Type and Love - Is There a Connection?
Studies of type, attraction, marriage and satisfaction have yielded some interesting results. Often the results contradict each other. Partner selection (the biggy) actually has fairly few correlations with type. The studies that do exist are rather small, leaving data gaps and unanswered questions. The problem is this: to answer with certainty the question of whether or not certain types are attracted to certain other types, we would need to sample at least 136 potential pairings. And this would merely give us one example of each type matched with every other possible type. But if you wanted actual results, you would need to have several dozen times times this number of pairings. Big studies get expensive.
Furthermore, that still doesn't answer the question of whether initial attraction implies marital satisfaction, or how to interpret the results. For example, suppose that you simply wanted to see if people are drawn to those with more or less similar personality types. To do this, you might try comparing the amount of letters that each personality in a pair has in common. So then if you had an ENTJ-ENFJ pairing with high attraction, you would say, "Aha, similarities attract!" But in fact, ENTJs and ENFJs are as different as night and day--despite having three letters in common. If anything, this is proof that opposites attract.
And how does one measure similarity or difference? Or satisfaction? Each type has different satisfiers; the gesture of love that one type finds deeply meaningful may be shrugged off by another type. Some types have high needs and others have low needs. Is it possible to define "satisfaction" in a way that equally represents the opinions of everyone? Finally, how do we deal with the problem of (for example) the type whose perfect match is the INFP, a type which is hard to find, let alone marry? Even if type A is madly attracted to type B and they would be absolutely perfect together, it doesn't do any good if type B is rare and unavailable. So perhaps type A will marry another, more common type (type C) in droves. Thus the study would "prove" that type A and type C are highly compatible, when in fact type A is actually more compatible with type B.
Has any study accounted for these all problems?
Not yet. The bottom line is, they just don't know.
So, don't be too concerned if your beloved doesn't match the "ideal" type recommended by theorists. Everybody is in the exact same boat with you.