Please help with INTP man with screwy Fe, referred here by the INTPs | INFJ Forum

Please help with INTP man with screwy Fe, referred here by the INTPs

Soraya

Two
Jan 18, 2010
2
0
0
MBTI
INTJ
Hello INFJs, I am an INTJ and I have a lot of respect for you all because my best friend is INFJ and you all share the Ni function, which is wonderful isn't it?

Alright, I already posted a version of this on the INTP forum and they came to several conclusions about it but strongly suggested that an INFJ analysis would be a good thing. So here I am. Watch out, it's long.

A year ago I fell in love with an INTP man, we're both 22 years old.

I had several relationships earlier in life, he has dated several people before too. His previous relationships have all been short and unhappy but he had trouble ending them. His girlfriends tend to be pretty shallow and vapid. His last girlfriend is definitely an ESFJ. They were super incompatible on everything. When I first met him and, during the first 7 months of our friendship, they were still dating. Their relationship ended after 8 or 9 months though they were only in the same country for 3 months of that time.

He and I first met in a foreign country where we were both studying. Initially I despised him. He seemed to me to be very immature, irresponsible, and awkwardly flirtatious with every woman but me. However, we began to develop a friendship that I did not rationally see as going anywhere, although my Ni was strongly indicating that he would be important in my life. At times I would feel jealous, which was strange since I disliked him so much. To my dismay, soon our professors, friends, and various other people we knew began to indicate that they had suspicions that we were dating or should date, or outright began calling us a couple.

However, after several months, things changed dramatically when I had a close relative pass away. Not having enough money for a plane ticket, I was unable to return home. I was very upset by this but did not feel comfortable expressing my emotion. Later I suddenly broke down and became very upset. I would have expected him to avoid the situation but instead he held me for four hours while I cried, got a box of tissues and wiped my nose and eyes for four hours, ran across campus to get me a glass of water to drink, found an international phone that I could use to call my family for free, and made me watch ridiculous youtube videos to make me laugh. After that we began to grow a lot closer. I saw that I had clearly analyzed him incorrectly and retracted my initial judgement.

I was still adamant that we were just friends but we began to grow close. We had many very similar interests and intellectual pursuits. He would often listen to me play the piano for hours. We took ballroom dancing classes together. At this point he also began to confide in me that he was unhappy in his current relationship.

By the time that we returned to our home country I was becoming aware that I liked him although I was reluctant to admit this to myself because he had a girlfriend. We were living very close to one another at University. He would often come to visit me, usually every day or every other day for at least an hour but often more than that. He began to come by very frequently. My roommate was also friends with him but she would constantly laugh about the fact that whenever he came by and I was not there he would leave immediately.
 
WOW...i dont even know where to begin here. I am married to an INTJ/p so maybe I can help.

The INTP can be very confused about feelings. Can be very jealous and territorial, while not ever expressing their true feelings for something. Emotions would be irrational to them, and not something the would generally express openly.

My heart breaks for you, that this INTP cannot connect enough with himself to grasp his feelings. The longer the friendship continues the more he will hurt you. He will not realize this, perhaps he thinks he is saving you.

I dont know what advice I can give you, it seems if you push the issue of romantic relations with him, he will leave again. But maybe, you should do the leaving this time
Inform him that his erratic behavior, and confusing mixed signals are breaking your heart. You cannot bear to be friends so long as he confuses you with his action.
Perhaps you need to tell him he cannot have it both ways, either he wants a relationship, and has a right to feel territorial over you, or he is your friend and has no right to decide who you date in the future.

I think that if he is serious about there never being a chance to be more than friends, the friendship will ultimately destroy you. If that is the case, you should consider saving your heart before he breaks it. Save it for someone who will truly hold it gently and love you the way you deserve to be loved.
 
I agree with most of what Enty said here. If you tried approaching him and asking if he wanted a relationship and he turned you down, then he doesn't know what he wants. There might be other extraneous reasons why, and it might have nothing to do with whether or not he can express his feelings for you. He might be gay (one option) or he knows his family might not approve of you, or who knows what else. Until he's willing to face his demons and come out and say he wants to date you despite the cost to himself, then he's not someone you need in your life. He sounds confused and confusing...and you don't need to go back and forth with him for answers.

Tell him up front that you've already expressed how you feel - and you can't take his double standards. That you'd rather not have him at all then to go through this push/pull scenario.
 
Once again, like the other members have stated, I think he's bottling things up and he is unwilling to demonstrate what he really is feeling, he's awkward behavior demonstrates that he's not comfortable with the situation, INTP's typically have a hard time with any sort of emotional connection, and he might feel this sort of feleings are illogical, if the INTP is immature and not developed at its fullest it will have a hard time grasping this emotions as their Fe is their last function, INTP's tend to take time to develop such function and mostly need some experience before they can learn to use it correctly, until he learns to do that the relationship will be confusing and it will have a lot of ups and downs like a roller coaster, there are many choices to why he is so negligent to express his feleings towards you like Arby and Enty have stated and you certainly don't have to deal with this, if he is unwilling to listen to you, then pretty much he is not really meant to be your parthner, not until he learns to use his emotions better anyways. I want to wish you the best of luck.
 
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You all make some really good points and have some really good advice. The funny thing, and you all seem to be onto this, is that even though I am sure he is INTP, he acts out of his Fe. This means he is unable to control his actions because he can't control his Fe (which is immature and very unstable) and has heavily suppressing his Ti, but he has almost brainwashed himself into thinking this is normal. I think he has no idea why he does what he does. Were this a normal well-developed INTP he would see me as a perfect match (which I think he does on a subconscious level, behavioral evidence) but because he is a very poorly-developed INTP he is seeing me as a threat instead. Maybe years down the road there would be hope in it but, for now, I guess it is probably wise to completely dissociate any romantic feelings from him, as much as it will hurt.
 
The guy is just not into you and there's probably very little you can do about this. Furthermore he's very immature at emotional level to not notice the effect he's having on you.

My advice: initiate the break-up yourself this time. If he does have some feelings - he will find a way to express them. If he does not, you'll be much better without him. It might take a few weeks to resolve.
 
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