[MBTI General] INTP-ENFP Relationships: a few observations

[entropie]

Then we discover type theory and realize how wrong we've been all along

Lets just hope its not another cosmological constant.

 

[entropie]

I wanted to return to this thread to seek guidance on an issue that I often saw come up with my ISTP. I also see this same issue with my ENFP friend who was with an INTP, and have noted other ENFPs mention it as well in interactions with INTP family members-thus I think it is a IXTP characteristic.

I dunno what to call it exactly…cranky Ti? In my ISTP it comes across as extreme bitterness and grouchiness, resentment. It isn’t as a result of anything I do in particular, more just moodiness it seems, but while he is in this mood, if I make any requests, I get a scathing cold shoulder and am made to feel like crap. This was the single biggest issue in our marriage. When I encountered it, I want to yell and as it is so frustrating, but I always understood this would be nonproductive, so I just withdrew and ignored the behavior and just took responsibility for things myself, rather than deal with it.

Latest Example-

Our 4 yo son is diabetic. We have had a hard time tracking his carb intake and insulin intake on paper, as the sheets keep getting lost or the notebook gets forgotten as he shifts from house to house.

I found an rather expensive glucose meter that tracks blood glucose, but also allows you to enter carbs, specify the meal, specify the type of insulin given and the amount given. It tracks time of each event. Then you plug it into a PC and download all of the data at once into a program that allows for analysis of the data. (This sort of analysis is extremely important in understanding how a diabetic is responding to dosages of insulin and what types of foods impact blood glucose the fastest. It allows for tighter control of blood glucose in the long run, which reduces damage to the eyes, kidneys and peripheral nerves)

So this morning I showed the ISTP the meter-he got really irritable and said “there is no way I am doing this. I have to work a full time job, take care of a new born baby, take care of a diabetic four year old and I am not going to do this”.

I said “It requires four extra buttons to be pushed and takes ten seconds…” He then started slamming things around and being very cold. I said nothing and just watched him mess with it for a bit, then left.

The feelings this behavior invokes in me:

1) guilt that I have unfairly burdened another with extra work and made them unhappy, hurt/sadness/remorse and wondering what I can do to make things better….

2) followed promptly by a rebound anger-frustration (FUCK THIS) that he is making me feel bad over such a small task I have asked him to do, that is so important to our son’s health.

3) Then I proceed to get even more frustrated as I go over all the things I have to do everyday, due to his not being accountable or responsible enough to do them himself. (ie paying all of my daycare myself as he has too much debt to contribute child support, working two jobs and going to college as a single mom and missing a big part of my older son’s life after he left us as “he wasn’t ready to be a father”, getting up every night at 1 am to check my son’s blood sugar for the next five years, clawing my way out of a white trash future as a single mom, as I knew it was what I had to do for my kid to give him a good future, going to all of my kid’s dr and school appts, as he whines his way out of them, getting stuck with almost all of the debt when our relationship ended.…)

I do recognize that I am projecting my own immature, partially developed Te value judgments on him –ie (why cant you just be more responsible and accountable…like I had to learn to be??).

I also recognize that I am provoking his Ti in an odd way by requesting he do extra work in a predefined manner-ie (This is what you need to do…because it is the best answer to solve the problem.)

Questions:
What is the best, most productive way to deal with this Ti bitterness?

Assuming I am not the root cause, how can I interact productively with it when I happen to stumble into it?

Additionally, how can I make very direct requests for things I do need him to take ownership of, without him feeling like I am bossing him around and then getting resentful?

Thanks!

Its not Ti bitterness, its him who propably feels overstrained. Some people dont easily cope with emotions like others do and especially your situation seems to need a lot of coping.

I wouldnt worry so much about the details that lead to conflicts, I'ld rather try to get him to open up and to listen to his story.

 

[Redbone]

I wanted to return to this thread to seek guidance on an issue that I often saw come up with my ISTP. I also see this same issue with my ENFP friend who was with an INTP, and have noted other ENFPs mention it as well in interactions with INTP family members-thus I think it is a IXTP characteristic.

I dunno what to call it exactly…cranky Ti? In my ISTP it comes across as extreme bitterness and grouchiness, resentment. It isn’t as a result of anything I do in particular, more just moodiness it seems, but while he is in this mood, if I make any requests, I get a scathing cold shoulder and am made to feel like crap. This was the single biggest issue in our marriage. When I encountered it, I want to yell and as it is so frustrating, but I always understood this would be nonproductive, so I just withdrew and ignored the behavior and just took responsibility for things myself, rather than deal with it.

Latest Example-

Our 4 yo son is diabetic. We have had a hard time tracking his carb intake and insulin intake on paper, as the sheets keep getting lost or the notebook gets forgotten as he shifts from house to house.

I found an rather expensive glucose meter that tracks blood glucose, but also allows you to enter carbs, specify the meal, specify the type of insulin given and the amount given. It tracks time of each event. Then you plug it into a PC and download all of the data at once into a program that allows for analysis of the data. (This sort of analysis is extremely important in understanding how a diabetic is responding to dosages of insulin and what types of foods impact blood glucose the fastest. It allows for tighter control of blood glucose in the long run, which reduces damage to the eyes, kidneys and peripheral nerves)

So this morning I showed the ISTP the meter-he got really irritable and said “there is no way I am doing this. I have to work a full time job, take care of a new born baby, take care of a diabetic four year old and I am not going to do this”.

I said “It requires four extra buttons to be pushed and takes ten seconds…” He then started slamming things around and being very cold. I said nothing and just watched him mess with it for a bit, then left.

The feelings this behavior invokes in me:

1) guilt that I have unfairly burdened another with extra work and made them unhappy, hurt/sadness/remorse and wondering what I can do to make things better….

2) followed promptly by a rebound anger-frustration (FUCK THIS) that he is making me feel bad over such a small task I have asked him to do, that is so important to our son’s health.

3) Then I proceed to get even more frustrated as I go over all the things I have to do everyday, due to his not being accountable or responsible enough to do them himself. (ie paying all of my daycare myself as he has too much debt to contribute child support, working two jobs and going to college as a single mom and missing a big part of my older son’s life after he left us as “he wasn’t ready to be a father”, getting up every night at 1 am to check my son’s blood sugar for the next five years, clawing my way out of a white trash future as a single mom, as I knew it was what I had to do for my kid to give him a good future, going to all of my kid’s dr and school appts, as he whines his way out of them, getting stuck with almost all of the debt when our relationship ended.…)

I do recognize that I am projecting my own immature, partially developed Te value judgments on him –ie (why cant you just be more responsible and accountable…like I had to learn to be??).

I also recognize that I am provoking his Ti in an odd way by requesting he do extra work in a predefined manner-ie (This is what you need to do…because it is the best answer to solve the problem.)

Questions:
What is the best, most productive way to deal with this Ti bitterness?

Assuming I am not the root cause, how can I interact productively with it when I happen to stumble into it?

Additionally, how can I make very direct requests for things I do need him to take ownership of, without him feeling like I am bossing him around and then getting resentful?

Thanks!

I don't think this is Ti bitterness. I think this is the kind of reaction a person may see when someone is already burdened, experiences a lot of upset/stress from those burdens, and gets upset when asked to do 'one more thing'. Even so, stressed or not, it's his responsibility to deal with this.

I can understand being upset about it, too. It doesn't seem like Te-projection. You're just trying to get things done. There's a task, a very important one that is tied up in your little person's health, that needs to be taken care of.

Not sure about what to suggest to fix this. You've already pretty much streamlined everything so that it will actually be easier than keeping a notebook. Hopefully this will sink into his head and he will get with the program.

 

[mmhmm]

1. personal vs. impersonal (Fi vs Ti)

which means the INTP says totally impersonal things that the ENFP interprets personally and feels like they are all about themself and gets hurt (and points out what a meanie the INTP is), and the ENFP says personal things that the INTP takes impersonally and the ENFP's point is lost and the INTP feels like they have not been listened to/understood and gets hurt (and points out what a dunderhead the ENFP is).

i suspect part of why mmhmm and jock are so good for each other is she is a less-personally-sensitive ENFP and from my own experience i imagine that smooths a lot of things.

i don't think i'm less-personally-sensitive really. but i do think i'm very aware of what triggers my sensitivity. and i'm very careful at constructing buffers so that those triggers aren't usually revealed.

because when i do become sensitive, i realize that it's 'my' thing and i'm able to (most of the time) separate that from the issue at hand and won't point fingers and blame people for being meanies. i see my own sensitivity as my own issue, and never expect anyone to tread on eggshells just because i can't handle my own shit. i mean it wouldn't be very fair or pleasant at all and i'm not dating a fucking doormat.

plus i know he won't put up with that shit. which i reallllllllllllllly like. because it makes me work on my own personal faults, i mean in mushy terms, being with him puts me in my best-self zone where instead of freaking the shit out and smearing emotional guilt trips up and down or glorifying something inane like stomping my feet and huffing and puffing, we discuss and work through things.

relationship-wise, [MENTION=5639]JocktheMotie[/MENTION] and i get along very well because we have an incredibly open communication style.

see? this is our actual chat transcript from just a few minutes ago, he describes it better than i do:

me: what is the word i'm looking for?
"jockthemotie and i get along very well
because we have an incredibly open communication ...."
platform?
arena?
jock: mmhmm
me: ?
platform is the word?
jock: both work i suppose
me: i like how i ask you
about what i'm going to write about you
ahahahhahaa
HAHAHAHA
jock: incredibly open communication style I suppose
hahahah
me: STYLEEEE
YES!
jock: like from the get go
me: joooop
jock: there's just this understanding
me: big wet slopy kiss for you
jock: that we can say anything
and the other person isn't going to necessarily
shut down freak out
in the moment
handle it like adult
maybe later
can sulk go crazy
haha
like when you deflate
me: ~~~~~~​

2. logic (dom Ti vs tert Te)
ie, dom Ti takes a lot longer than ENFP Te. ENFP Te is a lot more cursory than dom Ti. dom Ti sometimes makes everyone wait on it and is incredibly perfectionistic. ENFP Te will chuck your things out left and right because it don't have much patience for impersonal things that don't seem to matter much to us. (jock is also right about ENFP tendency to glorify Te. i think this is less because we think it is cute and more because it helps us actually do measurably productive things in the real world, which we would probably tend not to do otherwise.)

i really love this aspect of jock. i like the sense of balance it injects into our interaction. he sees all these things i would've otherwise missed--couple that with the fact that i know how brash i can be, this quality within him really creates and nurtures an environment where i want to consult with him on things, to gain perspective. i observe and learn from how he approaches things through the manifestations of his actions. i don't know how his brain works, but i love the way it works, the output of it and oh golly, just how spot-on it is. very, very hot. it's just so different from how i approach things. i mean i see it as like a real live catalogue of all these good traits that i can pick and choose and then synthesize and make it my own.

actually, i have no idea if what i said is even about Ti or Te. so i'm not going to go through the other functions and stuff because i think at the end of the day jock and i aren't the type of people that deduce our relationship and connection into cognitive functions. we have mutual respect for one another, we're nice to each other and aren't trying to cut one another down into little shreds or try to make the other person feel bad if we're trying to make sense of something. and we celebrate our individual differences and delight in the bits that overlap.

 

[Poki]

i really love this aspect of jock. i like the sense of balance it injects into our interaction. he sees all these things i would've otherwise missed--couple that with the fact that i know how brash i can be, this quality within him really creates and nurtures an environment where i want to consult with him on things, to gain perspective. i observe and learn from how he approaches things through the manifestations of his actions. i don't know how his brain works, but i love the way it works, the output of it and oh golly, just how spot-on it is. very, very hot. it's just so different from how i approach things. i mean i see it as like a real live catalogue of all these good traits that i can pick and choose and then synthesize and make it my own.

actually, i have no idea if what i said is even about Ti or Te. so i'm not going to go through the other functions and stuff because i think at the end of the day jock and i aren't the type of people that deduce our relationship and connection into cognitive functions. we have mutual respect for one another, we're nice to each other and aren't trying to cut one another down into little shreds or try to make the other person feel bad if we're trying to make sense of something. and we celebrate our individual differences and delight in the bits that overlap.

Its fun to play with things like functions, but yeah, at the end of the day functions is just a tool that can be used in so many different ways in regard to communication from serious to joking

 

[Sloth]

I don't think it's a Ti/Te conflict, I think it's a Fe/Fi conflict.

I've known a few confirmed ENFPs and any time we conflicted it was for emotional reasons, not intellectual. INTPs are sensitive people beneath the surface, and ENFPs are not (I'm a female so the problems I've faced with this have been exacerbated in some crazy ways). On the surface they come across as the opposite: INTPs experience emotions very intensely so when we express them externally it comes out awkward, wrong, like a joke, and just overall incorrect. We get a much better response from people when we express our thoughts instead because we're much more comfortable and able to navigate them than our emotions (and correct me if I'm wrong but I think we're probably the only type that can think ourselves out of being overly emotional). ENFPs are the opposite in the sense that they're better able to navigate their emotions than their thoughts. When ENFPs are emotional, it's a lot more "normal" and "usual" so ENFPs get the thumbs up from society for expressing their feelings no matter how they may feel.

They're usually very jolly and happy and make it easy to come out of my shell (which has made me want to get close to them in the past, but I have realized that a deep connection with them is tricky as an INTP). The closer I've gotten to ENFPs the more I end up not being able to trust them. They aren't sensitive to how INTPs view and interpret situations, and often do things that have seemed almost hurtful until I forced my Ti to take over my Fe (as usual) and realized that they just simply don't approach the world the way I do. My more superficial relationships with ENFPs have gone very well, and they're very fun to be around. It gets a little tough trying to explain all the subtle nuances to ideas I've come up with, but that seems to be an extrovert thing (except ENTPs in good moods).

ENFPs seem gullible and easily fooled through INTP eyes, which also adds to my inability to trust them in the end. They often make, what seem to me, very obvious flaws in thinking. It makes me uneasy when they have no desire to improve their thinking abilities (which makes sense since they're already so naturally good at connecting with people and bringing up the energy of a situation that there isn't a need).

Moral of the story: INTP/ENFP close relationships are probably not a great idea, but they are fun people to know and be in a group with. All the ENFPs I've known have been very nice and well intentioned people even though we operate very differently and can't do well with a deep intimate connection.

 

[Poki]

I don't think it's a Ti/Te conflict, I think it's a Fe/Fi conflict.

I've known a few confirmed ENFPs and any time we conflicted it was for emotional reasons, not intellectual. INTPs are sensitive people beneath the surface, and ENFPs are not (I'm a female so the problems I've faced with this have been exacerbated in some crazy ways). On the surface they come across as the opposite: INTPs experience emotions very intensely so when we express them externally it comes out awkward, wrong, like a joke, and just overall incorrect. We get a much better response from people when we express our thoughts instead because we're much more comfortable and able to navigate them than our emotions (and correct me if I'm wrong but I think we're probably the only type that can think ourselves out of being overly emotional). ENFPs are the opposite in the sense that they're better able to navigate their emotions than their thoughts. When ENFPs are emotional, it's a lot more "normal" and "usual" so ENFPs get the thumbs up from society for expressing their feelings no matter how they may feel.

They're usually very jolly and happy and make it easy to come out of my shell (which has made me want to get close to them in the past, but I have realized that a deep connection with them is tricky as an INTP). The closer I've gotten to ENFPs the more I end up not being able to trust them. They aren't sensitive to how INTPs view and interpret situations, and often do things that have seemed almost hurtful until I forced my Ti to take over my Fe (as usual) and realized that they just simply don't approach the world the way I do. My more superficial relationships with ENFPs have gone very well, and they're very fun to be around. It gets a little tough trying to explain all the subtle nuances to ideas I've come up with, but that seems to be an extrovert thing (except ENTPs in good moods).

ENFPs seem gullible and easily fooled through INTP eyes, which also adds to my inability to trust them in the end. They often make, what seem to me, very obvious flaws in thinking. It makes me uneasy when they have no desire to improve their thinking abilities (which makes sense since they're already so naturally good at connecting with people and bringing up the energy of a situation that there isn't a need).

Moral of the story: INTP/ENFP close relationships are probably not a great idea, but they are fun people to know and be in a group with. All the ENFPs I've known have been very nice and well intentioned people even though we operate very differently and can't do well with a deep intimate connection.

I think tertiary Te combined with inferior Si would be the quickest thing to rub an INTP the wrong way.