My mom is ISFJ and let me start by saying my SJ parents are very understanding of my INTP ways, and she doesn't demand as much emotional confirmation as she used to. But since December, she still hasn't gotten the concept of discussing emotional matters before playing the blame game. Which leads me to the whole concept of being a J. Can I expect a J to discuss emotions with me without making judgments? I'm one who believes in discussing beforehand, because we're all human and we don't know everything. But isn't that the opposite of what a J does?
Anyways, I'm tired of her pointing the finger, then running away. What am I doing wrong? Is this just the weakness of an ISFJ?
Actually, we Js tend to communicate by making judgments. I can't really discuss an emotion without judging it, because my expressions are inherently (sometimes even unconsciously) judgmental.
I'm not sure about ISFJs, but I will say that even after I've made a judgment, you're still free to try and convince me to make a different judgment. If you have a good enough justification, I'll (somewhat grudgingly) change my mind.
If Si is as rigid and inflexible as is commonly implied, you may be out of luck. Let us hope your mother is more open-minded than you (and most NPs) would think.
Let me trying giving you a different perspective, though. I remember I once knew a P who reacted to me very strangely. I was expecting something to be done in a particular way, but they wanted it done in another way. When they mentioned this, I was mildly annoyed and confused as to why they wanted to do it that way (because it seemed more complicated, more likely to fail, and had no obvious advantage), so I said, "Do you really HAVE to do it that way?" in a mildly whiny tone. I was expecting them to say, "Yes," and insist on doing it their way anyway, because I figured that was what they thought was best. I would have been mildly annoyed, but not for long. Instead, they went ahead and did it the way I wanted them to, and turned around accused me of "making" them do it, and stormed off in a huff.
I couldn't really understand the reaction at first, until I thought about it. Apparently they felt guilty about wanting to do it their own way due to my not being enthusiastic about it, and changed their minds! So I have to be enthusiastic about every notion in order to not be "making" them do things my way? That doesn't make any sense. If they feel guilty, then that either means I'm justified and they deserve to feel that, or they're too weak-willed to ignore my opinion and do things their own way (which probably means they didn't have sufficient confidence that their own way was any good to begin with, meaning I saved them from a silly mistake). Either way, it's not my problem, it's theirs.
