[Still catching up/haven't read all...]
I’m hearing people say, “You may THINK it’s about self-preservation and unbalanced relationships….but that’s a defense mechanism on your part, you only believe it because you can’t handle the truth.†I have had my share of people who will try using reasoning like this to convince me a relationship is balanced when it really isn't- what’s actually going on is the person is spinning things around, trying to explain how *I* am the one with the defense mechanism causing a problem, all so that they don’t have to look at
themselves.
This is why I often find this thread heinous and manipulative, because it is triggering the memory of dealing with this before. If I see someone’s focus being exclusively on what someone else is doing wrong- explaining how the other person’s defense mechanisms are supposedly causing problems, with little or no credible explanation of how they know it isn't their own defense mechanism kicking in (to come up with a narrative about how someone else’s reasoning is ‘off’ to protect their ego from the fact that someone might actually have a good reason for avoiding them)- then I can’t help but
suspect they are doing something I have experienced in my own past: someone getting manipulative with the truth to protect their own ego, and then accusing the other person of being the one who is doing it.
Ne can have a tendency to look outward and direct reality in a remarkably self-serving way- it does so with the ‘informing’ approach to dialogue, which is to say it’s more ‘explaining’ with a bunch of shapeshifty logic than using forceful language like Je does- but it’s still very much an attempt to direct the perception of other people. There are some Ne doms (and even aux) who seem so accustomed to doing this- who are so quick with words and convenient narrative, stories just *pop* into their head to explain away discomfort- that it seems to me like they don’t even begin to realize the extent to which they seem to feel entitled to direct the perceptions of other people. Where/when I see this going on- and Ni is pretty sensitive to it, it comes across as an almost desperate attempt to rationalize/explain a very short-sighted ‘truth’ (and it comes across as manipulative, or treating someone as if they’re stupid enough to believe the thesis that’s being put forth)- I tend to have little patience and won’t give that person’s voice much credit for very long. If that person can’t handle stopping to think a little harder about what they’re saying, I’m not sure why I owe it to them to point out the serious logistical flaws in what they're putting forth (which Ni picks up on immediately- though it can be insanely difficult to articulate, and takes a ridiculous amount of effort). [eta: Starry actually kind of just said the same thing I did in this last paragraph- only I'd say it's something that's true about all NP, not just NFPs.]
So, [MENTION=5871]Southern Kross[/MENTION], I
think that’s what yehgor was getting at with this:
You are missing the "intent" component...
We (or at least *I*) understand that an INFJ is capable of *thinking* I am backing away from an ‘unhealthy’ relationship- when in fact I’m backing away from something I simply don’t like and don’t want to believe about myself (and in doing so I’m backing away from an opportunity to grow). But I
also know that someone is capable of trying to explain to me this is the reason I’m backing away….as a defense mechanism
of their own, all because they can’t face there might be some very good reason why I’m backing away. This is why 'intent' matters. I think ultimately the only way to find the truth in such situations is to bring in trusted/objective 3rd parties to find out exactly which end (if not both) is doing this more.