Anon wrote: 🌻 Hi! I am the ENFP (27) from this post: 772955569067868160. Your response definitely helped me move forward with more grace, so starting this off with a huge thank you! I have since found love and I’m in my longest relationship ever, 1 year 4 months together. I have no doubt that my partner (ENTP, 29) loves me and sees a future together. Trust, respect, kindness, affection, and shared values are all present.
He likes to be challenged and grow like me, and always takes me seriously and makes effort/progress when I bring things up. Everything that follows I have discussed with him, but I’m seeking feedback because he wants to move in together (!). This is huge because 1.5 years ago I moved to another country with my best friends, we’ve been long-term roommates and have an amazing dynamic. I could happily live with them forever!
I love living with my partner, too, and pretty much spend half my time at his place now. We lived together for 3 months in a city where he travelled for his phd recently and it was a very positive experience. There’s no rush or pressure but he has invited me to live with him and financially this would mean I wouldn’t have to pay rent. I only see one recurring issue, emotional intimacy, that I could use an outside perspective on.
When I need emotional support, he creates a safe space and I always feel better after talking to him. Our communication has always been respectful and productive. Because of all of this, I always assumed that he had a secure attachment style, and I know it’s a spectrum, but I am realizing he leans more avoidant than I originally noticed. (For me, I used to be more fearful avoidant but put in the work to become earned secure).
A few days ago when I brought this up and explained why, he was interested and agreed with what I said. He also explained that he slightly changes the way he acts around different people, like sillier around his more serious friend and more stable and reserved around me because I am more expressive and emotional. This is concerning to me because it sounds exhausting and I want him to feel he can be himself around me. I think this is also a barrier between us.
Often I feel I can’t access his emotional world. He’s open to but doesn’t initiate emotional conversations, and doesn’t really bring his needs to the table or ask for much from me, though he occasionally asks for my opinion on something on his mind. Although we connect intellectually, which is important to both of us, his bids for connection most days feel like small talk (“how was your day” and logistical stuff that stays shallow) or physical intimacy (he’s affectionate which I like).
Despite I know he cares deeply, and he’s so sweet, sometimes I feel like there’s a general lack of engagement in a way that’s hard to define. One example is sometimes I try to start a conversation or just talk when I want to tell him about something and he will just not respond at all. I don’t know what to do when this happens, when I mention it he will acknowledge he heard me but not engage further or explain why he is distracted. In these moments I feel like there’s a wall between us.
I want to further discuss this because I’m worried about it creating distance as time goes on, and it feels time-sensitive because of deciding whether to move in together. I think overall, I would love to, but don’t want to be shortsighted/ignore potential long-term issues. To help, I would love insight on a few things: How might our type differences be contributing to this? I know T vs F bias is probably in play and I don’t want to accidentally over-prioritize or impose my own preferences.
I want him to feel safe to grow emotionally, but I’m worried about pushing for him to be something he’s not. Really, I want to be able to acknowledge and appreciate our differences and use them to support each other! He's helped me a lot to be more practical and resilient and foresighted. I’m also curious: What do you think healthy emotional intimacy looks like? Also open to feedback of any kind. So so grateful for your input and for your work here in general!!!!
🌻ENFP (27) with ENTP (29) partner here! Once again proving that just being direct and talking to the person in question is always the best way to go (apologies if you’ve already put effort into responding to my question!). So, apparently he didn’t know it was so noticeable that he occasionally withdraws in social situations, and describes it as he “likes being with himself.”
For me emotionally I realized it was triggering a stress response more related to my childhood, but anyway we’re going to figure out how to communicate better around this. I also explained about how I feel like his emotional world is inaccessible to me, and turns out he is genuinely okay with working things out on his own and doesn’t mind at all that it’s “unbalanced” with me asking him for support more often.
I explained that still, it would help with intimacy if he also got more comfortable with co-regulation and he said that although it’s not something he grew up with, it sounds interesting and he would like to learn (and asked me to share resources!). Lastly, regarding feeling like we’re small talking a lot, we realized it’s because he works a very intellectually stimulating job, and I have the opposite, so after a workday when we come together, we need different things.
Overall, I realized that I haven’t been accepting how easy it is for him to love me, and there is no other shoe waiting to drop. He’s genuinely okay with everything and happy to make an effort if it helps me. This is totally new to me! Basically, I’m feeling hopeful, so skip my questions if you want. But if you read this far and have a word to share, I’m all ears :) Again, so much gratitude for all the time you put into this! It has been a great source of wisdom for me throughout the years.
I'm glad to hear you were able to resolve the issue on your own. There are a couple of points I want to emphasize, just to help certain important lessons sink in for everyone reading.
(1) Communication is key. In a healthy romantic relationship, you should be able to bring up anything that's bothering you with your partner and discuss it maturely. Both parties need to be open to hearing and accepting constructive feedback. If you truly care for each other, there should be a lot of willingness on both sides to find common ground or negotiate a compromise that leads to improvement.
Since confrontation can be very uncomfortable and unpredictable, people too often choose avoidance. Perhaps they'll deny the issue, sit on it for too long, or try to minimize and dismiss it. This is how molehills eventually become mountains. A moment's frustration eventually morphs into resentment and then anger and then hate...
People sometimes ask me how to tell if an issue is important enough to risk confrontation. As a general rule, if an issue recurs, for example, it has come up more than 2-3 times, then you've got an unhealthy pattern forming. It's best to break the pattern early and try to get to the bottom of the situation before it gets too (emotionally) complicated.
Sometimes you can confront an issue but still fail to resolve it. At that point, you've got an additional problem to figure out. Generally speaking, failure may happen because one or both parties are lacking in certain relationship-related skills, such as communication skills, emotional awareness, or conflict resolution strategies. Self-work is called for in these cases.
There are rare times when two people simply cannot see eye-to-eye because of drastic differences in personal needs, desires, beliefs, values, aspirations, or life direction. When this happens, both parties need to reflect on the viability of the relationship and make a judgment about whether the differences are ultimately reconcilable. If not, it's best to part ways amicably, without blame.
(2) Be wary of projection. Projection is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby people displace their own ego issues onto others. I mean it when I use the word "unconscious". It takes a lot of self-work throughout life to build awareness of projection. One of the main problems with projection is that it leads you to make faulty assumptions.
T vs F differences tend to illustrate this point well. The way you worried about your partner's emotional life, suspecting that something may be wrong with him, was based on the assumption that he ought to have an emotional life that somewhat resembles yours (Fi) or what you believe should be the standard for everyone (Te). This assumption turned out to be unwarranted.
One way to improve awareness of projection is to examine your (unspoken) expectations of people. A simple example of this is how we take the needs, traits, and strengths of our own personality type and expect them to be present in everyone else.
Using your case, this is illustrated in the Fi vs Fe difference. E.g. You assumed it would be "exhausting" for him to alter his behavior to complement others, since that's how you view it through Fi. Basically, being Fi and projecting Fi ego issues onto others makes you blind to or unable to understand Fe.
What you hadn't understood is that Fe is perfectly designed to make social adaptation not only easier but rewarding. This is not to say Fe types cannot feel exhausted by socializing. The point being made is that healthy Fe types understand the benefits of social adaptation and want to obtain them. Without Fe in your stack, it's hard for you to understand this kind of motivation.
One big reason people learn about personality type is to try to understand these differences better.
(3) This brings me to the third point, which is that Empathy is vital. Empathy means being able to grasp someone else's experience. It's important to remember there are two main components to empathy.
The first is emotional empathy, in being able to feel what someone else feels. ENFPs with healthy Fi usually excel at this. Emotional empathy can be improved by first improving your own emotional intelligence and then by being more observant of people's words and behavior.
The second component is cognitive empathy, which is more difficult. It essentially involves building a theory of mind that accurately represents another person's subjective experience. This is often where projection gets in the way, as illustrated in the Fi vs Fe example.
I cannot emphasize enough that "mindreading" is a terrible relationship habit. Mindreading involves speculating about and/or presuming to know what's in someone's mind or heart without adequate evidence.
For example, your partner did not exhibit any signs of "suffering" a problem yet, due to projection or overactive imagination, you invented suffering on his behalf. Ns will even go so far as to invent future suffering. While it's not a bad thing to be a considerate person, it's not good to invent a false story of people's experience (especially when it's actually a story rooted in your own anxieties or attachment issues).
This circles back to the first point: When in doubt, ask. Communicate. If you're not sure what someone is thinking or feeling or why they behave a certain way, it's best to get the information directly from their mouth. That should remove all doubt quite quickly.
However, there are situations in which people are not very aware of what they are feeling or they are unable to articulate their thought process. At that point, you have to accept the fact that they are not yet ready to share for whatever reason. You can encourage them to share and give them time to figure it out, but pushing them is not going to work if they are simply unprepared.
There are also situations in which asking is a problem because the only reason you're asking is your own insecurity. In this case, it's best for you to go inward and reflect and ask yourself whether it is absolutely necessary for you to know (for the sake of the health of the relationship), or whether you just want to know because your ego is playing out some kind of drama.
Remember that people have a right to their own private thoughts and feelings. It is not always the case that expressing them is necessary for a relationship to thrive. The degree/kind of sharing should be negotiated based on the needs of the individuals involved. If one person needs more sharing than the other, or one person needs a specific kind of sharing that the other is unfamiliar with, try to meet on middle ground. It sounds like you two have come to this conclusion together, which is a good sign.
