Cutting your losses

[Valiant]

I think this might be type-related. That is probably obvious?
This is a thing that I am really good at. If a relationship goes to hell, I will generally not dwell upon it. I have approximately 60 years left to live, and I want to make those years pleasant and full of meaning. Pursuing dead ends will not take me anywhere, it is just a waste of time.

How good are the various types at cutting their losses in love, friendship, war, economics...? Basically all areas of life and interaction.



I don't mourn the dead for very long, even if it was someone close. Don't get me wrong, I feel love towards the living, but I see no point in wearing black and moping for a few years. I just can't!
Sure, there are nights when I think of the ones who have passed... But that's generally if someone brings them up in a conversation or if I wished that my grandfather would have been here to see something that would have made him proud. He was also an ENTJ and even though he died when I was little, we had a very good connection. I also have a couple of pretty close friends who have died in a snowmobile- and car accident respectively... And my best friends' mother got killed in a car accident when we were 14. We lived right next to each other for 16 years and she was almost my mother, too. I loved her, and I felt an enormous grief and shock when she passed, but it passed in a couple of weeks. Me and another friend was just a couple of hundred yards away when it happened. This is probably the worst memory I have, to see her being brought into an ambulance all bloody, with all the bones in her body broken. I am however unsettled by the fact that I recovered so quickly. I feel guilty because I don't grieve.


Am I somehow inhuman because of this?


The one exception I have is my first love that dumped me three years ago. Some of you have read about that part. I basically didn't even know romantic love before her. She also somehow awakened my empathic feelings towards her and others, made me into a real softy! I always smile when I think of her. In a way I still love her more than I do any other human being. I think that it was my persistence to join the army as well as my ignorance of her needs that caused her to break up with me. She's an INTJ, pretty close to INFJ, though. I recently started talking to her a little again. I have literally not talked to her in a couple of years, and that's kind of sad.
However, I gathered some courage and told her how much I appreciate her existence and all that she has done for me. She is somehow the only person I have really let inside. It almost killed me when she left, and it took me a couple of years to recover. I literally cried myself to sleep every single night. Well, in a way, I probably never will recover. I will always have a soft spot for her, even if I probably wouldn't engage in any kind of romance with her again, since it didn't work out. However, recent contact have made me realize how much both of us have matured since then. I am definitely curious... But I bet it's nothing. I feel as if we don't have the same connection anymore... Or as if she's shutting me out somehow. I could tell she was moved by my words, though. Losing her is quite literally the only thing that have caused me serious long-term sorrow. Does this mean I didn't love the other people that I have lost in various ways? I don't know... They sure were important to me both emotionally and practically. I've been thinking for this a long time, and I bet it doesn't make any sense to some of you.

I, and probably many of other, would like to hear your stories, too. Please keep it serious.

 

[kyuuei]

When I am sure I will only lose out, I'm good at this.

When there's room for doubt, however, I am bad at looking ahead and seeing if I will lose out. Does that make sense?

I like ensuring that I have done everything I can to make something work within a reasonable doubt, so when I see that nothing will come of it, I have no trouble being the one to cut things off. Self-preservation is healthy, in these cases.

Edit: To include a story.. My worst relationship was with a boy (I refuse to call him a man.) that, in short along with pathological lying, would take money from me, and put us in financial situations all the time. He never really cared for my needs, and just did the bare minimum to scrape by without getting into a fight that particular day. I tried hard to make it work, even though I was sure I wouldn't be happy even if it did, because it is in my nature to rule out variables. In the end, I broke up with him, and felt weight off my shoulders. I didn't regret taking long to break up with him, or trying, only that I ever dated him in the first place.

My best relationship.. we parted on these terms alone: Our lives were leading us away from each other, and it was difficult on both of us with the distance between us. We both were unwilling to sacrifice enough to be with each other in person, so we just sadly, but mutually, agreed to part ways. In this way, I was very sad to lose him, and still often think about what it would have been like if I had never separated with him.

 

[Valiant]

That's pretty much what I think, too.
But in some cases, don't you wonder if you've been too insensitive?
Probably not, since you are a very sweet and kind person.

 

[bluebell]

In the past, the answer would have been no for me. But, I'm better at cutting out unhealthy relationships (eg friendships, family) than I used to be. This is kinda the reason why:

This is a thing that I am really good at. If a relationship goes to hell, I will generally not dwell upon it. I have approximately 60 years left to live, and I want to make those years pleasant and full of meaning. Pursuing dead ends will not take me anywhere, it is just a waste of time.

I have a slightly different emphasis but I can't find the words for it just at the moment. *waits hopefully for someone more verbal to articulate it in a later post*

 

[pippi]

I'm an odd combination. I'm endlessly forgiving, I give people I let into my life lots of chances, but once they pass the point of no return, I can walk away and never look back.

 

[Alpha Prime]

At the end of our mutual road, when I kick 'em outta my car I make sure they know why. I also make sure we don't owe each other anything: Easy and clean drive-by dumping.

When mourning a person, it's.. more complex.

 

[kyuuei]

That's pretty much what I think, too.
But in some cases, don't you wonder if you've been too insensitive?
Probably not, since you are a very sweet and kind person.

.. I wonder this frequently. I can come off as being insensitive.

I'm an odd combination. I'm endlessly forgiving, I give people I let into my life lots of chances, but once they pass the point of no return, I can walk away and never look back.

+1

If I've tried my best, there's no need to feel regret.

 

[King sns]

I have a problem with this.

I can give an impression being tough and having a cold streak, and being able to cut people as needed, but i'm really just a huge softy. I can't break relationships, I can't break friendships. It puts me really down in the dumps when I lose someone, even if I know that it was a bad situation. I simply tend to linger and become emotionally unavailable. I can reason all I want, but it takes a long time for me to get over people.

This is not type related for me as my type is known for moving on quickly. I mean, obviously if I haven't had a very close relationship to begin with, its fine and easy. I'm talking about people who are close to me.

Surprisingly enough though, my mourning of someone who died is pretty normal.

 

[garbage]

I'm an odd combination. I'm endlessly forgiving, I give people I let into my life lots of chances, but once they pass the point of no return, I can walk away and never look back.

This, yeah. If there's a strong emotional connection (even if it's only from my end) and if there's any doubt in my mind, I give a person way too many chances.

But when a person's gone, they're gone. I don't seem to feel anything in particular when I think of my past loves, for example. I see my most recent almost every weekday, and.. nothing.

 

[Venom]

so basically the poll indicates that everyone except NFPs get over stuff easily....

I tend to have a pretty intense filter when it comes to who i let get close to me (both platonic and romantic)... Therefore, its not often i have to 'move on' (because usually I never let those people in, in the first place). this also means that those people who i do consider moving on from, have probably already demonstrated themselves well enough that i very much resent cutting them off.

so i guess it depends on what scope/zoom in we are talking about:

good friends or romantic i'd imagine im terrible at moving on.
people i am getting to know/just warming up to, i can be RUTHLESS in "moving on...."


my biggest problem is that I can be such a "fixer" that i think i can "fix" anything, so then i hang on until i know for certain i have to move on. Yet other times i am ruthless. I guess this goes back to the ENTJ problem: i either feel too much, or nothing at all...

 

[FDG]

I'm pretty good at it. Perhaps I'm insensitive, but life is short, I don't really feel like mourning will give me any benefit.

 

[Valiant]

Seems like this is an NT, especially NTJ thing... That's something like I expected it to be.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm getting better at it now; I used to be horrible (I just would flex and bend on my end to keep things intact). I think it was partly because I could never 100% say that things should end (even if I was 95% sure), and I'd keep hoping, and I'd also not want to open myself up to judgment from others.

I'm far more prone nowadays to look at the long-term and then decide what's worth investing, and not apologizing for changing things. And if someone else disagrees, that's fine; it doesn't change what I need to do.

 

[JocktheMotie]

I'm good at this except for romantic relationships. Friendships, ideologies, opinions, jobs, economics, easy for me to cut my losses if the argument is sound. But romance...not so much. I think that has more to do with my insecurities and fear that I won't be able to find someone else as good later because of my social shortcomings, more than it has to do with my type.

 

[disregard]

If I feel it was a loss, I am terrible.

Mine is a mournful Irish soul

 

[Rachelinpa]

I aspire to be good at it, but alas.

 

[Moiety]

I aspire to be good at it, but alas.

 

[Ardea]

Hmm... a little bit of both.

I have faith in my abilities, and part of me always wants to believe that I've got what it takes to make things last. And I dwell in the fact that I was never given that opportunity. Unless I know *deep down inside* it was better this way - then it's like a band-aid.

Except with death. I've never been really good with it. It's such a foreign concept to me, and I end up relating it to THE CIRCLE OF LIFE, as dumb as it sounds... I would hate to see how it would play out if it was EXTREMELY close to home, though...

 

[BlackCat]

I recently left a bad relationship... We were getting distant and we could see each other less. We both agreed it would be for the best if we went our separate ways. Being 100 miles away kinda made that a bothersome relationship to start with anyways. I had no issues letting go, it only took about a week, there was no heartbreak really.

 

[sonata]

It takes me a lot of time and a lot of internal argument and sometimes some Fi-going-crazy to decide to "cut my losses" and cut someone off --- I don't do this lightly --- but once I do, they're out. Gone. I sometimes surprise myself with how well I can do that.