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

[Z Buck McFate]

So, question: is it a "doorslam" if you tell the person *why* you're cutting off contact?

Like suppose I were to say to someone "I can't handle you doing _____ anymore. I'm going to have to steer clear of you if you don't stop." But instead of stopping, the person continues to argue why _______ shouldn't be a problem in the first place. Or they give a bunch of excuses for why they can't help it (which are clearly excuses). Or they deny doing _______ at all. They won't be honest about it because they don't want to stop. Is it a "doorslam" if I refuse to deal with the person from that point forward?


I'm getting the impression that some people don't consider that a "doorslam".

 

[Society]

So, question: is it a "doorslam" if you tell the person *why* you're cutting off contact?

Like suppose I were to say to someone "I can't handle you doing _____ anymore. I'm going to have to steer clear of you if you don't stop." But instead of stopping, the person continues to argue why _______ shouldn't be a problem in the first place. Or they give a bunch of excuses for why they can't help it (which are clearly excuses). Or they deny doing _______ at all. They won't be honest about it because they don't want to stop. Is it a "doorslam" if I refuse to deal with the person from that point forward?


I'm getting the impression that some people don't consider that a "doorslam".

i think it depends on what happens after: are you just not contacting them, are you simply not meeting with them physically but still respond if they call or email, or are you blocking them from contacting you and providing you with any new information, are you just taking a period of time off until you are more emotioanly distant and can deal with potential new information?

as far as i'm concerned its the complete blocking of information that defines that thing we've being calling a doorslam, the choice of willful self-imposed ignorance regarding any choice that impacts anyone other then yourself. the rest i can understand, even respect, but that...

 

[Starry]

as far as i'm concerned its the complete blocking of information that defines that thing we've being calling a doorslam, the choice of willful self-imposed ignorance regarding any choice that impacts anyone other then yourself. the rest i can understand, even respect, but that...

I understand what you are saying Mane...but are you talking before...or after...explanations and good-byes? If the blocking of information comes before...that is a doorslam. After...and that is just the end of relationship right?

 

[Z Buck McFate]

So I'm looking for different opinions here. Because if everyone is thinking that "doorslam" means there's absolutely no warning or attempt at explanation for what the problem behavior is, then I'm going to retract having said I doorslammed anyone as an adult. I assumed "doorslam" to mean cutting off contact and refusing to deal with someone.

 

[Society]

I understand what you are saying Mane...but are you talking before...or after...explanations and good-byes? If the blocking of information comes before...that is a doorslam. After...and that is just the end of relationship right?

regardless - its potential meaning can change, but for it's value, it doesn't matter when the information is formed, concluded, realized or resolved. the nature of the relationship changes - you don't need to kill a person mentally or force some pretend reality onto yourself (and possibly others around you) in which they dont exist. and seriously, expecting the rest of the world to follow and revolve around your own internal emotional scheduales and deadlines? as an adult?

 

[Ivy]

I'm just trying to get my head around this. In your opinion, people are not allowed to decide not to be involved with other people? Once you've formed a relationship, you're obligated to keep the lines open in some fashion with that person or you're guilty of "killing them mentally?"

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I can't remember at this point how "doorslam" was defined earlier with regards to this. But if the person who "chooses ignorance" is actually the person who wants to keep communicating- and they basically want to relentlessly keep communicating their own ignorance, in spite of being given a warning and being told what the problem is- I was under the impression that refusing to put up with their bullshit still fell under the parameters of "doorslam". But if it's only a "doorslam" if the person gives absolutely no indication there's even a problem or refuses to communicate the problem before disappearing, then I'm not sure my arguments in the latter half of this thread apply.

[edit:] Some comments made in the other thread SR started got me thinking about this- earlier on in the thread I think it was made clear, but I can't remember. The comments in the other thread lead me to believe people think "doorslam" implies absolutely no warning or attempts at communicating the problem (which- if the person is close- I agree is irresponsible).

 

[Fidelia]

I don't understand that either. There are simply some people who fade out of my life, or that I have decided aren't a good match for me. There simply isn't enough room for absolutely everyone you meet over the course of a lifetime. Additionally, if I decide someone has a detrimental effect on me, it's only common sense that I would choose not to spend time with them and in some cases, not to even communicate with them.

 

[Ivy]

Z Buck, that's not the definition of a doorslam I've been working under, either, and I think I've been very clear about that. Sounds like a huge to me.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I don't understand that either. There are simply some people who fade out of my life, or that I have decided aren't a good match in my life. There simply isn't enough room for absolutely everyone you meet over the course of a lifetime. Additionally, if I decide someone has a detrimental effect on me, I think it is only common sense that I would choose not to spend time with them and in some cases, even communicate with them.

And yeah, that's another thing, what was said in that thread about just sort of letting a friendship fade that wasn't close to begin with- even if it's done intentionally- I don't see that as a doorslam either. It's not a doorslam if the other person 'gets the hint' and things fade.

 

[Society]

I'm just trying to get my head around this. In your opinion, people are not allowed to decide not to be involved with other people? Once you've formed a relationship, you're obligated to keep the lines open in some fashion with that person or you're guilty of "killing them mentally?"

sorry for the misunderstanding - killing them mentally was a lame metaphor to trying to force a pretend world in which they dont' exist, not to anything your inflicting upon them.

and no - just because something is rediculesly immature and destructive to yourself and those around you doesn't mean you are obligated to not do it.. unless you've actualy made a commitment to the person but i'm guessing (optimistically) that at least most doorslams don't involve breaking those.

still, like cigaratte packs, there's some definete warning signs you should come with...

 

[Ivy]

sorry for the misunderstanding - killing them mentally was a lame metaphor to trying to force a pretend world in which they dont' exist, not to anything your inflicting upon them.

and no - just because something is rediculesly immature and destructive to yourself and those around you doesn't mean you are obligated to not do it.. unless you've actualy made a commitment to the person but i'm guessing (optimistically) that at least most doorslams don't involve breaking those.

still, like cigaratte packs, there's some definete warning signs you should come with...

This completely blows my mind. Doesn't seem to matter how badly the person treats me leading up to the decision not to be involved with them anymore, or whether I decide after learning more about them that we are not as compatible as I once thought- deciding not to engage with them anymore is "rediculesly immature and destructive to [my]self and those around [me]." (Sic.) I so fundamentally disagree with you.

The only warning sign I can think of that would apply to me is "Warning- is not a doormat and won't just keep taking your shit." A person gets PLENTY of chances-- too many, probably-- to stop being a dick to me, but if they don't stop being a dick to me, I'm not going to just take it. I'm going to go away. How that can be considered anything but being an adult with agency for myself and my own life is beyond me. Completely.

 

[Ivy]

sorry for the misunderstanding - killing them mentally was a lame metaphor to trying to force a pretend world in which they dont' exist, not to anything your inflicting upon them.

and no - just because something is rediculesly immature and destructive to yourself and those around you doesn't mean you are obligated to not do it.. unless you've actualy made a commitment to the person but i'm guessing (optimistically) that at least most doorslams don't involve breaking those.

still, like cigaratte packs, there's some definete warning signs you should come with...

This completely blows my mind. Doesn't seem to matter how badly the person treats me leading up to the decision not to be involved with them anymore, or whether after initially befriending them I decide upon learning more about them that we are not as compatible as I once thought- deciding not to engage with them anymore is "rediculesly immature and destructive to [my]self and those around [me]." [Sic.] I so fundamentally disagree with you.

The only warning sign I can think of that would apply to me is "Warning- is not a doormat and won't just keep taking your shit." A person gets PLENTY of chances-- too many, probably-- to stop being a dick to me, but if they don't stop being a dick to me, I'm not going to just take it. I'm going to go away. How that can be considered anything but being an adult with agency for myself and my own life is beyond me. Completely.

 

[KDude]

I've been doorslammed so hard I think I'm just numb at this point. Took awhile though. Nothing angers me more than trying to make an effort at openness, and having it fail. It's something I'm not good at, and to have it totally cheapened and disregarded is a sort of injustice.

 

[Society]

I don't understand that either. There are simply some people who fade out of my life, or that I have decided aren't a good match for me. There simply isn't enough room for absolutely everyone you meet over the course of a lifetime.

naturally they fade, you move, things change, sometimes you just don't really want to put an effort towards some people because others or other things in your life are more important to you, so you put them in a low priority and devote less time to them... and honestly if i really don't like someone and they aren't practical agents (bosses, connections, etc), i am not going to invest much energy in hiding it from them, it definetly encourages the fading.

one of the most surpirising reaction i got here - from silkroad i think - that if i dont doorslam people it means i maintain all of them... i don't see where this either/or thing is coming from. there's this whole wonderful shade of gray..

This completely blows my mind. Doesn't seem to matter how badly the person treats me leading up to the decision not to be involved with them anymore, or whether after initially befriending them I decide upon learning more about them that we are not as compatible as I once thought- deciding not to engage with them anymore is "rediculesly immature and destructive to [my]self and those around [me]." [Sic.] I so fundamentally disagree with you.

if I decide someone has a detrimental effect on me, it's only common sense that I would choose not to spend time with them and in some cases, not to even communicate with them.

have you ever done an experiment of sorts, as someone providing council to any two sides of a mutual conflict within a relationship? i've done it several times, and the same pattern always followed: first impression once you hear them both is that they weren't in the same relationship, at all... but from each description of the other, it always sounds like they both just had a conflict with redicuesly toxic people, they should practically just stick together to save the rest of humanity the trouble. then come the miscommunications - what meant what for whom - and your gradually getting a sense of the actual events and what they each got from it to mean about the other, which is almost always extremely disproportional to someone standing on the outside. third, come the reasons - the justifications - and more often then not they each unintentionally pushed the other into the behaviors that they where bothered by, often with positive intentions and expressions. they each blame the other and focus on the other as the factor, but more often then not its their own reactions to the nature of the relationship. sometimes there's value for them to get from resolving the conflict and maintaining the relationship, while at other times its the lessons that can only be understood about the affects of their own actions from the other person's perspective, and when those lessons are missed, the destructive patterns get repeated when the relationship with that nature gets repeated. knowing that and knowing that you are going to form new relationships with people that you'll care about, you want to grow in your capacity to act on it and learn from your mistakes. this is why regardless of the value of the relationship, the potential value of the information is always there, and it does change the value of the relationship, then its not something that was forced on you, its something that came to be because the information was releavent.

but hey, if someone runs after your family with a chainsaw - doorslam away...

 

[Fidelia]

Oh yeah - no I think it's important to glean all you can from relationships that have gone wrong and often that requires talking to the person themselves. On the other hand, I think there does come a time when the end of useful dialogue has been reached.

Most of my friends are either very close, or else are acquaintance friends. I don't have a lot in the middle. I wonder if this is why you are seeing some INFJs reacting in this manner to what you are suggesting. It's hard to have a shades of grey relationship with someone that occupies a primary spot in your life. If you have been emotionally invested, it's also difficult to be just an acquaintance friend. If endless effort has been invested only to result in frustration and hopelessness every time, the projected outcome seems poor. I realize that INFJs can be mistaken in their long range projections, especially under stress or without adequate information. I think though that the closure really seems to be needed in some way for them and if it can't be achieved through interaction, sometimes it is important to make some kind of a decision and step away, whether for a short time or a long time.

I'm gradually learning to not step away from conflict as much as I am naturally inclined to. Probably I have learned the most on this site from observing other people's misunderstandings and from even pursuing some conflict and following it through. I've had a couple of discussions with people that led us in the end to figuring out where our starting points differed - things that we didn't even think to articulate because they seemed so obvious, and it has been helpful to me in my real life interactions, as well as my modding ones on the site. I see the point you are making in that regard, and so assume that in the final analysis, it really does come down to a P vs J preference.

 

[Ivy]

Have you ever done an experiment of sorts, and volunteered in a battered women's shelter? Those are filled with people who, in many cases, believed as you do that they were wrong to consider shutting the door on their abusive spouse.

 

[Society]

On the other hand, I think there does come a time when the end of useful dialogue has been reached.

potentially important realizations, thoughts, understandings and changes - not claimed changes but evolved demonstratable ones - aspecially when they happen in other people then yourself, don't listen to your own deadlines and don't match your own emotional scheduales, and what you are capable of gaining from them changes based on where you are emotionally too. which is why forming an anti-information wall artifically always means missing vital information to consider from the other perspective - about yourself and about the person you doorslammed. its that willful ignorance that i have such a hard time bringing myself to understand or... well, respect.

Have you ever done an experiment of sorts, and volunteered in a battered women's shelter? Those are filled with people who, in many cases, believed as you do that they were wrong to consider shutting the door on their abusive spouse.

i'm actually not sure where i stand about this.

as a man, you have the sociological image of the wife-beater in your mind, a distinct monstrosity you really don't want to ever see yourself as. and aspecially as a large man, which my profile picture is probably telling, you also know that in order for a slap to have any real release for you and not be overburdened by extreme restraint, you would be taking the risk of physically harming her - aspecially with a petite woman, which my exwife was. and this puts you in a position where when she beats you or slaps you, you don't share the freedom to retaliate beyond taking hold of her arm if your lucky enough to grab it on time, which makes it feel like you have to just take it without retaliating because of your position and gender, and that she is exploiting her position and gender in doing so, its a one way road that is extremely unfair, and even though it may not be as physically painful as done the other way, probably not even close, its extremely demeaning and humiliating. the fact that its a lot more culturally acceptable further does the job of delegitmizing your feelings. then comes the question of doubt in her - would she restrain herself if she was a man and had the same sociological and physical concerns, or does she have the same core mentality as beating husbands regardless of her gender - the inabiltiy to control her anger and take responsibility for how she lets it out, and if that's the case, the biggest fear - if it happens to her with me, can i really trust that it would never happen to her with our son.

but - perhaps ironically to your example - throughout this conversation, whenever i've beig hearing the examples of one sided stories, whenever i have seen the depiction of cutting off the other's perspective, of blaming it all on the other side, how toxic/vampiric/[insert villanizing] they where, how the doorslammer feels they exhausted all other possibilities and had no choice, i can't help but think of the classic line from any book or media depicting a beating husband, in that moment after, when he look at the wife saying, "now look what you've made me do".

 

[SilkRoad]

i'm actually not sure where i stand about this.

as a man, you have the sociological image of the wife-beater in your mind, a distinct monstrosity you really don't want to ever see yourself as. and aspecially as a large man, which my profile picture is probably telling, you also know that in order for a slap to have any real release for you and not be overburdened by extreme restraint, you would be taking the risk of physically harming her - aspecially with a petite woman, which my exwife was. and this puts you in a position where when she beats you or slaps you, you don't share the freedom to retaliate beyond taking hold of her arm if your lucky enough to grab it on time, which makes it feel like you have to just take it without retaliating because of your position and gender, and that she is exploiting her position and gender in doing so, its a one way road that is extremely unfair, and even though it may not be as physically painful as done the other way, probably not even close, its extremely demeaning and humiliating. the fact that its a lot more culturally acceptable further does the job of delegitmizing your feelings. then comes the question of doubt in her - would she restrain herself if she was a man and had the same sociological and physical concerns, or does she have the same core mentality as beating husbands regardless of her gender - the inabiltiy to control her anger and take responsibility for how she lets it out, and if that's the case, the biggest fear - if it happens to her with me, can i really trust that it would never happen to her with our son.

but - perhaps ironically to your example - throughout this conversation, whenever i've beig hearing the examples of one sided stories, whenever i have seen the depiction of cutting off the other's perspective, of blaming it all on the other side, how toxic/vampiric/[insert villanizing] they where, how the doorslammer feels they exhausted all other possibilities and had no choice, i can't help but think of the classic line from any book or media depicting a beating husband, in that moment after, when he look at the wife saying, "now look what you've made me do".

What is the point of the above, regarding domestic violence? I am really not sure what you are getting at and I find it quite disturbing. Are you saying that all those women in the shelter have also been physically attacking their husbands? Or that it should be ok for a husband to hit his wife if she hits him? Or that wives generally hit their husbands?

In addition - your last paragraph - an abusive husband is the one who attacks his wife. You're saying that closing the door on someone and walking away is comparable to attacking them?

 

[SilkRoad]

And yeah, that's another thing, what was said in that thread about just sort of letting a friendship fade that wasn't close to begin with- even if it's done intentionally- I don't see that as a doorslam either. It's not a doorslam if the other person 'gets the hint' and things fade.

On the basis of all this I am not sure I have EVER done a doorslam. (Although, the difference is that the people I am thinking of were all close to me at some point.) I thought a "classic" doorslam was actually when you gave them a speech, then walked away and refused contact. Like I said in the other thread, I've done that, but did resolve things with both people after a few years.

I've refused to respond to attempts at contact, without explaining why (they ended up hearing more about the reasons through a mutual friend...) but the person made maybe three attempts and then stopped. I could have tried to resume contact but it would have been highly awkward under the circumstances and I didn't want to anyway. I have no idea how they feel about the whole situation. For all I know it could be anywhere from them feeling quite sad about the whole thing, to really caring very little.

I might be in the process of one now. Not sure yet. I view it more as shifting the burden of (basically) caring for someone who is mentally unstable, to those who should be more involved in the first place - ie. her parents and community.

I think I was semi-doorslammed by someone I used to be close to, after telling him I couldn't be his free therapist any more. I had said i was willing to continue a friendship if he didn't vent to me about his confused life any more, and he didn't want more contact after that. Although he did invite me to his leaving drinks before leaving the country. But then when I subsequently sent him a "hi" he was very cold and barely responded (but he did respond monosyllabically). I'm really not sure where that one falls.