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Being INFP

9K views 19 replies 10 participants last post by  AFEH 
#1 ·
I don't know how many of you believe in personality testing but it seems to be pretty accurate.

I'm an INFP personality. Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving. (INFP Profile)

I'm not sure what CanteYola is but he definitely is an introvert at least (he hasn't done the personality test for this).

Do any of you others know what yours is and your spouses are? How does this play a role in your communication? How you perceive each other? Even how you deal with each other on a daily basis?

Relationship Pairs: Definitions

A little more information on personality types can be seen on typelogic if you aren't sure about it.
 
#2 ·
Every time I take these MBTI tests I am always "I.N." but the last two always differ. I just did a quick one and I came up as INTJ this time (as I have before), though sometimes it says INTP, INFJ or INFP. I guess I'm a INXX. My stbxw is most assuredly a ESFJ. I don't have a clue how any of this played a part in our marital breakdown, normally I'd want to find out but with her it is just too damn complicated.
 
#3 ·
I'm also an INFP. Thought we were "rare."

Married an ESTJ. I believe the differences that seemed so interesting 15 years ago were part of the reason that we eventually couldn't keep it all together.

Opposites attract maybe - but do they truly compliment each other in the long run?
 
#6 ·
Do you all find the descriptions of the personalities accurate? For me, dead on of who I am and how I function. Seriously scary how dead on mine is.

I've heard that INFP'ers are extremely rare...diamond in the rough perhaps...

Nice777Guy - do you have a highly creative side (writing, art, or other). I'm a writer myself. Extremely high level vernacular too. I am also a spelling and grammar psycho, I have a hard time not copy editing everything either in my head or out right (my writing).

I am so anal about it that if books have mistakes I shake my head and correct it as I'm reading (not that psycho that I write in the book though).
 
#11 ·
I absolutely LOVE reading about the temperments, I have many books on these things. I have found that people who get a handle on their INBORN temperments -and that of thier spouses -are far more likely to understand themselves & each other. Even come to ACCEPT themselves more so for some of the behaviors we may not like a whole lot in ourselves, but at least we learn what we are dealing with.... each temperment has it's strenghts & weaknesses, none is better than another in reality , it is a blessing the world is full of such different people. And often Opposites DO attact and work very well. Me & my husband are night and day in a few things, but we have found it a blessing.

A leapord will never change his spots, but he can strive to be the Best darn leaoprd he can be.

I did a thread on this very subject....... http://talkaboutmarriage.com/genera...ments-our-spouses-better-understand-them.html


.... I am an ES(T split with F)J, and my husband is a ISFJ, so we accually THINK very much alike but I am more anaytical having more THINKING , and being Extroverted over his Introverted.

Also I am a Choleric /Melencholy and he is a Phlegmatic /Melencholy which often works very well in marraige as a Firey assertive even demanding lack of patience Choleric will often be well matched with a calmer partner like a Phlegmatic (who is more passive, more patient but needs a little Ommph in his life & someone to get him on the ball as he likes to relax alot, and take it easy). Where I am strong, he is weak, where He is strong , I am weak... so when our 2 halves come together, especially with our refining much of our weaknesses, we make a glorious whole.
 
#12 ·
My stbxw is ISTJ I’m ENFP/J. “Opposites” in everything. My wife is even an extreme introvert (95%) and I was an extreme extrovert (95%, been working that). In our case it was opposites attracting like powerful magnets, irresistible, passionate attraction.

Carl Jung the eminent psychologist who came up with the descriptive words of Introversion/Extroversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling (Judging/Perceiving are Myers Briggs) speaks of these opposites attracting and coming together to “make one” for the role of building a marriage, a home, bringing up children etc. In that one person does not have all the necessary traits, attitudes and skills to do these things on their own. The failures of the majority of single parent families attest to this.

But Carl Jung also talks of what happens when the child rearing is over and the children have flown the nest. And in particular what happens if the couple have enough money so they are not troubled financially. Up until this time the couple have been kind of “back to back” working as a team in their own “couples world”. But at this time when their major objectives have been completed they turn around and actually see one another maybe for the first time in a really long time.

What happens next is very interesting. They do find that they are truly opposite and have more or less opposite ideas of where their lives should go, which paths to take, at this stage of their lives. So there are two struggles. The first entails each getting to really know the other and the second entails choosing which path to take. This was an immensely enjoyable but at the same time stressful time in my marriage to my wife. We tried both paths, both “new worlds”. My wife’s was for things to remain as they were. That was what was stressful for me, I wanted out of that world but at the same time for us to stay together. This went on for 5 years or so.

Then my wife tried my new world and she was with me for two years. She settled but didn’t settle and was very conflicted. In the end she went back to our original country. I couldn’t live in her world and she couldn’t live in mine. Although I have heard she wants back but now I couldn’t take the disruptions brought about by our opposite natures no matter how much I loved her in the past or how much I could love her again. She has to change for that to happen.
 
#13 ·
My stbxw is ISTJ I’m ENFP/J. “Opposites” in everything. My wife is even an extreme introvert (95%) and I was an extreme extrovert (95%, been working that). In our case it was opposites attracting like powerful magnets, irresistible, passionate attraction.
Yep, this is what this my "Please Understand Me" books says...

...."Now who would enjoy this frisky bubbly -yet serious--person? The Rock of Gibralter, of coarse--ISTJ, the trustee, who revels in keeping the books in order , balancing the budget, securing and ensuriing, stabilizing and steading, honornig contracts, keeping the ship on a steady course, and shipshape, delights also in providing anchorage & safe harbor for the heradic ENFP". Also says INTJ would be a suitable match.

AFEH, wouldn't you say this... had your wife got a handle on her weaknesses & turned them into at least half strengths, used them to help the marriage instead of hinder it, I bet you would still be married today , and happily...... Like the passive aggressive thing, it has to be a fact that the introverted suffer more from this issue, while the extroverted suffer more from being a Bull to explosion when we are upset. One needs to tone it down, the other needs to let it out.

I can tell you , my temperment can be a like a Mack truck IF I allow it (notice Martha Stewart for the Poster child on the "Thinking" aspect anyway) ...and what does it say...."RUN"! I am capable of going too far in wanting things DONE...and NOW....and in a certain way... I research everything to a fine degree and inwardly think I am always right. If I allowed myself to conduct myself in this manner with everyone in my life, noone would be able to stand me!! They'd all be lining up inwardly wanting to do this ... :BoomSmilie_anim::BoomSmilie_anim::cussing:

I recognized when I started reading this stuff, I had many of those unfavorable choleric traits and some melancholy ones too (trying to be a perfectionist) in my youth. I was lucky my husband had the patience to put up with me, I surely had my moments! I could never stand Sanguines drowning in thier weaknesses, as they were the most irresponsible ones in the bunch, they forget everything they promise, rarely can you count on them to finish a project, they are too busy talking & charming, goofing off . Oh did such things irritate me.

But I have worked to overcome much of these overly judgemental weaknesses for the most part, toned down my expectations of others. One of my best friends told me a few years back that I used to "intimidate" her when we were in High School. And I was even SHY back then. I had no idea! She says I am so much better today, even ALOT more laid back than I used to be, some may even think I am a cheerfully optimistic Sanquine -if they was to guess by how I conduct myself , but so not the case.


For every thread like this - I simply MUST add this saying.... also from the book ... Amazon.com: Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types (9780960695409): David Keirsey, Marilyn Bates: Books


"Different Drums for Different Drummers"

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.

Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.

Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.

Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be. I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself to the possibility that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear as right--- FOR ME. To put up with me is the 1st step to understanding me.

Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague. But whatever our relation, this I know: You are I are fundamentally

different and both of us have to march to our own drummer.
 
#20 ·
Very well done with your “recovery job”! Humility is a wonderful trait, but can be hard got.

One of the reasons I readily forgive is so I can see and understand my role in whatever happened. And because I was “there” I sure as heck played some kind of a role in what got me hurt. This is totally different to say being knocked down by a drunken driver while waiting at a bus stop. In that case, we’re an innocent bystander. But in marriage, for example, are we ever an innocent bystander? My answer is no. There will be something we’ve done in the past that contributed to our pain, the pain we need to forgive the person for.

But if we cannot see that contribution of ours then we sure as heck are going to repeat the same mistakes. And “forgiving first” takes away our angst, our bitterness and resentment and need for revenge, freeing us up to “maybe” see how we contributed to what happened. I could never get that philosophy of life through to my wife, no matter what or how hard I tried. So I came to see my contribution to the pain I got from my wife was my lack of boundaries. That I contributed to the abuse from my wife by forgiving without boundaries. It’s what the “helplessly abused” do! Think on a child for a bit, a child who cannot enforce boundaries and stop the abuse. As an adult I can obviously enforce my boundaries. Just that I wasn’t aware of the things, I didn’t even know they existed! I had some sure, but only subconsciously, never consciously.

And “forgiving first” when hurt, before anything else, lets us be cool calm and collected and really think things through. It is immensely hard to do sometimes, forgive first. But if we do we are better able to see our role in whatever happened. I think that’s when we begin to understand what humility really is. It’s a quality I’m trying to gain but I struggle with that one.

But saying all that I am so bitter and resentful towards my stbx it’s unbelievable. I have actually come to hate her. And the reason I hate her is for her bitterness and resentment against me! Crazy or what? But unlike my wife, I could never live with her while I have this stuff inside of me. How on earth she lived with me thinking about me in the ways I now know for certain she did is way way beyond me.
 
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