I hope this isn't triggering for anyone, just some sad stuff here. Warning in advance so I don't hurt anyone if they are prone to depression. Just trying to make sure how I am reacting to this is "normal."
For those INFJ's out there who were denied a chance to have a serious relationship by their parent(s), whether because of a priority set FOR you such as studying, earning money, a specific career, etc throughout your public school years or even onward during your university life (taking distance courses or having family intervene often while living away from home), how did this effect you? Did it ever work out that you found someone and achieved a relationship, a family? Did they ever back down? How did you get around it?
For those INFJ's that were lucky and did not have this happen to them, can you please hypothesis how this might have effected you?
Would you be very depressed, would you be very angry at yourself (or specific others), would you hold a grudge, would you be snappy at people (even those that aren't involved in the problem), would you turn bitter to the world, would you isolate even more? Would you be "turned off" of having a relationship? If not then what?
Who here (INFJ's) sees a love life (the relationship, not so much just sex) as a cornerstone of their overall life, of their "future oriented" self? As the central piece? What other "big ticket" things do you live for?
The following is more about my specific situation, if you can please answer the above first before reading the rest as to not let it influence you...thanks.
I've now had my family (well one divorced parent and fellow siblings) drive off all three of the relationships (all long-distance) I have tried to have, all in my university years and afterwards. Two of these were for three years each before my family took them serious and intervened "on my behalf" by "counseling me on my options." One relationship they told me is "not the life we want for you" and "you can't take care of her" because she was unable to walk and needed a motorized chair to be mobile due to a muscle disease. After she managed to visit my hometown once, three years into the relationship, I was pressured into giving up that relationship by constant shaming of my own physical weakness/stature, that I could never "afford" to look after her, etc. I believe that if you really care about someone things can be worked out, but no they wouldn't have it. I was too young to stand up for myself then, with low selfesteem and un-confident in relationships.
Another relationship they flat out told me and her we weren't in love because we had never met yet and people can't fall in love over a distance, it was just "infatuation." My family also worried I would move to where she was living and so made sure her family didn't approve of me in return, before I even had the chance to meet them, thus ending the relationship. In her culture family approval was important. I was told I didn't plan ahead, what would happen if she couldn't come here, what would I do then? So don't even bother try, is the underlying tone I received. We didn't have a chance to actually meet yet to SEE if we could make things work. Aren't you suppose to take one step at a time?
The most recent relationship was for six years, some trouble with country passport restrictions meant we couldn't meet up as soon as planned around years 3&4. My family thought the relationship would just fizzle out. However when things started to fall in place for us to meet my family started attacking my girlfriend's credibility saying prejudice things, and even claiming she was a "scam artist" since our government puts out warnings of such activity from the country she hails from. I had to warn my girlfriend about their behavior and that made it even worse and their attacks were more frequent and stronger after they all knew this was said. We both did everything we could think of to back up her life story, identity and true feelings (without seeming to be infatuated, but actually serious.) She was told first to wait several months, than half a year and finally a whole year before visiting me "to prove her loyalty" as I had so much do to! My mother went so far as to denying me to fly to her country as it was unsafe (and she would make my life hell if I tried) and saying she would travel with me (or rather follow without my consent) wherever I went to meet her otherwise. Their reasons she had to wait also included that I had to focus on my career after coming out of university to get a decent permanent position (interviews), and everything else in between down to needing to get my car tires changed and car undercoated for winter was cited as excuses to prevent me from traveling to see her. They said anything they could to make the relationship seem "difficult" from the outset, making sure she overheard phrases during our skype chats like "that if we got married I had to have a 'prenub' to make sure she didn't get half 'my stuff and money', etc" and other rather rude comments at the relationship stage of things. Again I was told I don't know my own feelings and we can't be in love if we never met. Lines and lines of shaming and guilt attacks: "I guess you don't love us anymore, maybe you wish we were better off dead." No one can withstand such abuse or waiting around forever for a relationship. I feel guilty for hurting those I loved and "wasting their life, feelings of love," because of what my family has done to them and me. I have made some of them wait for me far longer than they should, trying to smooth things over first and not loose them or my family, but also I didn't have a choice.
My family is divorced, my aging mother and one sibling needs some moderate home care, but has no one left in the family that will supply it other than myself and one other sibling. Most of these attacks are 4 on 1 against me, and I am the "angry, lost, blind, bad" one in them all. Both myself and one other sibling have been forced into a codependent relationship through years of "sheltering" and "shaming/guilt tripping" and well "many other factors/situations" outside the family relationship dynamic, that have befallen me or us, and since she has no one left, I am left with little choice but to maintain the connection that hurts me so.
I feel I don't have much time left to start a serious relationship in time to have a family, as I know past a certain age it is less healthy for newborns if the parents are older. It takes me years to open up enough to start a serious relationship, and much longer to find someone worthy of one, given my abysmal relationship skills from my upbringing. That said after all I have been through, the hurt I feel I have caused others, and the hurt I have myself I am very much turned off having a relationship at all right now. It will take sooo long to recover from just that!
Please, please no comments about "Grow up!, Man up!, Tell them to f*** off. Get out of there! Your too old to let people tell you what to do, etc" you don't know me, you don't know what other factors and misfortunes have befallen me or my family, ailments, disabilities, natural events (fires, floods, etc), housing situations/available work, just about anything else that have influenced or helped to pin me to this condition and family dynamic, living nearby and forced to continually deal with these poisonous relations on an everyday basis, without much of a chance for escape. Trust me I have tried cutting ties, but I am still required to lend aid and assistance as a caretaker, as a result my life is never my own but constantly meddled with.
For those INFJ's out there who were denied a chance to have a serious relationship by their parent(s), whether because of a priority set FOR you such as studying, earning money, a specific career, etc throughout your public school years or even onward during your university life (taking distance courses or having family intervene often while living away from home), how did this effect you? Did it ever work out that you found someone and achieved a relationship, a family? Did they ever back down? How did you get around it?
For those INFJ's that were lucky and did not have this happen to them, can you please hypothesis how this might have effected you?
Would you be very depressed, would you be very angry at yourself (or specific others), would you hold a grudge, would you be snappy at people (even those that aren't involved in the problem), would you turn bitter to the world, would you isolate even more? Would you be "turned off" of having a relationship? If not then what?
Who here (INFJ's) sees a love life (the relationship, not so much just sex) as a cornerstone of their overall life, of their "future oriented" self? As the central piece? What other "big ticket" things do you live for?
The following is more about my specific situation, if you can please answer the above first before reading the rest as to not let it influence you...thanks.
I've now had my family (well one divorced parent and fellow siblings) drive off all three of the relationships (all long-distance) I have tried to have, all in my university years and afterwards. Two of these were for three years each before my family took them serious and intervened "on my behalf" by "counseling me on my options." One relationship they told me is "not the life we want for you" and "you can't take care of her" because she was unable to walk and needed a motorized chair to be mobile due to a muscle disease. After she managed to visit my hometown once, three years into the relationship, I was pressured into giving up that relationship by constant shaming of my own physical weakness/stature, that I could never "afford" to look after her, etc. I believe that if you really care about someone things can be worked out, but no they wouldn't have it. I was too young to stand up for myself then, with low selfesteem and un-confident in relationships.
Another relationship they flat out told me and her we weren't in love because we had never met yet and people can't fall in love over a distance, it was just "infatuation." My family also worried I would move to where she was living and so made sure her family didn't approve of me in return, before I even had the chance to meet them, thus ending the relationship. In her culture family approval was important. I was told I didn't plan ahead, what would happen if she couldn't come here, what would I do then? So don't even bother try, is the underlying tone I received. We didn't have a chance to actually meet yet to SEE if we could make things work. Aren't you suppose to take one step at a time?
The most recent relationship was for six years, some trouble with country passport restrictions meant we couldn't meet up as soon as planned around years 3&4. My family thought the relationship would just fizzle out. However when things started to fall in place for us to meet my family started attacking my girlfriend's credibility saying prejudice things, and even claiming she was a "scam artist" since our government puts out warnings of such activity from the country she hails from. I had to warn my girlfriend about their behavior and that made it even worse and their attacks were more frequent and stronger after they all knew this was said. We both did everything we could think of to back up her life story, identity and true feelings (without seeming to be infatuated, but actually serious.) She was told first to wait several months, than half a year and finally a whole year before visiting me "to prove her loyalty" as I had so much do to! My mother went so far as to denying me to fly to her country as it was unsafe (and she would make my life hell if I tried) and saying she would travel with me (or rather follow without my consent) wherever I went to meet her otherwise. Their reasons she had to wait also included that I had to focus on my career after coming out of university to get a decent permanent position (interviews), and everything else in between down to needing to get my car tires changed and car undercoated for winter was cited as excuses to prevent me from traveling to see her. They said anything they could to make the relationship seem "difficult" from the outset, making sure she overheard phrases during our skype chats like "that if we got married I had to have a 'prenub' to make sure she didn't get half 'my stuff and money', etc" and other rather rude comments at the relationship stage of things. Again I was told I don't know my own feelings and we can't be in love if we never met. Lines and lines of shaming and guilt attacks: "I guess you don't love us anymore, maybe you wish we were better off dead." No one can withstand such abuse or waiting around forever for a relationship. I feel guilty for hurting those I loved and "wasting their life, feelings of love," because of what my family has done to them and me. I have made some of them wait for me far longer than they should, trying to smooth things over first and not loose them or my family, but also I didn't have a choice.
My family is divorced, my aging mother and one sibling needs some moderate home care, but has no one left in the family that will supply it other than myself and one other sibling. Most of these attacks are 4 on 1 against me, and I am the "angry, lost, blind, bad" one in them all. Both myself and one other sibling have been forced into a codependent relationship through years of "sheltering" and "shaming/guilt tripping" and well "many other factors/situations" outside the family relationship dynamic, that have befallen me or us, and since she has no one left, I am left with little choice but to maintain the connection that hurts me so.
I feel I don't have much time left to start a serious relationship in time to have a family, as I know past a certain age it is less healthy for newborns if the parents are older. It takes me years to open up enough to start a serious relationship, and much longer to find someone worthy of one, given my abysmal relationship skills from my upbringing. That said after all I have been through, the hurt I feel I have caused others, and the hurt I have myself I am very much turned off having a relationship at all right now. It will take sooo long to recover from just that!
Please, please no comments about "Grow up!, Man up!, Tell them to f*** off. Get out of there! Your too old to let people tell you what to do, etc" you don't know me, you don't know what other factors and misfortunes have befallen me or my family, ailments, disabilities, natural events (fires, floods, etc), housing situations/available work, just about anything else that have influenced or helped to pin me to this condition and family dynamic, living nearby and forced to continually deal with these poisonous relations on an everyday basis, without much of a chance for escape. Trust me I have tried cutting ties, but I am still required to lend aid and assistance as a caretaker, as a result my life is never my own but constantly meddled with.
