[INFJ] When an INFJ doorslams you / cuts you out of their life / breaks off contact

[Z Buck McFate]

you can high five each other's doorslams all you want, whenever there's a thread or a sub forum for one type it becomes a bloody wanking circle reaffirming our worst aspect, and this is no exception.

Is there really even a single post in this entire thread that seems like a high five over doorslamming someone?


I think what perpetually stuns me about this thread is that I don’t understand what people hope to get out of showing up with pedantic lectures because some INFJ wasn’t responsible for how their squirrely-ness negatively affected someone. Is it just a need to vent to someone? Or do you people really think you’re changing lives by lecturing about the ‘dangers of INFJ thinking’, because we’re all just one banana peel away from hurting the people we love? If you need to vent, then fine, *and* it’s probably a good idea to clarify that’s what’s going on.

[MENTION=14749]BalanceFind[/MENTION]’s situation in particular sounds exceptionally sucky, and it’s more than unfortunate he has had to deal with it. I’m not trying to belittle the hurt anyone has experienced. The problematic here is that when posts are framed as ‘advice for INFJs’…..it’s kind of like writing an ‘advice for Christians’ post because of Michelle Bachman. Most of the Christians I personally know find her offensive, and so approaching them with ‘advice’ about the ‘dangers of Christianity’ is kind of like (1) watering a dead plant and (2) it’s offensive, because it’s presupposing that being a Christian means inherently lacking critical thought and probably having weaker moral fiber. It’s coming from a place of moral and intellectual superiority as a ‘non-Christian’. But venting to them about Michelle Bachman is another matter entirely.

I think my biggest issue with this thread is that it tends to invite people who are primarily interested in fixing ‘others’. Thales- presocratic philosopher- when asked what the most difficult possible thing for a person to do is, answered “To know oneself.” When asked what the easiest possible thing to do is, he answered “To give someone else advice.” One thing that is consistently true about INFJs- we consider the source when we are being told something. One thing that always makes a good impression on me- leads me to give a person credit and makes me want to understand their point of view- is when I see someone who takes responsibility for how they make others feel, when what they have to say consistently seems very wise to me and feels respectful. Some people just don’t *get* that it’s not as easy as showing up and saying “I’m respectful of others’ feelings” to convince me that they even begin to grasp what it means to be respectful of others’ feelings. AND something that tends to make me give less weight to someone’s opinion- at times, to the point where I don’t take much of anything they say seriously- is when they preach and preach about how others should take responsibility for how they make people feel yet seem to lack any direct/organic understanding of this ‘lesson’ themselves.

 

[Society]

I'd expect the apology that will never come from them, by the way. I cut other people out because they've messed me around, not because I've messed them around.

i am putting my money that you know - without even thinking about it on a near automatic basis - that in relationships there's two sides, and just like everything you did had your reasons and perspective and some of it might be derived from the interactions within the relationship, so does theirs, and that normally this isn't even a question for you - you understand their perspective to an extent that it becoms part of your perspective.

am i wrong?

and if i'm not, can you think of any healthy instances in your life, in which your not overwhelmed and your stres buttons aren't pushed,, where this would ever apply:

it is pretty much true that at that point I really don't care about their feelings any more.

?

 

[SilkRoad]

i am putting my money that you know - without even thinking about it on a near automatic basis - that in relationships there's two sides, and just like everything you did had your reasons and perspective and some of it might be derived from the interactions within the relationship, so does theirs, and that normally this isn't even a question for you - you understand their perspective to an extent that it becoms part of your perspective.

am i wrong?

and if i'm not, can you think of any healthy instances in your life, in which your not overwhelmed and your stres buttons aren't pushed,, where this would ever apply:

?

Yeah, I actually think you're pretty much right about all of the above. And you know what? Sometimes removing someone from your life is part of the healing process, because when they're gone, they can't go on hurting and messing you around any more. If they remain in my life, I'm still going to be overwhelmed and stressed. And when I'm feeling healthier again, I realise that I still don't want them back in my life.

Everyone has their reasons for the way they act. I understand that. But there comes a point when I stop caring and I think "you should stop messing others around because of your childhood issues - and I no longer want to be the person you use and abuse for free therapy, to feel better about yourself, etc. I need to look after myself now."

I assure you I've never done this on the spur of the moment. There has always (and again, this is a very small number of occasions) been a great deal of time, thought, and history behind it.

 

[Fidelia]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the very few people in my life I've ever chosen not to contact again were not products of my stress or hurt, but rather a fairly calmly made decision that we simply weren't on the same page and I couldn't trust their word. I think it's fairly usual to decide after some time that you are not compatible with someone as a friend or that you only plan to pursue contact with those whom you feel their is a basic level of trust in their character.

I can only think of two people where this has been the case. In one case, it was a former summer boyfriend whom I had written to throughout university with the understanding that neither of us were interested in pursuing a relationship. However, as he continued writing, something seemed a little off and I found out that he had been dating someone for quite some time and chose not to mention it because he didn't feel good about the choices he was making and didn't want anyone to call him on them. To me, I felt it was disrespectful to his girlfriend and so told him when I chose to discontinue contact that 1) friendships are built on honesty 2) if I were his girlfriend, I wouldn't like him communicating daily with someone he used to date, even if for a short time.

In the other, it was a man much older than me whom I had met on a trip to the east coast. He had a lot of historical knowledge about a project I was doing and was a valuable person to consult. We started writing as an outgrowth of the manuscript that I was editing, even though I made it clear that I wasn't interested in a romantic relationship, which he would have liked. In retrospect, I understand now that most men don't put that kind of effort in unless they are still hoping that something will come of it, but at the time I thought it was possible to be platonic friends as long as there was distance and you were clear about your intentions. Anyway, I had plans to go to my great-great-grandmother's home town, where he lived to do some research one summer. My mum was coming along with me. He outright lied, saying that he had some connections to people who would have exactly the kind of information I was looking for, when really he was hoping to spend some time alone together and knew those people didn't have any useful information. Once we got there, I was embarrassed (my mum had come specifically because of the people we would be interviewing etc), and was especially unimpressed about the lying. It would have been different if he had made an honest mistake, and the leads didn't turn out to be as good as he had hoped. Anyway, after that point, I saw no reason to continue a friendship if basic honesty and trust was not present and if our goals were different.

Like Z Buck, I don't see most INFJs rejoicing over doorslamming, nor do I know many INFJs who have a huge string of doorslams that they've amassed. Most are the product of a lot of thought and many second chances.

I'll tell you this - probably out of any type (and ENFPs from some of the threads here will also tell you this), before INFJs are going to accept your advice, they are going to need to establish that you are a credible person who also has the resources and experiences necessary to be qualified to give them direction. That takes more than a one-sided story about how you've been done wrong, especially if you don't show signs of introspection as you are questioned about what happened. It especially seems unlikely that your advice will be accepted when you don't get to know each of the people you are advising as individuals. Their backgrounds, circumstances, and attitudes are very unique, even if they share the same type.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I'll tell you this - probably out of any type (and ENFPs from some of the threads here will also tell you this), before INFJs are going to accept your advice, they are going to need to establish that you are a credible person who also has the resources and experiences necessary to be qualified to give them direction. That takes more than a one-sided story about how you've been done wrong, especially if you don't show signs of introspection as you are questioned about what happened. It especially seems unlikely that your advice will be accepted when you don't get to know each of the people you are advising as individuals. Their backgrounds, circumstances, and attitudes are very unique, even if they share the same type.

Exactly, this is the point I was trying to make. I do think INFJs in particular are quite sensitive to the source of any given feedback. I think it’s important to point out that ‘introspection’ here is not simply ‘time spent alone reflecting on what happened’. Because it seems like a *lot* of that variety of introspection has gone into these rather elaborate explanations of how ‘INFJs can go wrong’. The degree to which someone’s introspection yields responsible and respectful results- qualities which are self-evident, and a person claiming to have them isn’t anywhere near the same thing as a person DEMONSTRATING these qualities- is the degree to which their feedback will be considered. Putting forth arguments that essentially look like:

​

…is possibly one of the quickest ways to lose credibility with an INFJ. It doesn’t matter how ‘solidly’ these very elaborate explanations (for what goes wrong with OUR processing) are presented- without simultaneously presenting any acknowledgement of responsibility for inciting overwhelm in first place, any solid explanation of how the conflict is (entirely) someone else’s fault is going to look like the imbalanced power dynamic of a pedantic clown (who is being every bit as anti-dialogical as the INFJ behavior they are attacking).

I will say again that the situation BalanceFind has presented seems incredibly unfortunate- but it isn’t remotely the same kind of situation we’re defending when we try to explain where/when it seems a ‘doorslam’ is necessary.

 

[Society]

That takes more than a one-sided story about how you've been done wrong, especially if you don't show signs of introspection as you are questioned about what happened.

huh? i've said how i sabatoged the relationship:

throughout it, the main problem was this:

she never believed me, i always told her how beautiful and brilliant she is, she always impressed me again and again like nobody has, and i told her each time how awesome it was... and she never believed me, always found a way to devalue it, always found a way to dismiss it... i could never make her feel good about herself... that's what accumilated, she listened to the bad stuff, not to grow but just to feel worst about herself, and yet never listened to the good stuff, to most of everything i felt about her and valued in her.. that's what broke us... so how can i now ask her to listen to a story that would make her feel worst about herself?

and in the end, the doorslam was about this:

there was no spite, i didn'twant it to humiliate her, i just couldn't deal with it myself so i reacted in my own extraverted way - talking and talking and talking for whoever was willing to listen, and was unable to access the information in my mind that would tell me why not too, that would find a path and make the situation less then hopelesss. i did eventually, but it took me awhile to get there... too long for her.

from her perspective, basically i wasn't able to be reaffirming enough for her, i impressed her as a man but was unable to make her feel good about herself as a woman no matter how much i've tried, maybe i didn't know how to express it... maybe her insecurities would have devalued it no matter how i did, i don't know. but it caused a lot of frustration and problems that snowballed and lead to the breakup...

then, when she missed me and contacted me, she was confronted with a humiliating expeirence in which i was talking about everything i was feeling, angry and blaming her, to anyone who'd listen, without any show of the consideration she's being used to getting from me... namely our shared friends, which at that point included people from each other's extended family.

this is where this advice came from - my own mistakes, and the reason why since then i don't describe in details my judgement of her or what she did but focus on what i'm going through - i know how she would feel if i did, even if she never gets to read it (and somehow i doubt she creeps around the internet following me around after doorslammng me).

It especially seems unlikely that your advice will be accepted when you don't get to know each of the people you are advising as individuals. Their backgrounds, circumstances, and attitudes are very unique, even if they share the same type.

the general part of my advice is simple and regardless of type (though it's meanings changes from type to type), and summarized by lady X:

that's very interesting tho...i like it. i imagine it is extremely important to know when not to trust your own judgment.

i think i can apply this to your first example easily enough - with the obvious disclaimer that i may be missing critical information - but i don't know you well enough to know if it would be apriciated.

the second one doesn't seem like much of a doorslam - i might be wrong but it doesn't sound like you had developed a relationship before you closed it off...

 

[Fidelia]

As far as I can see, you picked an insecure girl and I doubt that any amount of reassurance wouldn't have changed things. I can see how she'd be mad at your for talking to anyone who would listen about it though,especially if she didn't feel that you had an accurate take on what was going on.

You still don't seem to be understanding - if INFJs want advice, they will solicate it from someone whom they respect and who they believe has the skills to be of help. Therefore, coming into a thread to tell what you have gleaned from your experiences before checking to see if it applies to your audience seems officious, even if it is not intended that way.

In the first case you mentioned, I wish him the best. I just didn't want to be a part of a messy situation and I value integrity a lot. In the second case, we emailed most days for about two years and talked on the phone from time to time, so there was a fairly close friendship there which was abruptly curtailed. (In retrospect the contact was a dumb idea, as was interpreted as sending mixed messages. I respected his intelligence and knowledge, he was a fellow INFJ and I'd never met any before in real life, I liked the culture where he was from, and living far away from my usual surroundings, it was nice to get mail everyday. I thought I had covered my bases by saying I wasn't interested, but now I realize that isn't very realistic and could be a user-y on my part, even if it wasn't consciously meant to be.)

 

[Society]

You still don't seem to be understanding - if INFJs want advice, they will solicate it from someone whom they respect and who they believe has the skills to be of help. Therefore, coming into a thread to tell what you have gleaned from your experiences before checking to see if it applies to your audience seems officious, even if it is not intended that way.

if the advice applies to them or if they would be willing to listen to?

as you might expect i am somewhat cautious about judging indevidual INFJs under a spotlight... so feel free to not answer when i ask:

looking over your life, you've never lied-by-omission? you never felt their was information, that from the perspective of others might have being important information, but that under your perspective, under your circumstances and reasons, you didn't want to share with them, or perhaps didn't think about sharing? and in such cases, did you not feel that being judged for doing so without fully understanding what you where going through and why you've made the choices you've made would have left you misunderstood? and after the introspection following such cases, would you not tailor your attitude towards others to be open about it, to learn the context under which they did it?

 

[highlander]

You know this door slam thing. I have thought this every time I've seen this thread. I don't think this door slam behavior is limited to INFJs in any manner, shape or form.

 

[Fidelia]

if the advice applies to them or if they would be willing to listen to?

as you might expect i am somewhat cautious about judging indevidual INFJs under a spotlight... so feel free to not answer when i ask:

looking over your life, you've never lied-by-omission? you never felt their was information, that from the perspective of others might have being important information, but that under your perspective, under your circumstances and reasons, you didn't want to share with them, or perhaps didn't think about sharing? and in such cases, did you not feel that being judged for doing so without fully understanding what you where going through and why you've made the choices you've made would have left you misunderstood? and after the introspection following such cases, would you not tailor your attitude towards others to be open about it, to learn the context under which they did it?

You have not checked whether or not the INFJs you are addressing do what you say your ex has done to you. Therefore, it is not about willingness to listen to advice generally. It is that you have proven yourself to be an unreliable source of advice, and the more you insist that you can fix all of the INFJ shortcomings in the world, the more resistant you continue to render your INFJ audience.

You don't appear to see them as anything but a homogenous group, and Ti thinking that feels this starting premise is flawed therefore would discount any further conclusions you have to offer. If your starting premise is inaccurate, your conclusions will also be.

Second of all, you actually have to convince your audience that there is a problem with them to begin with before you start to offer them a solution. They are not your girlfriend, and come to the table with varied ages, experiences, philosophical systems, relationship statuses and so on. It seems to me that your sample group is too small to be entirely reliable. For example, while some behaviours in my ex-ESTJ were typical of ESTJs, others were not. Still others were made more extreme because I didn't fully understand where he was coming from and reacted using my normal starting premises, which were different than his. Of course there were misunderstandings because despite seeing the same thing, we both interpreted in the light of our starting premises, which were quite different. Spending time on this site has helped me to sort through what parts were more generalizable, and which ones were more specific to our own unique circumstances and ourselves as individuals.

Third, most INFJs will not take well to epithets of closed minded stubbornness, when that simply isn't the case. They just may not choose to take YOUR advice if it doesn't appear to have validity and they don't trust the source as a reliable one.

 

[SilkRoad]

You know this door slam thing. I have thought this every time I've seen this thread. I don't think this door slam behavior is limited to INFJs in any manner, shape or form.

I agree with that. Actually, I think INFJs are just a lot more transparent and open about it than many others...and perhaps less likely to let others back in.

People have occasionally said or implied to me that I sound cold when I talk about having removed a few people from my life. I'm sure I sound that way and maybe it kind of is. However, if they scrutinized their own lives they might realised that they've used and dropped friends, broken lots of promises, etc...they're just unlikely to come out and say "yes, I admit that I've shut people out of my life, used people and broken promises."

 

[SilkRoad]

You have not checked whether or not the INFJs you are addressing do what you say your ex has done to you. Therefore, it is not about willingness to listen to advice generally. It is that you have proven yourself to be an unreliable source of advice, and the more you insist that you can fix all of the INFJ shortcomings in the world, the more resistant you continue to render your INFJ audience.

You don't appear to see them as anything but a homogenous group, and Ti thinking that feels this starting premise is flawed therefore would discount any further conclusions you have to offer. If your starting premise is inaccurate, your conclusions will also be.

Second of all, you actually have to convince your audience that there is a problem with them to begin with before you start to offer them a solution. They are not your girlfriend, and come to the table with varied ages, experiences, philosophical systems, relationship statuses and so on. It seems to me that your sample group is too small to be entirely reliable. For example, while some behaviours in my ex-ESTJ were typical of ESTJs, others were not. Still others were made more extreme because I didn't fully understand where he was coming from and reacted using my normal starting premises, which were different than his. Of course there were misunderstandings because despite seeing the same thing, we both interpreted in the light of our starting premises, which were quite different. Spending time on this site has helped me to sort through what parts were more generalizable, and which ones were more specific to our own unique circumstances and ourselves as individuals.

Third, most INFJs will not take well to epithets of closed minded stubbornness, when that simply isn't the case. They just may not choose to take YOUR advice if it doesn't appear to have validity and they don't trust the source as a reliable one.

All of this...and also, it seems as though whatever is said in response by INFJs in this thread, it gets a reiteration of the same lecture, almost verbatim...it's very much as though the people who are lecturing are not listening. Very one-sided.

 

[Society]

you just argued in support of ad hominems?

anyway, to the point: i'm not making a sale, i'm not trying to fix INFJ kind. there's pretty much only one INFJ i deeply care for, and she's not here, so my gains are somewhat limited. rejection isn't a doorslam, even not talking to someone isn't a doorslam. but blocking communication from someone - not being willing to listen to anything they would have to say - wiping out their perspective from what matters to you when judging them - that's intrisict to the nature of the doorslam. it's making a conscious choice to make an uninformed decision when the alternative to doing so is right there for the grab, all you have to do is... not doorslam so you can hear the person out.

how can that ever make sense? explain to me please.

 

[SilkRoad]

you just argued in support of ad hominems?

anyway, to the point: i'm not making a sale, i'm not trying to fix INFJ kind. there's pretty much only one INFJ i deeply care for, and she's not here, so my gains are somewhat limited. rejection isn't a doorslam, even not talking to someone isn't a doorslam. but blocking communication from someone - not being willing to listen to anything they would have to say - wiping out their perspective from what matters to you when judging them - that's intrisict to the nature of the doorslam. it's making a conscious choice to make an uninformed decision when the alternative to doing so is right there for the grab, all you have to do is... not doorslam so you can hear the person out.

how can that ever make sense? explain to me please.

What if you've already heard them out, even repeatedly? Or what if every pattern of their life and behaviour indicates that they're going to go on mistreating and abusing the relationship (whatever its nature) that they have with you? Or what if you know with the deepest gut feeling possible that keeping them in your life is going to do nothing but harm to you?

Sure, people say they'll change. Men who beat their wives and continue to do so for years also say they'll change.

You may say that in your case the INFJ didn't hear you out, or you weren't behaving all that badly, or whatever. These things may be true. But I think partly what Fidelia and others were getting at is that in most cases (with a relatively "healthy" and mature INFJ) the "doorslam" will have followed a lot of "hearing out", a lot of repeated bad behaviour, a lot of disrespect, and a conviction on the part of the INFJ that they don't want to hang around and get hurt some more on the slim possibility of change on the part of the other person. Or if things have not played out quite in that way, the person's behaviour will certainly have indicated that in terms of values and acceptable behaviour, there's a major gulf between you and them and the relationship simply cannot continue on those terms. And I don't think you guys are acknowledging that not every INFJ doorslam involves shutting down and flouncing off without having heard the other person out or without having given them a billion chances already.

 

[Society]

And I don't think you guys are acknowledging that not every INFJ doorslam involves shutting down and flouncing off without having heard the other person out or without having given them a billion chances already.

i'm certain they did. its part of almost every INFJ doorslam story... almost.

...except the old ones. the ones that had the time and distance, that have expeirenced the degree of growth that makes it easy to question themselves, to let the block fade and the name looses it's related pain, to ask why the other did what they did, behaved the way they did, to question their own part in the relationship, to feel sorrow fully.

so far the shortest time period i've heard that taking for an INFJ to come full circle on their own and deeply regret a doorslam is 15 years, and that was an extremely healthy one. the longest i've heard was 28 years. i'm sure for many it's longer.

they never get them back.

 

[SilkRoad]

i'm certain they did. its part of almost every INFJ doorslam story... almost.

...except the old ones. the ones that had the time and distance, that have expeirenced the degree of growth that makes it easy to question themselves, to let the block fade and the name looses it's related pain, to ask why the other did what they did, behaved the way they did, to question their own part in the relationship, to feel sorrow fully.

so far the shortest time period i've heard that taking for an INFJ to come full circle on their own and deeply regret a doorslam is 15 years, and that was an extremely healthy one. the longest i've heard was 28 years.

they never get them back.

Do you think that letting the other person back into your life is always the right thing to do?

Sometimes it may be...but I think if you've reached the doorslam point, it's unlikely to be. And you would never get me to agree that letting the other person into your life at some point is ALWAYS the right thing to do.

I have a finite amount of emotional space in my life. I'm not going to continue to make room for users, sociopaths, people who've clearly demonstrated that they believe me to have no feelings or who are convinced that I will accept whatever spin they choose to put on the relationship - or simply people who are consistently unhealthy to be around.

Besides, I'm not entirely convinced that people are always even sad or regretful that I'm gone (or that they "want me back" for more than their own selfish purposes.) Though I am open to being surprised on that count...


EDIT: It may be worth noting that once someone has ended up behind the slammed or quietly closed door for a while, the chances are that I just don't like them very much any more (even if I don't HATE THEM or something dramatic like that). And I don't know that there's much you can do about that.

 

[Society]

people who've clearly demonstrated that they believe me to have no feelings

yet you know you that under the right set of circumstances and reasons, under the right conditions, you are fully capable of doing the same:

it is pretty much true that at that point I really don't care about their feelings any more.

you are making a judgement call about a person's character based on their capacity to do... the very same thing that you can do. except that their circumstances, reasons, conditions, intents, their story, unlike yours, has - at that moment - no meaning to you.

do you think you can do that when your healthy? when your Fe is at full swing? because having had the luck of having at least 3 INFJs that i know of in my life (a council, a friend and a wife - the last one being all 3), to a level where they felt comfortable sharing what they go through with me on a persistent basis, having seen how other's stories and perspectives weave into theirs when they are healthy and not overwhelmed, i don't think this is the case, and i know i've said this before but i think its very important to establish this... because it means your judging someone's character at the very time where your best tools to understand someone's character aren't availble to you.

and if you have taken the role of a council in your relationships - and i get the impression like you often do - then you know that it takes 2 to tango, that you'd need insight into the character of both in order to provide useful relationship council for anyone. but when its your own, in order to understand what they where going through within the relationship, you need both your best tools to judge the other person's character and introspection.

and here's the thing about introspection: if your a flesh and blood human (the sort that makes mistakes), and if you can do it while still feeling good about yourself, your doing it wrong. because it involves asking yourself the tough questions: how did i make them feel when i did this or that? how did they expeirence the way i treated them then or there? did they ever expeirence anything i did as abusive? was their anything i did that breached their trust? how could i have done things better? how could i grow as a person so maybe - just maybe - i won't have to doorslam again in the future?

when you doorslam someone, the one thing your making sure of, is that you'll never know the answers.

but hey, if someone runs after your family with a chainsaw - doorslam away (with a very taugh door). somehow i doubt that sort of thing is the common reason.

 

[SilkRoad]

yet you know you that under the right set of circumstances and reasons, under the right conditions, you are fully capable of doing the same:

I'm far from perfect, but until someone has really messed me around, I will take their feelings into account. It's difficult for me NOT to do that. I am careful not to lead people on, not to use them, etc. The feedback I've had in my life indicates very much that I've been fairly successful. I don't think I have once been accused of leading someone on or using them, at least not by anyone who was "healthy" and not accusing all and sundry of similar things. The people who've led me on or used me had done similar things to other people. They showed a pattern.

I stop taking others' feelings into account AFTER they've hurt mine badly enough for repair to be difficult, and when I realise that I need to look after myself. People manipulate the feelings of others by saying "well you should think about me and my feelings," so as to keep them around - then behaving atrociously.

Plus, if I "felt" everyone's feelings all the time, I would probably commit suicide. I'm not joking.

you are making a judgement call about a person's character based on their capacity to do... the very same thing that you can do. except that their circumstances, reasons, conditions, intents, their story, unlike yours, has - at that moment - no meaning to you.

do you think you can do that when your healthy? when your Fe is at full swing? because having had the luck of having at least 3 INFJs that i know of in my life (a council, a friend and a wife - the last one being all 3), to a level where they felt comfortable sharing what they go through with me on a persistent basis, having seen how other's stories and perspectives weave into theirs when they are healthy and not overwhelmed, i don't think this is the case, and i know i've said this before but i think its very important to establish this... because it means your judging someone's character at the very time where your best tools to understand someone's character aren't availble to you.

and if you have taken the role of a council in your relationships - and i get the impression like you often do - then you know that it takes 2 to tango, that you'd need insight into the character of both in order to provide useful relationship council for anyone. but when its your own, in order to understand what they where going through within the relationship, you need both your best tools to judge the other person's character and introspection.

and here's the thing about introspection: if your a flesh and blood human (the sort that makes mistakes), and if you can do it while still feeling good about yourself, your doing it wrong. because it involves asking yourself the tough questions: how did i make them feel when i did this or that? how did they expeirence the way i treated them then or there? did they ever expeirence anything i did as abusive? was their anything i did that breached their trust? how could i have done things better? how could i grow as a person so maybe - just maybe - i won't have to doorslam again in the future?

when you doorslam someone, the one thing your making sure of, is that you'll never know the answers.

but hey, if someone runs after your family with a chainsaw - doorslam away (with a very taugh door). somehow i doubt that sort of thing is the common reason.

This is all well and good. But you didn't answer my question about whether shutting someone out of your life is always the wrong thing to do, and whether you should always be prepared to let them back in.

I know people have history, baggage and hurts that partly explain their actions. Every human being has that. Some people with a lot of damage manage not to consistently mess others around. Others go through life as users, happy to create false expectations, to break promises, and to always and under virtually every circumstance put their own selfish desires first.

Do you maintain relationships with people who have consistently used and hurt you, or whose values/behaviour and yours have a massive gaping disconnect between them? If so, why?

I may be interpreting you wrong, but you seem to think that INFJs just stop caring for no reason and shut people out. This is seldom if ever the case. It is possible to be so hurt by a person that you need to stop caring about them for self-protection and as part of the healing process.

I have been around people who have consistently shown that they do not care about my feelings. Basically from the word go, except maybe I couldn't see it at the outset. Like I said, I'm far from perfect. But I don't think I have ever pretended to be close to another human being and then treated them like that.

I can't think of one good reason to keep someone in my life whose values will never match up with mine or who has consistently hurt and used me. Not one.

 

[cascadeco]

You know, I have to say that the being-super-in-tuned-with-others is just one side of the coin, and relying wholly on that - factoring other peoples' stories/perspectives into your own - often blinds you to your OWN story. And, you write it as if that and only that is what defines INFJ's as being 'healthy'. I would argue that in many ways, keeping things only at that level keeps the INFJ from actualizing beyond that element of themselves. It prevents other avenues of growth. There is far more to an INFJ than forever playing the role of 'council' and forever weaving others' stories into their own. imo Health also requires the knowledge of knowing when to draw the lines, and when to recognize that weaving certain elements are in fact not good, not true, not healthy, etc.

Yep, it does take two to tango. But if I already know I'm done tangoing and have no interest tangoing any longer, then I'm done tangoing. From my OWN perspective - and I could care less what perspectives/lenses others throw on me - when I'm able to unweave all of the other perspectives away so that I can take pieces, but am not consumed with them, and can look at things more objectively, and can sit back and look at the overall situation, and factor in MY desires too- my own desires without being conflated with others - then I often feel I am seeing quite clearly. And often-times when I dig in and find what I want, and see that I'm doing the other person no favors by being in the relationship when I no longer want to be in it, well, I move forward and feel quite healthy and calm in doing do.

I don't relate to many elements of doorslamming in this thread; in fact I'm not sure I've ever done a full-blown doorslam where it hasn't been clear something is coming and there hasn't been a 'closure' conversation at the end. But honestly... I have no qualms about letting people go when I'm no longer on board, and I also am not unaware of what their side might be. I simply don't want to tango anymore. There are more negatives/conflicts inherent in the overall relationship than positives at that juncture. If you or others want to call that decision point unhealthy, so be it. But if the alternative is never allowing relationships to dissolve, and forever maintaining each and every relationship, then that doesn't make much sense to me either.

 

[SilkRoad]

But if the alternative is never allowing relationships to dissolve, and forever maintaining each and every relationship, then that doesn't make much sense to me either.

Yes.

The people I know who continue to maintain each and every relationship don't seem to learn lessons from life and they continue to repeat the same unhealthy patterns. I mean, everyone may do that to a certain extent but they do it to an extreme.

I have a friend who is probably xNFP. She does mini-doorslams quite regularly, but she almost always makes up with people. She is also still "friends" (at least as far as a yearly phone call, etc) with most of her exes. Including the guy who turned out to be bisexual and cheated on her with a man; the guy who was a drug user and totally messed her around for the last quarter of their relationship; the guy who tried to commit suicide when she broke up with him; etc. And, interestingly, every relationship she's ever told me about has involved her making all the effort and the guy totally taking advantage of her. See a pattern?