the state i am in
Active member
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2009
- Messages
- 2,475
- MBTI Type
- infj
- Enneagram
- 5w4
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/sp
i'm having trouble balancing my desire to express my feelings and my desire to leave my partner alone and let her take care of her responsibilities and obligations stress free (from my direction, at least).
i understand Te better than i used to, but i don't feel like myself without expressing my feelings. attending to them, addressing them, communicating them, validating them, etc. i don't really know who i'm supposed to be if they are not or cannot be important enough to address, or i am having trouble filtering out which ones should be addressed and would be helpful to address, which ones i need to deal with on my own, and which are unhelpful and should stay private (and in the background) forever.
i know that many times when i try to do the suck it up and deal with it on your own approach it ends up making me feel toxic, and she immediately recognizes it. but while knowing something is wrong, i am obviously reluctant to talk about it, which causes more concern.
i can not feel the happy medium, constantly, between needing to communicate in a way that affects/effects her/us/the situation vs feeling like by being emotional and having desires, frustrations, emotional/relational responses, becoming upset by something, that i am being emotionally manipulative or passive aggressive. i oscillate between wanting to communicate everything, on the one hand, and feeling like i want to disappear without a material trace on the other. bc i can't make it just go away without it showing, without leaving some sort of mark, without making a sound.
what's worse is that she is a busy person, dealing with her own stresses, and i feel guilty that at times our relationship becomes a stress on her when she has very little buffer for that already. she says the relationship is anything but, and i know she absolutely WANTS to be in it as much as she wants anything else, but it still causes me much concern when i feel she may be sacrificing other aspects/needs to meet mine/ours.
any thoughts? does this resonate?
i understand Te better than i used to, but i don't feel like myself without expressing my feelings. attending to them, addressing them, communicating them, validating them, etc. i don't really know who i'm supposed to be if they are not or cannot be important enough to address, or i am having trouble filtering out which ones should be addressed and would be helpful to address, which ones i need to deal with on my own, and which are unhelpful and should stay private (and in the background) forever.
i know that many times when i try to do the suck it up and deal with it on your own approach it ends up making me feel toxic, and she immediately recognizes it. but while knowing something is wrong, i am obviously reluctant to talk about it, which causes more concern.
i can not feel the happy medium, constantly, between needing to communicate in a way that affects/effects her/us/the situation vs feeling like by being emotional and having desires, frustrations, emotional/relational responses, becoming upset by something, that i am being emotionally manipulative or passive aggressive. i oscillate between wanting to communicate everything, on the one hand, and feeling like i want to disappear without a material trace on the other. bc i can't make it just go away without it showing, without leaving some sort of mark, without making a sound.
what's worse is that she is a busy person, dealing with her own stresses, and i feel guilty that at times our relationship becomes a stress on her when she has very little buffer for that already. she says the relationship is anything but, and i know she absolutely WANTS to be in it as much as she wants anything else, but it still causes me much concern when i feel she may be sacrificing other aspects/needs to meet mine/ours.
any thoughts? does this resonate?