Do INFJs seem to have a hard time just accepting love?

[jupiterswoon]

It seems like every time I experience the joy of love, it scares me so much that I do something to sabotage it, or I feel like I owe the person who loves me. I'm wondering if this is a common trait among INFJs, and how do they deal with it? The emotions feel so strong inside of me, that sometimes unless I channel the depth of my love into something creative, that pent up unused emotion is then turned back in on itself.

Any other similar experiences? I just want to hear from people who are in love, no sad stories, no super-ultra personal stories, just how do INFJs deal with a strong emotion like love in the ideal way?

 

[Felidire]

I try to ignore it... and if it persists, then I'll try to befriend the person while still attempting to ignore it (because I think love is an extremely volatile and destructive emotion, but I have to care about someone in order to consider them an actual friend... and I have to be friends with someone before I can determine whether or not they're right for me.)

So yes, and no; it's distracting, and potentially damaging, but necessary.~

 

[CindyLou]

Yeah, I have a hard time.

 

[Neuro]

Ouch, that sounds very familiar... Never thought of it as a possible INFJ-trait, but I do certainly find it very hard to accept love (both from others and my own affection). I care for people and like to feel affectionate towards them, but it's scary and I do usually not know how to handle/express it properly so I just end up making an awkward mess of it all...

 

[Cornerstone]

I've definitely felt...undeserving...of love.
I've also perhaps had too vague and grandiose an idea of what love is so I didn't recognise the humble sparks that it begins with.

Right now, I think I'm feeling it. S'nice.
It's the feeling of reciprocal acceptance and that can't not bring you closer.
There are different kinds of love and for some people they are mutually exclusive but, in reality, it's all part of the same thing.
It feels easy and not dramatic like infatuation. It's intense enough to make you feel alive, but not so much as to cause distress.
It's not attachment, either. Though the possibility of the ending is maybe what also kept me at a slight distance, that...fear, I suppose...is starting to lose its grip.

 

[muir]

It seems like every time I experience the joy of love, it scares me so much that I do something to sabotage it, or I feel like I owe the person who loves me. I'm wondering if this is a common trait among INFJs, and how do they deal with it? The emotions feel so strong inside of me, that sometimes unless I channel the depth of my love into something creative, that pent up unused emotion is then turned back in on itself.

Any other similar experiences? I just want to hear from people who are in love, no sad stories, no super-ultra personal stories, just how do INFJs deal with a strong emotion like love in the ideal way?

Its interesting that you have put 'saturn' as your location under your avatar:

jupiterswoon

Community Member

Join DateMar 2012Posts243GenderFemale
LocationSaturn
MBTIINFJEnneagram5w6Threads28Blog Entries27


Saturn ate his own children. Its a metaphor for the cyclical universal energies returning into themselves

That might not be of any use to you, but i just thought it was strange after you said about emotions returning into themselves

What made you say saturn out of curiosity as your location....if you don't mind me asking? (if you don't want to say i won't be offended!)

 

[subwayrider]

Do INFJs seem to have a hard time just accepting love?

My problem is that I feel it so strongly for the other person, I wonder if they will ever be able to feel or even fathom the same love for me. I don't just want them to love me:

I want them to love me like they love Pac

- 50 Cent​

I look into the future and see exactly how it will end. I see them getting bored with me. I see them picking someone else. I see me not being enough.

In heart, I'm not one to be on an endless string of lovers, replacing one with another so as not to face that void of the previous. With this in mind, I thus only ever go for people I consider true "soul mates." I would feel guilty doing it any other way.

Sometimes, I do wish I could just play the field, to be young and to have fun -- but I've found that doesn't work for me. It just makes me more sad than to be alone. I don't do casual well. On the other hand, I'm not sure I could be in a long-term relationship because my imagination...might get the best of me. I'm prone to "grass is greener" thinking. A terrible predicament.

Deep down, I also feel that if anyone really knew very much about me, they would no longer want me. I don't want to lie. I would carry the guilt of my lies in the relationship and would be unable to enjoy it, anyway. A terrible predicament.

Life can still be good without a partner, though.

 

[subwayrider]

I've also perhaps had too vague and grandiose an idea of what love is so I didn't recognise the humble sparks that it begins with.

It's the feeling of reciprocal acceptance and that can't not bring you closer.
There are different kinds of love and for some people they are mutually exclusive but, in reality, it's all part of the same thing.
It feels easy and not dramatic like infatuation. It's intense enough to make you feel alive, but not so much as to cause distress.
It's not attachment, either. Though the possibility of the ending is maybe what also kept me at a slight distance, that...fear, I suppose...is starting to lose its grip.

I see people trying to pin down what "love really is" a lot.

Isn't it a, well...subjective experience?

I mean, in some ways it could more accurately be conceptualized as a spectrum containing: infatuation, familial, romantic, etc.

But you seem to have contradicted yourself.

Come to think: it's a, once again, problem of lack of determinacy and/or consensus on definitions -- a common underminer.

 

[barbad0s]

Saturn ate his own children.

groce

 

[Nixie]

Problems accepting love? Nahhhh

I think the issue for me is not overwhelming people with the amount of love I can give

I find this sentiment to be something INFJs should think about. Sometimes the overwhelming affection of those I don't really consider friends is discomforting.

Personally, I find that I am highly selective about allowing people close. I don't have a hard time giving affection once that particular bridge has been crossed but before that I am super reserved and ready to fly away at the slightest hint that things aren't copasetic. I can accept the affection of others and value the expression of that to me without feeling the guilty need to reciprocate though. However if I sense that there is an underlying need from the other person to create a bond when I don't feel the need to, it is discomforting.

 

[Cornerstone]

I see people trying to pin down what "love really is" a lot.

Isn't it a, well...subjective experience?

I mean, in some ways it could more accurately be conceptualized as a spectrum containing: infatuation, familial, romantic, etc.

But you seem to have contradicted yourself.

Come to think: it's a, once again, problem of lack of determinacy and/or consensus on definitions -- a common underminer.

I don't think love is ever disempowering. That's something else at work. Even in a sometimes, often or formerly loving relationship.

 

[Lemonworld]

Not me. Usually it's the opposite. I become disillusioned because I think the other person doesn't understand or appreciate the intensity of my feeling. As I get older I'm learning that it's not always about intensity of feeling, though. It's still hard for me to separate the two.

 

[muir]

groce

Yeah its a pretty sick concept when taken literally but its really just a personification of natural processes. Energy is never destroyed it just turns into something else (everything is energy including emotion)

Saturn was the father of time 'chronos' and is associated with death and materiality. Time is what anchors our perceptions and is what we construct our reality around; it is the mystics tell us an illusion....much like the kind of love portrayed in hollywood tearjerkers and it grounds us in material reality

I think people need to define love for themselves

 

[barbad0s]

I find this sentiment to be something INFJs should think about. Sometimes the overwhelming affection of those I don't really consider friends is discomforting.

Personally, I find that I am highly selective about allowing people close. I don't have a hard time giving affection once that particular bridge has been crossed but before that I am super reserved and ready to fly away at the slightest hint that things aren't copasetic. I can accept the affection of others and value the expression of that to me without feeling the guilty need to reciprocate though. However if I sense that there is an underlying need from the other person to create a bond when I don't feel the need to, it is discomforting.

I think it's harder to gage this sort of stuff over the interwebs too.

 

[jupiterswoon]

Its interesting that you have put 'saturn' as your location under your avatar:

jupiterswoon

Community Member

Join DateMar 2012Posts243GenderFemale
LocationSaturn
MBTIINFJEnneagram5w6Threads28Blog Entries27


Saturn ate his own children. Its a metaphor for the cyclical universal energies returning into themselves

That might not be of any use to you, but i just thought it was strange after you said about emotions returning into themselves

What made you say saturn out of curiosity as your location....if you don't mind me asking? (if you don't want to say i won't be offended!)

Well, I find the tangent interesting, so I'll go with it. The reason I chose Saturn is because I am a capricorn, and although I'm not really into astrology any more, I feel like a lot of the experiences in my life were ones that in retrospect, it's amazing that I bounced back from. I see Saturn as representing constriction, and yes eating his children. And I feel like I had to deal with that force for a long time, but it's been awhile since I've updated my profile, you could almost say Venus is my location now.

 

[jupiterswoon]

Its interesting that you have put 'saturn' as your location under your avatar:

jupiterswoon

Community Member

Join DateMar 2012Posts243GenderFemale
LocationSaturn
MBTIINFJEnneagram5w6Threads28Blog Entries27


Saturn ate his own children. Its a metaphor for the cyclical universal energies returning into themselves

That might not be of any use to you, but i just thought it was strange after you said about emotions returning into themselves

What made you say saturn out of curiosity as your location....if you don't mind me asking? (if you don't want to say i won't be offended!)

That was actually a pretty astute observation. I'm still thinking about it

 

[subwayrider]

I don't think love is ever disempowering. That's something else at work. Even in a sometimes, often or formerly loving relationship.

I guess it depends how one defines love.

 

[subwayrider]

Not me. Usually it's the opposite. I become disillusioned because I think the other person doesn't understand or appreciate the intensity of my feeling. As I get older I'm learning that it's not always about intensity of feeling, though. It's still hard for me to separate the two.

That's a classic Four trap.

FYI: Four integrates to One for personal growth.

 

[Azazel]

I think it happened to me once but not that love in the erotic sense... I mean not that kind. But it still happened.

More often than not, it is the opposite for me :tape: I try to let it slide sometimes and see what happens. However, it's very nice when everything syncs and in the place but how often does it happen, really.

 

[Haven]

Long story short, abandonment issues as a child and losing my grandfather at 18. Made me really bitter about love.