relationship that you'll end up playing with the deeper meanings of the situation from different directions - the "in essance" game, "in essance they where the same", "in essance they where different" (this is one area where i learned that reflecting the Fe as an anchor to what it made you feel is the core, because with Ti you just get lost in semantics)... but even then i expect that understanding towards my subjective context in return. regardless if it is concretely or metaphorically, regardless if its an action in itself or a specific way of processing a given context, being judged negatively for doing the same things she does... i don't know if that's something i could ever respect, i can tolerate it as a lapse of judgement / normal human mistake everyone makes once in awhile, but i don't know if i can respect it as a stance. in some ways it implies to me - unfairness in general within a relationship implies to me - a lack of value towards the one the situation is unfair towards. it makes me feel disrespected.
 

BalanceFind

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Yeah, but failing to realized the actual reality isn't the same as the envisioned potential, can be shortsighted.

Exactly. In terms of dating it is important to understand that you are dating what is there, not potential, or a changed version of someone.

Entp/Enfp types are very good at helping other people challenge themselves to reach their potential, especially the overlooked, the underdog. They see potential in people that a lot of other types don't see. This is fine in business teaching, coaching and other activities but not dating. You have to respect what is actually there in dating. Entp/Enfp types get hunches about overlooked people. I am this so I know it well. As long as it is healthy and kept in balance, it's fine. You can't save everyone so to speak.
 
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i'm not sure, there's definetly many areas where i don't expect or want a mirror image within an SO, and i can give a pretty big leeway for subjective context - and its sort of unavoidable in an Ni/Ne relationship that you'll end up playing with the deeper meanings of the situation from different directions - the "in essance" game, "in essance they where the same", "in essance they where different" (this is one area where i learned that reflecting the Fe as an anchor to what it made you feel is the core, because with Ti you just get lost in semantics)... but even then i expect that understanding towards my subjective context in return. regardless if it is concretely or metaphorically, regardless if its an action in itself or a specific way of processing a given context, being judged negatively for doing the same things she does... i don't know if that's something i could ever respect, i can tolerate it as a lapse of judgement / normal human mistake everyone makes once in awhile, but i don't know if i can respect it as a stance. in some ways it implies to me - unfairness in general within a relationship implies to me - a lack of value towards the one the situation is unfair towards. it makes me feel disrespected.

Interesting. Thank you for explaining this. I can understand why it would be better to reflect Fe than get involved too much with Ti-Ti interactions as it's not fun when the discussion devolves into discussing semantics. I hope I didn't come across as advocating hypocrisy as a stance. My concern is more in the realm of it being something INFJs might have a general tendancy toward and thus something they would have to be made aware of and work to overcome. (That's the case with me). Also, the issue of hypocrisy has been brought up by other ENTPs in relationships with INFJs that didn't work out. However, there are also ENTP-INFJ relationships in which both are quite happy. It would be interesting to explore the subject of hypocrisy with a successful pairing of these types to see if it's a problem for them (or not) and if so, how they manage it. Overall, concerning you and your INFJ, it seems that you both feel disrespected right now with yours stemming from unfairness in the relationship and hers from your having discussed relationship issues with people you both know. I'm sure that was an easy mistake for you to have made- you were in a state of distress and needed to talk about it with others. I made this mistake myself when going through a divorce. It's one of the particularly awful aspects of relationship break-ups that the very people you instinctively go to for support (family and friends) can't really give objective help because they know both people involved and are thus emotionally affected by the situation themselves.
 

BalanceFind

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I can only speak for myself and my experience.

Perhaps my infj had some reasonable hurt feelings issues or concerns. that's debatable and in the grand scheme of life very minor compared to her response to feelings and or stress.

My infj probably is just upset as I am right now. About what? I couldn't tell you. She vanished.

Those issues would likely be about getting enough attention and support. I believe she received plenty of both in all senses of the words daily. Even if she felt differently, settling big issues in fair, honorable ways is still the way to go.

Because I cared, loved and was committed, I went through the range of emotions for some time before concluding not only did I not deserve her actions, but that while not perfect, I treated her extremely well.

There was this balancing act for my infj of being selfless and being self indulgent.

Most of the time it was fine, a non-issue.

I have always been pretty open to dating very different types and have. Being healthy in your type is important. If anything I have dated introverted feelers the most.
 
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Interesting. Thank you for explaining this. I can understand why it would be better to reflect Fe than get involved too much with Ti-Ti interactions as it's not fun when the discussion devolves into discussing semantics.

Ti has its value - it gears us both to take things into the shared playing field, it reminds us of our limits and that we can't actually know what the other person is knowing, its sort of like a good oversight tool for Fe... but without using Fe as an anchor, its incredibly easy - at least for me - to get distracted by Ti.

often things that i brought up ended up in agreement on things that weren't actually what i remembered bringing up or even related to what i meant, only for me to later realize the issue still stands and nothing actually got resolved :blush:

on the other hand, a pure Fe approach of "this means you don't [insert feeling]", can be just as destructive, because we forget that people express things differently, take different amounts of effort into doing different things, and deal with things differently, we forget the limits of our Fe in that we can't actually know what the other person is going through or feeling.

and sometimes it's often best to use Ti to first define find the best way to define what is it that your trying to express or looking for, and then if they actually relate to that in how they feel about you and you see that they do, just find a way to trust that they do, regardless of how you interpret specific expressions that might say otherwise. it's also entirely possible that you'd be introducing a new notion to them that they will only relate to once you've expressed it.

this is one thing that i should have done. for example we often got lost in trying to talk about loyalty and lost in semantics to a point where after i thought she agreed to never repeat something that she did to the one before me - she ended up nearly doing the exact same thing to me, and ended up demonstrating that she didn't even understand that this was exactly what she repented... and of course she didn't, because we did it all wrong and the agreement was never on what I actually meant.
but on the other hand, if I would have just taken a moment to figure the best way to express to her out how I experience loyalty - that for me once I'm in love with someone and feel committed to them I'm not mentally open or emotionally available to form those sort of connections with someone else, that even though i gain a lot more attention from other women when I am in a relationship, I can't really consider any flirting or moves towards me seriously beyond "nana nanana you want me and you can't get me"... basically, that there's nothing for me to "not go through with", no urges to fight, no 'missed opportunities' to resent... well, if i just expressed that when i was with her, she would have just being able to tell me, "no i don't feel this way", in which case we might have tried to figure out why or how we deal with that...
or maybe she would have even embraced as an attitude that she never thought of it and it would have actually changed the way she felt - i know that sort of thing happens to me all the time. for example my original notion of relationships was very give and take, almost a barter system, and when she introduced me to the idea of thinking about the family as a singular tribal entity - with our combined needs intertwined and where the happiness of each is dependent on the happiness of everyone else within it - i loved that idea and i made it into part of me, it was a new way of thinking of it that changed how i felt about it.

so I guess it's really all about how Ti and Fe interact together.

I hope I didn't come across as advocating hypocrisy as a stance. My concern is more in the realm of it being something INFJs might have a general tendancy toward and thus something they would have to be made aware of and work to overcome. (That's the case with me).

no you didn't - you actually came off rocking the thread just for having said that...

btw - in what way did your INFJ call you out on it? i mean, how did he express it?

Also, the issue of hypocrisy has been brought up by other ENTPs in relationships with INFJs that didn't work out. However, there are also ENTP-INFJ relationships in which both are quite happy. It would be interesting to explore the subject of hypocrisy with a successful pairing of these types to see if it's a problem for them (or not) and if so, how they manage it.

I'm curious too..

especially since i remember reading somewhere that both ENTPs and INFJs individually (not only within marriages to each other), are known for extremely high divorce rates... apparently if your an ENTP and reach 50 without being in your third or fourth marriage, your either really special or mistyped...

Overall, concerning you and your INFJ, it seems that you both feel disrespected right now with yours stemming from unfairness in the relationship and hers from your having discussed relationship issues with people you both know. I'm sure that was an easy mistake for you to have made- you were in a state of distress and needed to talk about it with others. I made this mistake myself when going through a divorce. It's one of the particularly awful aspects of relationship break-ups that the very people you instinctively go to for support (family and friends) can't really give objective help because they know both people involved and are thus emotionally affected by the situation themselves.

honestly the way i see it is that I've done my mistake, acknowledged it, took responsibility for it, tried fixing it, explained to her the state i was under it, and she knows how rare it is for me to actually make such a mistake... and sadly i don't even expect her to do the same, it would absolutely shock me if she did, hell i still loved her even when i didn't think she could, she had many redeeming traits...

but what i did expect her is to be able to understand where i was coming from, to actually acknowledge my perspective without devaluing it to her own liking and comfort level, remember who i am and who i was all this time, get over her hurt and respect the value of my relationship with my son for both me and him.

but so far she has disappointed. I'm not closing the door on her, i am even curving the path so its easier for her to prove herself again to me, and she's not under any set deadline, but the reality is that at some point I'll be in other relationship, and if it becomes serious and i fall for another, i will be as emotionally unavailable to my ex-wife as i was to other women with her. on the other hand if it turns out she really mentally can't do this - that she never had those qualities without me bringing them out or without trying to impress me or whatever it was.. then i am sorry but she isn't the woman I wanted as the mother of my children beyond the one she came with - without those she's not who i see myself ending up with. in Yiddish its called being a 'mench'... basic humane curtsies in how you treat other people, and i would rather not have my children raised with justifications to not being that. but of course in that case it wouldn't matter because without those traits its unlikely she'd open the door for me in this respect in the first place.

regardless, I'll still do anything i can for him, and any woman i'll be with will have to be able to respect that.
 

BalanceFind

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not that it worked on my ex, but since not all INFJs are the same... why not just ask her?

I've tried that, 1 million times, since she door slammed me in September. She doesn't return emails, phone calls, 3rd party requests, or threats from lawyers 6 months later.

I was off the charts shocked, never in a million years saw it coming. I had to contact a 3rd party in Sept just to check on her because she and I spoke daily for years. She was alive and well and declared she never wanted to speak with me again. We spoke daily for 3 years, had loving relationship, and I knew her off and on for 9 years.

In my situation, I have been trying for 6-7 months just to get her to meet with me and talk with me. I can guarantee you that anything she is upset about with me is minor compared to her reaction to it.

I've guessed over 6 months as to why she is upset and why she has done terrible things to me.

Me? I'm just looking for 5 minutes and for her to sign some papers. She destroyed the past half year of my life and counting. Because I'd like to think I'm a good person, strangely enough I'd still help her non-financially in the future. That's how much I cared.
 
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this is one thing that i should have done. for example we often got lost in trying to talk about loyalty and lost in semantics to a point where after i thought she agreed to never repeat something that she did to the one before me - she ended up nearly doing the exact same thing to me, and ended up demonstrating that she didn't even understand that this was exactly what she repented... and of course she didn't, because we did it all wrong and the agreement was never on what I actually meant.
but on the other hand, if I would have just taken a moment to figure the best way to express to her out how I experience loyalty - that for me once I'm in love with someone and feel committed to them I'm not mentally open or emotionally available to form those sort of connections with someone else, that even though i gain a lot more attention from other women when I am in a relationship, I can't really consider any flirting or moves towards me seriously beyond "nana nanana you want me and you can't get me"... basically, that there's nothing for me to "not go through with", no urges to fight, no 'missed opportunities' to resent... well, if i just expressed that when i was with her, she would have just being able to tell me, "no i don't feel this way", in which case we might have tried to figure out why or how we deal with that...
or maybe she would have even embraced as an attitude that she never thought of it and it would have actually changed the way she felt - i know that sort of thing happens to me all the time. for example my original notion of relationships was very give and take, almost a barter system, and when she introduced me to the idea of thinking about the family as a singular tribal entity - with our combined needs intertwined and where the happiness of each is dependent on the happiness of everyone else within it - i loved that idea and i made it into part of me, it was a new way of thinking of it that changed how i felt about it.

so I guess it's really all about how Ti and Fe interact together.

Your description of how you experience loyalty is really beautiful. I would imagine a SO would love to hear what you wrote. I've heard of other INFJs expressing great ideas of how a relationship should be. In the case I'm thinking of, the theory this particular INFJ outlined to her partner was truly wonderful but unfortunately she was unable to apply it to the relationship she was in. Did your INFJ try to live out her idea of family as a singular tribal entity?

no you didn't - you actually came off rocking the thread just for having said that...

btw - in what way did your INFJ call you out on it? i mean, how did he express it?

Well, I thought it might be healing for you if I could admit what the INFJ you were in a relationship with couldn't or wouldn't.

He expressed it in various ways. Once when I was trying to get out of admitting something to him he told me gently, "Stop being coy, IM". He wasn't angry or critical but just letting me know he knew what I was doing. Another time he told me that I "make excuses to justify insecurities", and he was right. It's hard to argue with the truth. :blush:

I'm curious too..

especially since i remember reading somewhere that both ENTPs and INFJs individually (not only within marriages to each other), are known for extremely high divorce rates... apparently if your an ENTP and reach 50 without being in your third or fourth marriage, your either really special or mistyped...

Is it really extremely high? I know this has been mentioned happening for ENTPs from them getting bored. A 3rd or 4th marriage before 50 sounds a little extreme, though. (As a norm, anyway). I do remember reading INFJs can be a little more unsatisfied in marriages than some other types but it would be surprising if they typically had 3-4 marriages before 50.

honestly the way i see it is that I've done my mistake, acknowledged it, took responsibility for it, tried fixing it, explained to her the state i was under it, and she knows how rare it is for me to actually make such a mistake... and sadly i don't even expect her to do the same, it would absolutely shock me if she did, hell i still loved her even when i didn't think she could, she had many redeeming traits...

That's nice to hear. :)

but what i did expect her is to be able to understand where i was coming from, to actually acknowledge my perspective without devaluing it to her own liking and comfort level, remember who i am and who i was all this time, get over her hurt and respect the value of my relationship with my son for both me and him.

Maybe that required a combination of maturity and experience with relationships that she didn't yet possess.

but so far she has disappointed. I'm not closing the door on her, i am even curving the path so its easier for her to prove herself again to me, and she's not under any set deadline, but the reality is that at some point I'll be in other relationship, and if it becomes serious and i fall for another, i will be as emotionally unavailable to my ex-wife as i was to other women with her. on the other hand if it turns out she really mentally can't do this - that she never had those qualities without me bringing them out or without trying to impress me or whatever it was.. then i am sorry but she isn't the woman I wanted as the mother of my children beyond the one she came with - without those she's not who i see myself ending up with. in Yiddish its called being a 'mench'... basic humane curtsies in how you treat other people, and i would rather not have my children raised with justifications to not being that. but of course in that case it wouldn't matter because without those traits its unlikely she'd open the door for me in this respect in the first place.

regardless, I'll still do anything i can for him, and any woman i'll be with will have to be able to respect that.

She has to prove herself to you? Surely it shouldn't be only up to her?

If you communicate that up front I would imagine anyone who cares for you would respect it. :)
 
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Sorry for the delay, I'm reaching the point where i am getting occasional doses of good quality not-thinking-about-her time (in total almost half a day) and i indulged in it.... but since now she's back on my mind anyway...

Your description of how you experience loyalty is really beautiful. I would imagine a SO would love to hear what you wrote. I've heard of other INFJs expressing great ideas of how a relationship should be. In the case I'm thinking of, the theory this particular INFJ outlined to her partner was truly wonderful but unfortunately she was unable to apply it to the relationship she was in. Did your INFJ try to live out her idea of family as a singular tribal entity?

My gut reaction was to say no, because when i am trying to think of things she actively did, and I'm struggling. I am trying to remember my happy moments in the relationship, and most of them where actually with my stepson. a few of them where me and her doing things that made us both happy, and that actually covers almost everything... then i remember a lot of happy moments when i was doing things that i knew made her happy, and i remember that i became content in doing a lot of daily things that made her happy - but each after awhile started being taken for granted, and eventually the lack of appreciation was replaced by whining and complaining about how it isn't good enough, and the content feeling would stop for me... and after those, i am trying to remember things that she did to make me happy, she always spoke about a lot of things she wanted to do to make me happy - something for a member of the tribe which wasn't herself - and i can only remember one thing: on my last birthday before we ended, she did the cooking (which i normally do). And the worst part was that she expressed resentment me for any time i took to do anything to make myself happy or anything that would require her patience with the things i normally did to make her happy... and that drove me insane.

but in truth she did - passively - she made sacrifices for me and for us as a family, some of them small, some of them huge, one of them was so unbelievable that i still have a hard time accepting it - we made a terrible economical decision in our last 7 months or so, we were going through a really bad time on all levels, and she went on an "economical diet", she was fucking starving herself for me, albeit slowly, and i didn't realize that she was.
and in retrospect i was actually a jerk about it - i remember asking her why she isn't eating the dinners i was leaving her in the fridge for after her nightshifts before they go bad, she said something about controlling the way she eats, she told me to eat them myself and stop making them, so i did.... and i didn't understand where we were, what was the state of our bills, why she's doing this and what she really meant... i actually thought she was dieting, and i was a complete jackass about that too - i tried telling her she was getting way to thin and that it wasn't healthy - but the real reason, and she probably knew it, was that i was losing physical attraction towards her. if i would have realized what she was doing i would have stopped her... there were so many other areas we could have made reasonable cuts in, so many other areas we could have saved money, not the least of which was going back on the big economical mistake we made to began with. i didn't actually go that this is what she was doing until she told me after the relationship was over. she probably felt very unappreciated for that, to say the least.

and here's the kicker - we both felt like doormats, we both ended up resenting each other.

we even both failed each other's testing:
this is going to sound crude, and it is, but there was a point towards the end where i really pressed her to get a BJ that started and ended as a BJ, all i wanted was just one time, where it wouldn't be foreplay, wouldn't be finishing something that started otherwise, wouldn't be 69.. just a BJ. she didn't understand why - she knew it took me longer and i seem to enjoy it less then sex, and i really do enjoy it a lot less then sex, but at that point it felt like she always had her reasons not to do anything that i asked for or told her would make me happy, and i just wanted her to do one thing for me that was entirely for me, one thing to please me that she was doing.
there was a point where she pressed on me quitting smoking, and i was struggling with it, 5 clean days here, 3 clean days there, again and again, but it was a constant war for me, and i felt she wasn't supporting me with it or showing any understanding towards it - which given that she never held any addictions i suppose she really didn't.... and she felt i wasn't making enough sacrifices.
in the same times i didn't feel the sacrifices that i was making where appreciated... i was constantly trying to get us to actually get time together with her nightshifts, and i haven't being that sleep deprived since i served in the second israel-lebanon war (which was much shorter), i was constantly missing my family and friends, she knew i was extraverted by nature and new i needed it and a context to meet people in the city, but i felt she wasn't willing to help me out or at least be patient with any household related stuff so that i might have time to devote towards building myself a social context, and after having anything i asked for declined so many times i didn't even feel comfortable asking for that for so long and by the time i did she has already decided to breakup and took that opportunity to tell me...

so that was our last 5 months: she was constantly hungry, i was constantly tired, i felt she wasn't willing to do anything, she felt i wasn't willing to sacrifice anything...and we each felt very lonely. there was no tribe by the end.

Well, I thought it might be healing for you if I could admit what the INFJ you were in a relationship with couldn't or wouldn't.
it did, thank you :)

honestly the way i see it is that I've done my mistake, acknowledged it, took responsibility for it, tried fixing it, explained to her the state i was under it, and she knows how rare it is for me to actually make such a mistake... and sadly i don't even expect her to do the same, it would absolutely shock me if she did, hell i still loved her even when i didn't think she could, she had many redeeming traits...
That's nice to hear. :)

i'm not sure if i still feel the same way - if i am still ok with the fact it would shock me to hear her acknowledge making a mistake or apologizing... the whole mentality of believing she makes no mistakes...

it started feeling like a one way road where i would have to fix her problems because if i didn't it showed i didn't care for her enough but where if i would bring up problems she would cry about how i am making her feel that what she's doing isn't good enough and then i'm devaluing her and making her feel like crap... and the only solution i ever remember her offering to any problem was her reevaluating the relationship and questioning whether it's fair to me or to her to continue, and this was fine very very early on when this didn't mean so much to me and i was able to trust her to be able to see my perspective - everything is solvable eventually, even if the solution isn't immediate, and the worth of the family is more than just this anyway and she'd usually change her mind - but later on, as debates got lost in semantics and my relationship with my stepson started taking over me and i emotionally stopped including the word "step" in how i felt about him - all i could hear in her voice was a speeding car heading to my family and i looked for the shortest way out, which was usually "yes dear"...

so for me, eventually i felt alone, i felt i had nobody to brainstorm with, nobody willing to work with me... and honestly i felt demeaned into a destructive cycle in which she was losing her attraction to me because a big part of it was my dominance and the less i trusted her the more i felt like i was losing any power within the relationship...

i'm somewhat conflicted about that - because in retrospect all i had to do was to trust her, to trust her capacity to evaluate the relationship reasonable and to trust her to respect my relationship with my son even if we don't end up being together - just like she'd legally have to if my name was on the birth certificate - and in the same time the fact is that in the end of the day, here i am, far far away. i would have being trusting her to not do the very thing she ended up doing.

the same thing can be said about how i mistrusted her regarding loyalty - if i wouldn't have questioned what she did to the one before me (with.. me), i might have never made her "feel like crap" about herself and thus never "pushed her" to seek reaffirmation from someone else and then resent me for being the reason she didn't follow through with it..

its sort of a chicken and an egg thing... and i am wondering if i did it wrong. in trying to understand who she is, face her with what i'm seen and tell her what i have problems with, did i create the problems, or was it simply me understanding the problems that where there anyway?

maybe i was approaching it from the wrong way.. Maybe the solution isn't facing the potential problems i see, its actually pretending that it isn't there, giving her a better image of herself to see within me and thus making her want to be that image?

on the other hand this whole thing is ingrained on what was in retrospect our worst problem - i took responsibility for everything because things i am responsible for feel to me like things i am in control of and can fix and avoid, and she shed responsibility from anything and blamed me for providing the reasons for her own actions without a sense of proportions because it would make her feel bad about herself.

and i was losing my respect to her - to me she presented herself as a vending machine with input[reasons]->output[actions], where increasingly more and more of those actions where hurtful and extremely inconsiderate, and even though she claims that she does take responsibility for things in general (not quite the flaw-acknowledger), i didn't see her taking responsibility for that critical part in the middle, as if she had never had any other choice or any other way to react... and it was because of me. And for years i fought it, but eventually i accepted that. Everything she did was because of me and everything i did was regardless of my reasons because any reasons she provided she did because of me too. i know definitions of maturity change, but to me this isn't how an adult thinks...

now i look at those times not so long ago where i was desperate to save our marriage and... i look like a little kid going crazy blindly trying all the button combinations on the vending machine to get something good because he remembered at some point getting something good from it, and it was no longer available. by not taking responsibility for anything and demanding that i will, she was objectifying herself to me... and that wasn't healthy.

and even now i see it floating - last we talked she said how difficult she finds it to let anyone else now into her life, and... of course she does, in the world where everything is someone else's fault, the only mistake to regret is letting them in, and then you grow afraid of letting people in.

and it's this very mentality that allows her to demonize me so easily.. for what? from her perspective it was for humiliating her, but for me it was expressing my feelings after she cut off my relationship with the boy i've being raising... where's the sense of proportions? why is it ok that even after i admitted i was wrong for not considering her when i was acting out of my pain, she would never admit that she was wrong for not considering me or even him? why is that ok that i can't expect that from her?

Less and less blinded by love now, i don't know anymore that this was redeemable... i don't know that i should have ever accepted it in the first place. My boy is worth it, but was she ever worth it?

She has to prove herself to you? Surely it shouldn't be only up to her?

If you communicate that up front I would imagine anyone who cares for you would respect it. :)

well, considering she doorslammed me blocked off all communication and told me she will delete and block anything i send further and will return anything i send... and so far it seems to be the truth, while in the same time telling me she'd hope I'll change in a few years... i am not quite sure how that would be. in order for me to prove anything i need her to prove that she's willing to be open to my perspective and listen, because otherwise nothing i do or say will matter to her by default.
 

Fidelia

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It seems to me that at the beginning of the relationship, she was looking for a white knight to rescue her, and you were eager to be that. If I'm not mistaken, I think you said earlier on that she was pregnant with your stepson when you guys got together, which means likely that she didn't take time to evaluate her former relationship, or consider the implication of getting into a new one. That means that she didn't have the resources needed to contribute what she needed to to make things work. At first I would suppose it appealed to you to have a challenge to solve for her, and it felt nice to be the "answer" for someone. However, after awhile that gets to be difficult to do over the long term, especially if a person does not feel secure enough to communicate openly about what is going on and accept getting their needs met, or meeting yours (which requires vulnerability).

An unfortunate side effect of having significant insecurities is that sometimes that person is looking to someone or something to transform their current unhappiness into a life that they like. When that doesn't happen with a change of circumstances or a change of person (because contentment comes from internal perspective, rather than external circumstances), they tend to become very disillusioned and pin their hopes to something or someone else. You can put everything possible into a person, but if they don't fill the void within themselves by themselves, all the love and sacrifice in the world that everyone else around them puts in cannot be absorbed or even experienced by them. It's a bottomless pit.

The unfortunate thing is that despite the fact that deep insecurities are toxic to the health of a longterm relationship, because they make vulnerability and therefore true intimacy impossible, it doesn't mean that an insecure person doesn't have extremely attractive qualities or character traits. However, insecurity by nature will cause the person to give off mixed signals and be rejecting or false, even as they long to be close. This is what keeps reeling most people in to keep trying. In addition to the commitment that was made, there's also a belief that that good side of the person is just around the corner, even if there are more bad times than good right now. There is sincerity and genuine love, but insecurities will cause a person to act in ways which either force away or drive those away who love them best. Many people hang in for a long time even because they want to prove to their own selves that the other person really did love them and that they weren't crazy for investing so much into making the relationship work. There's also an element of worry for the other person because of being in the position of caring for them for so long.

Of course everyone has insecurities, and I think even when a person has very serious ones, it is not their own fault. They have been given reason not to trust easily or let people in too close. However, until they recognize the source of their insecurities, grieve over it and develop new patterns, they will keep repeating the same relationship mistakes over and over again.

I'm very sorry for your experience. I guess it will take some time of thinking about it, talking to other people, reading stuff on here and so on, and your feelings will go through a number of evolutions before you make your final conclusions about the whole thing.

One thing I think that is INFJ specific is what cascadeco said. Even though I would consider myself basically confident, I had a very overwhelming situation when I first met the ESTJ that I dated for five years. At the beginning, I think I liked some of the extroverted personality traits he had which I didn't. I also had a very overwhelming work situation in a very isolated community that first year, while he also had a very difficult emotional situation, losing his mother to cancer soon after having lost his father and also having a difficult teaching position. We started spending a lot of time together and he offered help for my music program in places where no one else was willing to.

While I appreciated his initiative and seeming confidence at first, over time I had adjusted to my situation and also developed a bigger team of people to help share the responsibilities that required volunteers. Sometimes he was a bit blustery with people that I would have preferred to deal with personally (bus drivers, kids etc), he talked more freely about me (and inaccurately) than I cared for and I decided that I would push back a bit more when something bothered me or because I simply had more head space and time at that point to take on more and it was my program. While he had sometimes seemed grouchy about doing some things after a year or two had passed, he was very upset when I found others who were willing to take the pressure off a bit because he wanted to be dominant and in charge, and he also wanted to be needed (sometimes to the point of keeping me hanging). By that time, I had realized that some of his confidence was a cover for insecurities that made it difficult for him to accept help reciprocally, accept thanks or to communicate openly about what was going on.

I don't say that to make him look bad, but rather to illustrate the point that it sometimes may look like an INFJ is looking for someone to be dominant, but they can also grow to resent someone who doesn't understand that just because they seem that way, it doesn't mean that they don't have a mind of their own either. That can seem a little...like the rug was just pulled out from the other person when they get comfortable enough for that side to come out. They are kind of cautious folks and generally I think just don't wade into conflict until they have a fair idea of what to expect when they do. I can see how that would seem like the rules have all suddenly been unfairly changed. However, to the INFJ's way of thinking, they have been accommodating and accommodating without it being recognized at all by the other person. Of course, this could be helped by them by doing less accommodating initially, but sometimes it's really difficult to recognize what is happening until the dynamic becomes more firmly entrenched.

Don't know if any of this is relevent to your case, but just thought I'd throw it out there just in case there was anything useful there as you ponder all of this.
 
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Sorry for the delay, I'm reaching the point where i am getting occasional doses of good quality not-thinking-about-her time (in total almost half a day) and i indulged in it.... but since now she's back on my mind anyway...

That's a nice place to be getting to. :) Please feel free to not write any reponse to this post if you would rather not think about these issues. :)

My gut reaction was to say no, because when i am trying to think of things she actively did, and I'm struggling. I am trying to remember my happy moments in the relationship, and most of them where actually with my stepson. a few of them where me and her doing things that made us both happy, and that actually covers almost everything... then i remember a lot of happy moments when i was doing things that i knew made her happy, and i remember that i became content in doing a lot of daily things that made her happy - but each after awhile started being taken for granted, and eventually the lack of appreciation was replaced by whining and complaining about how it isn't good enough, and the content feeling would stop for me... and after those, i am trying to remember things that she did to make me happy, she always spoke about a lot of things she wanted to do to make me happy - something for a member of the tribe which wasn't herself - and i can only remember one thing: on my last birthday before we ended, she did the cooking (which i normally do). And the worst part was that she expressed resentment me for any time i took to do anything to make myself happy or anything that would require her patience with the things i normally did to make her happy... and that drove me insane.

It sounds like you did most of the giving in the relationship.

but in truth she did - passively - she made sacrifices for me and for us as a family, some of them small, some of them huge, one of them was so unbelievable that i still have a hard time accepting it - we made a terrible economical decision in our last 7 months or so, we were going through a really bad time on all levels, and she went on an "economical diet", she was fucking starving herself for me, albeit slowly, and i didn't realize that she was.
and in retrospect i was actually a jerk about it - i remember asking her why she isn't eating the dinners i was leaving her in the fridge for after her nightshifts before they go bad, she said something about controlling the way she eats, she told me to eat them myself and stop making them, so i did.... and i didn't understand where we were, what was the state of our bills, why she's doing this and what she really meant... i actually thought she was dieting, and i was a complete jackass about that too - i tried telling her she was getting way to thin and that it wasn't healthy - but the real reason, and she probably knew it, was that i was losing physical attraction towards her. if i would have realized what she was doing i would have stopped her... there were so many other areas we could have made reasonable cuts in, so many other areas we could have saved money, not the least of which was going back on the big economical mistake we made to began with. i didn't actually go that this is what she was doing until she told me after the relationship was over. she probably felt very unappreciated for that, to say the least.

The not eating to save money but being quiet about it sounds like something I might do. I guess it's not good to suffer for the other person and not tell them about it. :/

and here's the kicker - we both felt like doormats, we both ended up resenting each other.

we even both failed each other's testing:
this is going to sound crude, and it is, but there was a point towards the end where i really pressed her to get a BJ that started and ended as a BJ, all i wanted was just one time, where it wouldn't be foreplay, wouldn't be finishing something that started otherwise, wouldn't be 69.. just a BJ. she didn't understand why - she knew it took me longer and i seem to enjoy it less then sex, and i really do enjoy it a lot less then sex, but at that point it felt like she always had her reasons not to do anything that i asked for or told her would make me happy, and i just wanted her to do one thing for me that was entirely for me, one thing to please me that she was doing.
there was a point where she pressed on me quitting smoking, and i was struggling with it, 5 clean days here, 3 clean days there, again and again, but it was a constant war for me, and i felt she wasn't supporting me with it or showing any understanding towards it - which given that she never held any addictions i suppose she really didn't.... and she felt i wasn't making enough sacrifices.
in the same times i didn't feel the sacrifices that i was making where appreciated... i was constantly trying to get us to actually get time together with her nightshifts, and i haven't being that sleep deprived since i served in the second israel-lebanon war (which was much shorter), i was constantly missing my family and friends, she knew i was extraverted by nature and new i needed it and a context to meet people in the city, but i felt she wasn't willing to help me out or at least be patient with any household related stuff so that i might have time to devote towards building myself a social context, and after having anything i asked for declined so many times i didn't even feel comfortable asking for that for so long and by the time i did she has already decided to breakup and took that opportunity to tell me...

so that was our last 5 months: she was constantly hungry, i was constantly tired, i felt she wasn't willing to do anything, she felt i wasn't willing to sacrifice anything...and we each felt very lonely. there was no tribe by the end.

I wonder how much being hungry influenced her actions in the last 5 months? It's hard to give a BJ or do much of anything else if you're weak from hunger. :/

it did, thank you :)

Yaay I'm glad. :)

maybe i was approaching it from the wrong way.. Maybe the solution isn't facing the potential problems i see, its actually pretending that it isn't there, giving her a better image of herself to see within me and thus making her want to be that image?

Personally, I think the approach of giving someone a better image of themselves is a better approach than making someone "feel like crap" over their past behaviors. Doing the latter could lower their self-esteem.

and it's this very mentality that allows her to demonize me so easily.. for what? from her perspective it was for humiliating her, but for me it was expressing my feelings after she cut off my relationship with the boy i've being raising... where's the sense of proportions? why is it ok that even after i admitted i was wrong for not considering her when i was acting out of my pain, she would never admit that she was wrong for not considering me or even him? why is that ok that i can't expect that from her?

Less and less blinded by love now, i don't know anymore that this was redeemable... i don't know that i should have ever accepted it in the first place. My boy is worth it, but was she ever worth it?

She's probably in a lot of emotional pain. She must have felt that blocking all contact with you was necessary for her emotional survival. If she let you be in touch with your step-son, she would have to be in contact with you as well, which would presumably be very emotionally painful for her. Doing the right thing (letting you have contact with your step-son) will involve her suffering. Not everyone is willing to suffer to do the right thing.

If you learn and grow from the experience, who knows....maybe in retrospect you will conclude that it was a necessary step to get you to the place you're supposed to be in the future.

well, considering she doorslammed me blocked off all communication and told me she will delete and block anything i send further and will return anything i send... and so far it seems to be the truth, while in the same time telling me she'd hope I'll change in a few years... i am not quite sure how that would be. in order for me to prove anything i need her to prove that she's willing to be open to my perspective and listen, because otherwise nothing i do or say will matter to her by default.

That's a curious statement. When INFJs doorslam, they sometimes leave open a backdoor and hope you'll come find them. You could try that in a few years but it sounds like you don't want to get back with her and/or will be in another relationship by then.
 

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Personally, I think the approach of giving someone a better image of themselves is a better approach than making someone "feel like crap" over their past behaviors. Doing the latter could lower their self-esteem.
i never wanted her to feel bad about herself, just about those actions so she won't do them again... which was problemaitc when someone always feel their actions where justified. and that just ended up backfiring into her doing those actions. as far as i was concerned i was just letting her know of my concerns. i suppose the other option would have being to trust in her blindly - to let her prove herself by not doing them, but wouldn't that just be putting my concerns and real issues under the rug? its also possible that i should have accepted that she won't come up with a solution for my concern about her behaviors, and instead i could have gone around it into the obvious targets - instead of questioning whether she can really commit to someone or whether she would respect father/son bonds, i could have asked her more questions to open up about her stepfathers leaving her and what she felt... went at it from that direction.

but this entire aproach - that "this stratagy was wrong" and "that stratagy might have being better"... where is she in that? where is she as a person? the one responsible for her own actions, responsible for her own introspection and dealing with her own issues so she can grow and overcome and deal with with her flaws rather then act on them and feel bad for it and then blame whoever they are hurting for being the reason she feels bad about it?

She's probably in a lot of emotional pain. She must have felt that blocking all contact with you was necessary for her emotional survival. If she let you be in touch with your step-son, she would have to be in contact with you as well, which would presumably be very emotionally painful for her. Doing the right thing (letting you have contact with your step-son) will involve her suffering. Not everyone is willing to suffer to do the right thing.

if it was just the right thing for me, meh, it would be easier for me to not judge her about it... that's how normal relationships go.

but what about him - does she think that if she doesn't see it then it isn't there? does she think that i'm not there in the back of his head, waiting to either be released when he - just like she has with me - gets to cry to his special someone one day about the missing stones in his self esteem jar? or come out in bursts of anger about feeling abandoned by me - someone he trusted to always be there for him? or - if she'd ever be willing before the later happens - explode in happiness if he ever gets to see me again? or worst - what if the way she has demonized me has taken to how she describes me, what if she is telling him that daddy is a bad man, and now he is going to confuse me as his role model with anything he knows is bad to do and will feed into a secret desire to be just that as a way to get close to me in his head?
and does she think that just because she won't face her own flaws, all the potentials of all the ways i completed her as a parent aren't there? does she think all the ideas she doesn't come up with and oppertunities i'm not there to catch and teach him to nurture his development and all the emotional and mental tools i am not there to provide for him aren't there, floating behind the barrier of our mistakes towards each other (and in the process - towards him)?

so i get it - at least in my worst version of her mindset - i would guess she blames everything on me and thus her only regrets are hitting on me and letting me in - but does she think she can undo the relationship by pretending it never happened? or perhaps it is ok because her choices are all my fault anyway so for her i am the one doing it to him, even though i have being fighting for him and trying to fix it while she was fighting me off?

decent people make mistakes - everyone hurts everyone they care for in the grand scheme of things - but eventually they understand those mistakes by being open to the other's point of view, they acknowledge them and fix them. its the other kind of people who stand by their mistakes. at any given moment, the later can become the first, and there's no deadline, but there are snowballs - and the more you wait the worst the impacts of the mistake become.

That's a curious statement. When INFJs doorslam, they sometimes leave open a backdoor and hope you'll come find them. You could try that in a few years but it sounds like you don't want to get back with her and/or will be in another relationship by then.

i just don't feel like i know who she is anymore - the elements of what she's being doing... its not within the character of the person i fall for. if its a lapse in judgement i can accept that, but so far - for whatever reason - she's being sticking by it.

i'm honestly very conflicted about how i feel about her at this point.
 
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