[NF] Does anyone else find relationships really difficult?

[BlueScreen]

Whoa! Please, please help me understand...What is it you are talking about...the F wants you to run away quickly as possible, because the person you genuinely like is near?

I would really appreciate some expansion on this one..!

A007

Introverted feeling is introverted. It doesn´t have to be logical, it´s just a fact that unless it feels really safe or is overridden by other functions, an ENFP will emotionally feel like hiding in dark corners. I´m normally quite uneasy when a relationship is at a halfway point.

 

[Bubbles]

I find relationships very, very difficult...

Expressing myself and my needs makes me anxious that the other person will leave... I find myself endlessly trying to be cool and laid back - breaking my back to not look neurotic... I want my partner to feel loved, reassured and safe with me - whereas I always feel on edge, scared to push too much - don't want to appear clingy, scared to be without them too long - don't want them to forget me, scared to spend too long with them - don't want them to feel smothered.... I'm the swan on the lake - I am paddling furiously to keep the whole thing going but above the water it looks like effortless grace...

I guess when I fall for someone I don't want to lose them, this paranoia becomes greater the further down the relationship I go - the odd comment about my body, about maybe finding other people attractive, about relationships only being finite (I always read as "I'm with you until I find someone fitter/younger/more fun").

I try so hard to be me - to put forward what I like to do, to share my small world with them and it always ends up that I share their world and my small world becomes even smaller until there really isn't anything left of it or me and my identity - I then panic and fight against it and do something stupid like leave my partner rather than talking things though - because at that stage they're so used to the happy sunny version of me that they can't handle the insecure and paraniod me and it dissolves.... I hate it and I have lived through the pattern over and over... This time I hope things will be different as I've found someone truly special, but I'm in a pretty rocky place at the moment and I can't see any lifeboats around....

Well I better be off to boil a few bunnies now....

Aww. I think we all do this to a degree. (Okay, well I do.) Halla and BlackCat gave great advice on how to handle it; for me, it's mostly a struggle between what COULD happen and what I WANT to happen. The issue is putting too much emphasis on what hasn't happened yet. See, when you do that, you either act optimistic, or you panic. Either way isn't good, because you either have ridiculous expectations or just see doom and gloom. That's why the present is so important, like BlackCat said. The present helps you achieve the future. Just concentrate on what you can do NOW, how your relationship is NOW. That's what matters.

It's hard to open up a bit. Trust is just difficult, overall. But you know what? Worrying doesn't help. Urgh, so easy to type that, but so much harder to do. It's funny, because NFs are accused of being too idealistic, but I find myself being so skeptical sometimes--like if I show too much feeling, I'll get too attached, or I'll be too vulnerable. So it depends on how ready YOU are to show these things, and how ready you think HE is to receive them. But worrying too much and bottling it up isn't fun. It's tough, it really is. There's a lot of good advice here, and to be honest I find myself learning from it as much as you are. So don't feel alone.

 

[JohnDoe]

It's hard to open up a bit. Trust is just difficult, overall. But you know what? Worrying doesn't help. Urgh, so easy to type that, but so much harder to do. It's funny, because NFs are accused of being too idealistic, but I find myself being so skeptical sometimes--like if I show too much feeling, I'll get too attached, or I'll be too vulnerable. So it depends on how ready YOU are to show these things, and how ready you think HE is to receive them. But worrying too much and bottling it up isn't fun. It's tough, it really is. There's a lot of good advice here, and to be honest I find myself learning from it as much as you are. So don't feel alone.

Seriously I can be downright cynical if not paranoid with the motivations of people at times... And the worries about things that can go wrong, well I've thought of everything plausible, everything not plausible, and everything not remotely plausible -- like aliens attacking

 

[mortabunt]

I don't find relationships difficult. But anyways, they can't be harder themselves than getting into them. The biggest curse of being INTP: it's nearly impossible to get anyone.

 

[Coeur]

The T-F struggle is the hardest. I experience the worst ENFP-ENTP communication problems internally. It's a real bummer when part of you wants to jump up and tell the other person how much you like them after the second date and the other part wants to run away as quickly as possible precisely because you like them.

Woah, I thought I was the only one who had this! O_O
Btw, this becomes a lot more inflamed for me when the other person is 110% attached and expects me to do the same.

As for NOT worrying about the future, this is something that I wrote after a relationship ended:
Memories are eternal even if relationships are not. Every day I find myself drifting to happy moments, whether they consist of a casual look during class or a romantic day at the beach. Regardless of what exists in the present, I can just enclose myself in the delicate chamber of my mind and let the cool thoughts refresh me like unpolluted water. That is what love does- it impacts you. It doesn’t matter if the relationship in question is dead, or if the person is beyond the point of communication. It doesn’t matter if the joyful moments are limited, or if you need to turn a blind eye to the bad to see the good. All that matters is that your heart keeps responding to every wonderful stimulus. I don’t need a guaranteed future to wade joyfully in the past. The real waste would be to deny that such emotions existed, to bury them in a pile of experiences deemed “irrelevant.” Nothing is truly irrelevant, nothing is truly lost. Every time you have smiled twice at a singular event, you have gained.
Don't compromise your future memories by worrying and holding back.

 

[Jeffster]

Yes.

 

[mszoe]

Be happy with what you've got, appreciate your partner and the fact that they appreciate you, realize that nothing will EVER be perfect. Don't be so paranoid and don't over analyze, I've noticed in relationships that if an INFJ is paranoid and worried then they will make up situations that could happen and start believing that they will. This will devastate your relationship. Don't over analyze and play out situations that could happen in the future (that likely won't, from my observation), go get things straight with your SO about things right now in the present. I mean really, don't get stuck in your Ni, I've heard some of the most ludicrous possibilities from INFJs in relationships about how they could go. Then they lose faith in the relationship ENTIRELY from what they THINK might happen, which is usually highly unlikely. Don't do this, from an outside standpoint it makes no sense to me as to how it does anything but ruin things for you. Just my 2c.

Thanks for writing this BlackCat. This is so true about me as an INFJ. I do get very worried sometimes about the multiple possibilities and I attempt to interpret actions and statements as signs that align with one of my usually pessimistic projections. I know I do this because I am awfully scared. I do not want to lose what I have but I also do not want to be hurt worse later.

To answer the OP, I am in a particularly difficult period in my relationship. My partner has used our relationship as an example of how an INTP and INFJ can work out together, and he also mentions our struggles to grow individually and as as a couple. This time around, it is a deep repeat of our previous "put zoe on communication block" retreats, which hurts my feelings to no end. The way I interpret it is that the relationship has some bad mojo to it (also because of some very urgent serious issues in his life right now) and we are putting it on freeze. A freeze is among one of the worst things for an INFJ. Even though I have read much about the relationship between an INFJ and INTP and Enneagram 5 with a 2, the education does not make the mercurial nature of human interaction easy.

Yeah, relationships are some serious hard work, then again most things worth having in life are not easily earned nor pre-packaged vacuum-sealed ready for consumption.

Good luck and kudos to all those who are putting due diligence to their current relationship and to one's own self-awareness.

 

[jtanSis1]

relationships take confidence as a foundation, pure and simple, to even be in one. To make it last is when everything about you is put to the test. Most think its the other way around and dont really try at first, or when in one, think its easy since they think the hard part is over.

 

[stigmatica]

For some reason I've always thought they were relatively easy most of the time, and extremely difficult a small portion of the time. Back in the day, my biggest issue was always getting out of a relationship if I didn't want to be there. I hate hurting feelings, so getting in and staying is easy. Getting out is horrible.

 

[disregard]

Speaking strictly from experience, for me, relationships were difficult when they weren't right.

When it's right, it works.

I'm not saying everything is perfect, but it is just easy. It flows naturally and feels comfortable and unforced, not jagged, hard.