[INFJ] The reason INFJs find it hard to forgive

[SilkRoad]

I can totally relate. Honestly my ability to forgive is purely based on the sincerity of the other party's apology. In the few altercations I've experienced (all of them I confronted because the other person was a user and/or lied for self-centered reasons) I have yet to get an apology. And in those few cases, that's what ate me up for months after we stopped talking. The lack of growth and change needed for proper closure. That all this anger happened for naught.

My position has always been that it's silly to forgive a person who doesn't believe they need to be forgiven for anything. I have a few situations, like with my father after my folks got divorced, where my pity overrides my rage over that person not taking responsibility. I guess in the end the NF compassion can override everything.

I relate to the above, and I also think that sometimes pity is the best road to go down. You may know you're not really going to be friends with them again and that's for the best. But if you can feel pity for them, because you know that their hurtful patterns of behaviour will affect their lives again and again and may poison their relationships with others many times...it can help some of the anger and hurt to go away, it's just a healthier feeling.

 

[boondocked]

INFJs are all about Being.
If someone hurts me in a way that really offends my idealistic principles, I am very vexed to discover how that person really IS. It is difficult for me to make a distinction between a bad thing someone DID and what the person IS like. I feel that this wrong doing shows the offender's real nature, and I don't want to be around a liar, around a superficial friend, around a prideful person, etc. (Very type One, I know).
The people who offend me in this way and make me feel like giving the doorslam are usually those I respect the most and saw as role models. Now, I don't want to have a liar, vain, prideful, etc. role model, do I?

I go from ridiculously admirative to almost hateful. It's all about disappointment.

This is so utterly true of my experience with my INFJ roommate. We started out great, fit so well! And then she began to perceive me as a flirt who "doesn't take responsibility for the feelings you create in other people." She also took exception to the fact that I'm always searching searching searching, never standing still. She expressed it as trying to fill myself up with information and experience without making anything of it, without synthesizing it.

The funny thing is, I never did anything directly to her, by her own admission. She just discovered who I really was. It IS all about disappointment. I really miss her, though we live in the same house. I can't figure out how to make it right. She doesn't respect me anymore.

I just don't get it. I admire that her values are high-minded and uncompromised, but why can't she see that even though I've inadvertently hurt some people, I am trying to watch myself more carefully? Why doesn't that count for something? I am TRYING.

Urrrrr, sorry. This turned into a vent. All I really wanted to say was that the INFJ doorslam sucks and that the OP made some really insightful points.

 

[SilkRoad]

The funny thing is, I never did anything directly to her, by her own admission. She just discovered who I really was. It IS all about disappointment. I really miss her, though we live in the same house. I can't figure out how to make it right. She doesn't respect me anymore.

I may have misinterpreted your point, but I think KLessard (and most of the rest of us) were talking more about directly hurtful actions or attitudes and the disappointment those create, and the lingering disappointment. If she's backing off because of general attitudes and behaviours she sees in you, I would think it must be something that really offends her principles in a big way.

Or maybe she's had experiences in the past where she's been friends with people who have behaved in a similar way to you, and she's ended up really hurt, so she's distancing herself now to avoid getting into that situation again...? I could kind of understand that.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be unkind, and I may not know enough about the situation so may be misinterpreting what you've said. But I would think/hope that mature INFJs would be able to cope with people in their lives not being 100% perfect. (Maybe immature ones would do this.) I've only dropped people (very very rarely) when they've hurt me repeatedly, and their presence in my life is toxic, and they have shown that they are unlikely to change and are probably not very remorseful at all - not if they've only shown that they're not perfect.

 

[boondocked]

I may have misinterpreted your point, but I think KLessard (and most of the rest of us) were talking more about directly hurtful actions or attitudes and the disappointment those create, and the lingering disappointment.

Fair enough.

Didn't mean to veer off course. I re-read the OP and realized that I read a few things wrong. Sorry about that.

You're being unkind whatsoever, and maybe you are right. And maybe my trouble with my roommate is just one of those things that does not ladder back to type differences.

 

[Winds of Thor]

I have previously read posts where non-INFJs asked if INFJs could ever forgive, why they would keep score of bad things people had done to them, etc.

I have found an answer for myself (because I am struggling with this), and perhaps other INFJs will relate.

INFJs are all about Being.
If someone hurts me in a way that really offends my idealistic principles, I am very vexed to discover how that person really IS. It is difficult for me to make a distinction between a bad thing someone DID and what the person IS like. I feel that this wrong doing shows the offender's real nature, and I don't want to be around a liar, around a superficial friend, around a prideful person, etc. (Very type One, I know).
The people who offend me in this way and make me feel like giving the doorslam are usually those I respect the most and saw as role models. Now, I don't want to have a liar, vain, prideful, etc. role model, do I?

I go from ridiculously admirative to almost hateful. It's all about disappointment.

I am learning to embrace people as they are and accepting the fact that no human being is perfect. I am learning to separate actions from being. Although it is a greater challenge when hurtful actions are repeated and appear as a constant.

For example, one of my childhood best friends was a SFP. Another friend is ISFJ (she was closer to this SFP than me). We both grew really tired of having this friend letting us down, being ungrateful, not showing up when she said she would, using us, etc. We both ended up taking a distance and we barely ever see this girl now. We also feel like she's moved on on us (she moves on people easily). So. What is forgiveness here? This is a mystery to me, because it seems obvious that I cannot embrace this friend's nature. I don't agree with it. I seem to see forgiveness as total love and reconciliation taking place. I guess forgiveness sometimes means peace of mind and no bitterness, but a possible distant relationship.
Well, in my book, distant relationship=conflict.

Any tips? Any thoughts?

I think you're on a good track with thinking it through and especially asking others. That way you can sort through these things.

So what made the difference between once just 'being' and now thinking this through?

You're obviously a strong person and I think you'll get to the point where you can sort through these things pretty quickly.

At the same time, feeling the conflict with your values has gotta be a drag ?

 

[Winds of Thor]

I guess this is also what really happens to me. I'm always ready to reconcile and do what I can about it. Only when the other person isn't making an effort do I feel helpless and bitter. It's probably not about forgiveness but distance or indifference.

If they are themselves damaged, it may take some time to regain their strength to see the issues after the dust has settled. Then, and only then might they be able to communicate clearly about what happened, and make amends. This would be wise to assume.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I tend to analyze the hurtful act/person to a point that I can make some reasoned sense of it. Once it makes sense I don't think it is actually anger that I feel, but a jaded, bittersweet sense of the inevitability of mis-perception and hurt. Most hurtful acts result from distorted perceptions based on fear either imagined, or experienced in the past and continually recast with new sets of characters.

I take a lot of time to try to comprehend the inner conception that could have produced the hurtful act. This will always be an approximation of the actual conception of that person, and I run the danger of over-imagining it. I usually end up with multiple conclusions about it and work to keep as many understated as overstated.

Once a hurtful act has happened I believe it always has the capacity to happen again unless there is some compelling reason it won't. I go ahead and take plenty of risks to maintain a relationship with the people, but ultimately I think it is rare anyone ever comprehends someone else. I think we are existentially completely alone in almost all cases of interaction. Hurtful acts remind me of this and leave me feeling adrift, mostly disconnected, with a continual background ache.

 

[Winds of Thor]

This is so utterly true of my experience with my INFJ roommate. We started out great, fit so well! And then she began to perceive me as a flirt who "doesn't take responsibility for the feelings you create in other people." She also took exception to the fact that I'm always searching searching searching, never standing still. She expressed it as trying to fill myself up with information and experience without making anything of it, without synthesizing it.

The funny thing is, I never did anything directly to her, by her own admission. She just discovered who I really was. It IS all about disappointment. I really miss her, though we live in the same house. I can't figure out how to make it right. She doesn't respect me anymore.

I just don't get it. I admire that her values are high-minded and uncompromised, but why can't she see that even though I've inadvertently hurt some people, I am trying to watch myself more carefully? Why doesn't that count for something? I am TRYING.

Urrrrr, sorry. This turned into a vent. All I really wanted to say was that the INFJ doorslam sucks and that the OP made some really insightful points.

Your roommate will no doubt sharpen her mind and with more knowledge over time. And you are learning how to perceive through another pair of shoes. It's not just you. There's a vacuum to some that, before you know something, you don't know it.

Meno's Paradox (quoted from Wikipedia):
"And how will you inquire into a thing when you are wholly ignorant of what it is? Even if you happen to bump right into it, how will you know it is the thing you didn't know?" (80d1-4). Socrates rephrases the paradox in this way, which has come to be the canonical statement of the paradox, "[A] man cannot search either for what he knows or for what he does not know[.] He cannot search for what he knows--since he knows it, there is no need to search--nor for what he does not know, for he does not know what to look for."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meno

I'm sorry. I know it hurts that your relationship isn't what it was but could be

 

[Kyrielle]

Things that cause me to have difficulty forgiving people:

-The opposing party never taking responsibility, apologizing, or never even recognizing that we had a confrontation and I was hurt in some way.
-Not being able to understand the reasons behind their actions if the above has occurred.

With most things, if someone apologizes to me in a sincere manner and we've both apologized for being stupid idiots, I feel so relieved because now the conflict that I've been dwelling on constantly is resolved and we can move forward. When a conflict remains unresolved like that, I end up dissecting the entire interaction over and over again until I can understand WHY that person behaved the way they did. It's a pretty unhealthy state of mind, because I end up feeling very stressed and depressed about the whole thing. However, once I understand that person's perspective, I do feel a little better and am able to move on with my life. From then on, I'll watch that person carefully and if looks like the incident was a fluke because they were having a bad day, I'll forgive them for it and forget about it. It's when there are repeated instances of similar poor behavior that I stop forgiving someone and just avoid interaction with them entirely.

 

[goldrule2]

yay!!!

 

[the state i am in]

i agree with the op somewhat. i think not recognizing the sense that everyone is on their own path, which to me a few years ago sounded trite and pointless, was a lot more insightful than i realized. it's the only way you can recognize what being alive is like, and see what moving forward actually entails, and siding with the willingness to do the work to get better, rather than just giving up because you can't find a way to accept where someone (else or especially you!) is really at. when it's just so decontextualized, it undermines the fundamental conditions of experience that allow us to empathize with each other, that we all experience pain, that we all inherit shit, that in crucial ways we all have to give our best guess and see what happens, that we all have to take responsibility to deal with our mistakes even if they are not necessarily our "fault," because they're certainly not anyone else's responsibility either, and we are the ones who can best improve them or not. most of all, it undermines our ability to empathize with ourselves. bc you can't practice empathy only for yourself. it's not something you can hoard. it's something you have to constantly build the deep lung capacity for, to breathe in and out of every interaction.

when it comes to forgiveness, i think understanding is helpful, but it's only part of the process. the other is finding a way to give empathy to yourself. this is the only way that you can generate enough compassion and support for yourself to give empathy to the other in a way that is still authentic to you. the second is to grieve what you need to grieve, to choose to use the anger as a window into your own vulnerability rather than using the tensile volatility to project everything back outward, onto an object of blame. grieving is simply opening yourself to receive your own truth. when you allow yourself to own this, you allow yourself to connect your heart to give what it can to slowly, eventually soothe the raw burning anger you feel. you support yourself in healing yourself at your own pace. i find that trying to recognize the anger and the anxiety first, own those, and then use those as a way to work back to a deeper recognition of my own needs takes me into the place that allows me to respond most resourcefully, most authentically, more realistically for ME. when it can be done, it's much better than focusing on how the other person is wrong and you are right. it takes you to the place where you can make the best choice and recognize the responsibility you have to make that choice, rather than feeling like others are simply making it for you.

i'm still super shitty at it, however. i still struggle to recognize anger and anxiety, and i'm still just learning how to send some cooling, some breeze, some washing away to kind of get back to a better, less urgent place to fully take account of what is happening for me.