[INFJ] INFJs and Contradictory Statements/Emotions

[pathos]

I've searched the "INFJ Common Issues Thread" for the words "contradict," but have found no direct mention of this. Perhaps I need to continue searching.

What should I make of seemingly contradictory statements and emotions from INFJs? Do I consider them to be just complex emotions? Is this typical INFJ behavior like them expressing mixed feelings? Certainly, feelings and relationships aren't black and white, so it isn't weird for someone to express mixed emotions on a given situation. However, some of the things that I've experienced from INFJs in particular seem really contradictory and I'm confused.

Two situations in particular with INFJs have confounded me:

Romantic Relationship
An INFJ ex and I had a history of hurting each other. The feelings of hurt and anger turned cyclical and caused us to fight every so often. Just as things would be going good, one of us would rehash something that occurred years prior.

During fights or just shortly afterwards as we tried to pick up the pieces, he would give confounding statements. At this point, we were trying to work on our friendship. He would accuse me of being in love and keeping him around just to marry him, he would flirt and make me gifts (things he did when we first got together) but then claim he didn't love me, or he would claim that I never loved him and made him feel inadequate.

Mentor Relationship
I worked with an INFJ who was lead on a project. We quickly became close. At one point, she lashed out that I was aggressive and had hurt her many times. We exchanged words and stopped talking. I sent her a letter apologizing, but never heard from her. She told other people that I hurt her and she was over it. During one of our last conversations, I mentioned a few things for a project I needed to get. After we stopped talking, these items showed up on my desk, so I figured it had to be her (I hadn't mentioned it to anyone else). When I became lead, she told a teammate of mine positive things about me and said she wanted to rebuild our relationship.

 

[Fidelia]

I think the first situation was primarily a response to hurt feelings and trying to keep from getting hurt worse (yet still feeling a pull towards you).

In the second, I think it is a prime example of INFJs sometimes needing to detach from someone who causes them to have a lot of internal emotional noise that they cannot resolve and are overwhelmed by. As time goes by and they have a chance to process what happened, then they sometimes are happy to leave the relationship terminated, and other times may decide to try to rebuild it, as was the case with this particular co-worker of yours.

Probably one of the number one things that seems to cause trouble for me as an INFJ is just the amount of delayed processing time I feel. This is not just with relationships, but in pretty much every area of my life. Each piece of information I get expands and branches out to ten times its size, with each branch having more possibilities of its own and it can become very ponderous to wade through all of it, particularly if there are strong emotions associated with it too.

Even four years after a several year long relationship has ended, I still think of my ex bf and have conflicting feelings about him. I can recognize the part I had in things ending up the way they did, remember and miss the things that remind me of him, every day events remind me of jokes between us, mannerisms of his, traditions we had or memories we made, I feel angry over some of the things I tolerated and shouldn't have, feel badly for the things I did wrong, realize I have a much better understanding of his type now and wonder if that would have helped at the time, have some unanswered questions, feel nostalgia at times, recognize some of his personal issues even more in retrospect, be at happy that we are not together now, while still realizing that if I saw him tomorrow, I'd still have feelings for him...

I find that if I can't talk it out with the person and get answers questions and revisit things as they come up, it just takes a very long time to lay all that stuff to rest. Sometimes I find it really difficult to even know how I feel in the moment, or something only begins to bother me once I start seeing it as part of a negative pattern or depending on the person's attitude or communication skills. Sometimes I don't realize how much resentment has built up until some little thing is the straw that breaks the camel's back and it comes rushing out (which is extremely embarrassing to me, as I pride myself on appearing rational, fair, reasonable and not excessively emotional).

Anyway, even if what is expressed seems conflicting, it is all stuff that is truly felt (even simultaneously) and is not fickleness, pettiness, pedantic grudge holding or over-sensitivity.