[hello HELLO]

You guys fascinate me... with the things you guys say, the way you guys project into the future, come up with possible elaborate scenarios of situations you are trying to understand, the way you don't show any sort of emotion. I just can't quite figure it all out at once!

I am confused. You guys tend to be very self-confident people usually, so why is it that you are able to become insecure in relationships?



I have had this male INTJ tell me things like "I am not good enough for you", "You want someone better than me", "I never really believed that you liked me because I have such self doubt sometimes", etc, etc. I don't even know where he is getting all this from. Another thing he does, he says conflicting things all the time. One minute he agrees to end things, another he wishes it will never end. I feel like he is waiting on me to push him into one way or another. But the way everything has played out already, I feel like he is convinced that we'll always be in each other's lives, as friends or more.

I am 100% that he is INTJ. There is no way he is anything else.

I'm not very regularly verbally affirming, I feel awkward in doing so. But when I do compliment him, I go all the way. I once gave him a list of almost 100 things I like about him (granted okay, it was one time). So how the hell is he justified in saying things like "i didn't believe you ever liked me". WTF.

Also, if I'm choosing to spend my time with you, ask you for advice, care about your happiness, etc, shouldn't that be enough?

Should I just give more words of affirmation more regularly? I'm really confused, because I thought you guys were like me in that you don't need to hear the obvious that often...

Is this something that I can even fix? Some people say that insecure men will always be insecure, and there is nothing I can do really. If anything, I make him less insecure, and he grows even more dependent on me.

It sucks, because the more insecure he acts, the less I am attracted to him. It is a vicious, vicious cycle.

[luemb]

Love languages vary from person to person, you should probably discuss that with your INTJ.
Also, you should probably find out your INTJs enneagram type. Many of the INTJs on here are enneagram type 6, which could lead to some insecurity.

Other than that, sometimes tertiary Fi can be very self-critical.

[knittigan]

I know that personally when I am insecure in the beginning stages of a relationship it's because I'm reading too much into the other person's actions. I come up with a million different reasons for why they could have done every single thing that they do and it takes me a really long time to stop doing it; I will only stop when I have come up with what I think is absolutely incontrovertible evidence that they care about me. It's a never ending stream of reflexivity.

I think that it's most likely fixable -- I would also recommend looking into his love languages. Whenever I feel insecure in my current relationship it's because I'm not getting as much verbal affirmation as I like. As soon as I get some, I settle down considerably and I'm not even a shadow of my formerly neurotic self.

[Siren]

@knittigan is spot on. One of the parts of the INTJ description that most resonated with me is that we are constantly looking for signs of rejection in our romantic relationships.

[hello HELLO]

I know that personally when I am insecure in the beginning stages of a relationship it's because I'm reading too much into the other person's actions. I come up with a million different reasons for why they could have done every single thing that they do and it takes me a really long time to stop doing it; I will only stop when I have come up with what I think is absolutely incontrovertible evidence that they care about me. It's a never ending stream of reflexivity.

I think that it's most likely fixable -- I would also recommend looking into his love languages. Whenever I feel insecure in my current relationship it's because I'm not getting as much verbal affirmation as I like. As soon as I get some, I settle down considerably and I'm not even a shadow of my formerly neurotic self.

Sorry for dumping all my problems on this thread. I really do appreciate all of your responses to this.

This is not the beginning of a relationship. I've known this person for 2 years now. When I tell him "I like you", he goes, "what does that even mean? What do you like about me" which becomes super, super annoying. I end up resenting him a little for doubting me, or for forcing me to justify myself. This is after I've told him what I like about him.

I just wish he'd stop waiting around for me to shower him with affection when he hasn't done a thing to earn it. In fact, he's kind of just whining/emotional abusing me. I've tried to cut him out of my life, and he just always acts like I'm being the jerk. And he expects us to be friends forever, like "be at each other's weddings", etc. just... wtf.

Btw, sorry if I offended you guys in any way. I'm just a little frustrated at how unreasonable he is being. I always believed that friendships/relationships were supposed to be for the mutual benefit of parties involved, not this awful disaster. If I like someone, I go out of my way to let them know I care, and I don't spend my time worrying if I'm not good enough or if it is going to fail. That way of thinking is just setting oneself up for failure.

He's damaged things to the point now that I'm finding it hard to even be friends with him :/ I'm not hurt anymore, but I'm at that IDGAF stage. Sad, but true.

I want him to let me go completely, so I don't get sucked into this mess out of guilt again.

Do you guys always *expect* to be lifelong friends with people you're close with?

[luemb]

Oh I see, not a relationship, just a needy friendship. Yikes. Yeah I had one of those once. He also thought we would be friends forever. I personally don't plan on being friends with people forever, with most people it doesn't work like that, life changes, ect.

And yes, worring about failure does set oneself up for failure. I think sometimes I can see that it is going to fail subconsiously, but I don't want to admit it, or I have some reason to try really hard to make a friendship work, and that makes me insecure. It's my own subconcious that makes me insecure, and it's something I have to deal with, even though it's hard at times. Perhaps it's explainable in that Fi wants things to be done according to some personal morals, but Ni knows it isn't going to work subconsiously, but counters that with some long-range planning and some Te. Also the

When I tell him "I like you", he goes, "what does that even mean? What do you like about me"

to me is a sign that perhaps he isn't using his dominant, normal perspective properly, and he's getting very confused. I hypothesize that this is might be related to your strong Te, and he could be trying to use his Te like that as well, when, for INTJs, Te must be subservient to Ni to work properly.

[hello HELLO]

Oh I see, not a relationship, just a needy friendship.

Relationship part of it was short-lived, ended after he moved away to the other side of the country. After he moved away to now, it's been this huge unresolved gray area.

And yes, he has told me he doesn't know what he wants. Should I continue to ignore him? I feel somewhat guilty, still.

[greco]

You guys fascinate me... with the things you guys say, the way you guys project into the future, come up with possible elaborate scenarios of situations you are trying to understand, the way you don't show any sort of emotion. I just can't quite figure it all out at once!

I am confused. You guys tend to be very self-confident people usually, so why is it that you are able to become insecure in relationships?

I have had this male INTJ tell me things like "I am not good enough for you", "You want someone better than me", "I never really believed that you liked me because I have such self doubt sometimes", etc, etc. I don't even know where he is getting all this from. Another thing he does, he says conflicting things all the time. One minute he agrees to end things, another he wishes it will never end. I feel like he is waiting on me to push him into one way or another. But the way everything has played out already, I feel like he is convinced that we'll always be in each other's lives, as friends or more.

I am 100% that he is INTJ. There is no way he is anything else.

I'm not very regularly verbally affirming, I feel awkward in doing so. But when I do compliment him, I go all the way. I once gave him a list of almost 100 things I like about him (granted okay, it was one time). So how the hell is he justified in saying things like "i didn't believe you ever liked me". WTF.

Also, if I'm choosing to spend my time with you, ask you for advice, care about your happiness, etc, shouldn't that be enough?

Should I just give more words of affirmation more regularly? I'm really confused, because I thought you guys were like me in that you don't need to hear the obvious that often...

Is this something that I can even fix? Some people say that insecure men will always be insecure, and there is nothing I can do really. If anything, I make him less insecure, and he grows even more dependent on me.

It sucks, because the more insecure he acts, the less I am attracted to him. It is a vicious, vicious cycle.

There is somewhere a personality type description of INTJ which states something like this: what others perceive as an INTJ's self-confidence LOOKS the same, but is in fact qualitatively very different from the general,all-encompassing, seemingly ever-present, even if often un-justified or baseless self-confidence that others types, (like ENTJs) always project: an INTJ's self-confidence is of a very specific nature, stemming from the detailed knowledge systems that we tend to built throughout our lives.
Our knowledge systems are NOT built around emotions, and we do not invest anywhere near as much effort in examining, understanding and learning to read and deal with emotions (ours or other peoples'). Instead, our knowledge systems will over time develop ever more intricate and expansive knowledge maps and probability grids of things that INTJs genuinely see as more interesting and important than emotions. Anything, from political systems, to maths, to business, to economics, to programming etc.

This means that when you engage an INTJ on a complex issue that is unrelated to his emotions towards himself/herself or people that matter to him, you are likely to observe a suprising self-confidence in how the issue is approached, debated with others, analysed, used as a basis for conslusions and then those conclusions are used as a basis for decisions, which lead to actions etc.

However, when it comes to personal emotional issues, or recognising and dealing with the emotions of people who matter to us, we INTJs do not have the support of a knowledge system, that massive armour of patterns, theories, case studies and scenarios with which we equip ourselves when we fight the battles we trained ourselves to fight. In the case of emotions, we really go in to battle naked. And we know we are naked (we know what we know, and we know what we don't know...and in these cases we know that we don't know enough to successfuly deal with emotions, or to deal with them, work with them as well as most people). This is why you see us so unsure, so waivering and so 'insecure' in emotional matters.
We are not playing a game. We are genuinely clueless about our true emotions and even more clueless (at best , ever-doubting) the emotions of others. And we do not doubt their genuineness so much as we doubt their permanence.
This brings me to your other point/question: do we need constant affirmation of the other side's emotion towards us? The answer is yes. We do not need it in the sense that an F would need it. An F would become depressed or upset at a lack of such affirmation and constant "giving" or moral support/initiative from the other side. An INTJ is highly unlikely to become upset, but will grow doubtful of whether the other's emotions are still there, still as strong. And in the presence of such doubts, the INTJ will begin to take the only step an INTJ takes to protect oneself from further stress, dissapointment and emotional (gasp!) turbulence: distance himself from the other side. In the INTJ's emotionally primitive mind, this distancing kills two birds with one stone: it builds an emotional buffer zone that will lessen the force of what seems like an probable emotional blow and at the same time the creation of distance serves as a test of the other side's intentions: if the other is still genuinely interested in the INTJ, he/she will seek to close the distance by taking some initiative towards this. If the initiative is strong enough to be noticed by the INTJ, the latter can let his guard down once again, re-assured for the time being that the emotions are still there. Until the cycle begins again.

Yes, you do have to always take the initiative and you have to be prepared to play the role of the giver, almost never the taker, of constant affirmation on this front.

This is not easy for your personality type, for it doesn't come naturally to ENTJs. In my opinion, the only personality type who finds pushing forward and CONSTANTLY seeking to close that distance as effortless and natural as the INTJ finds retreating in self-doubt and building that buffer zone, is the ESFP.

I hope this helped you build some understanding.

[hello HELLO]

There is somewhere a personality type description of INTJ which states something like this: what others perceive as an INTJ's self-confidence LOOKS the same, but is in fact qualitatively very different from the general,all-encompassing, seemingly ever-present, even if often un-justified or baseless self-confidence that others types, (like ENTJs) always project: an INTJ's self-confidence is of a very specific nature, stemming from the detailed knowledge systems that we tend to built throughout our lives.
Our knowledge systems are NOT built around emotions, and we do not invest anywhere near as much effort in examining, understanding and learning to read and deal with emotions (ours or other peoples'). Instead, our knowledge systems will over time develop ever more intricate and expansive knowledge maps and probability grids of things that INTJs genuinely see as more interesting and important than emotions. Anything, from political systems, to maths, to business, to economics, to programming etc.

This means that when you engage an INTJ on a complex issue that is unrelated to his emotions towards himself/herself or people that matter to him, you are likely to observe a suprising self-confidence in how the issue is approached, debated with others, analysed, used as a basis for conslusions and then those conclusions are used as a basis for decisions, which lead to actions etc.

However, when it comes to personal emotional issues, or recognising and dealing with the emotions of people who matter to us, we INTJs do not have the support of a knowledge system, that massive armour of patterns, theories, case studies and scenarios with which we equip ourselves when we fight the battles we trained ourselves to fight. In the case of emotions, we really go in to battle naked. And we know we are naked (we know what we know, and we know what we don't know...and in these cases we know that we don't know enough to successfuly deal with emotions, or to deal with them, work with them as well as most people). This is why you see us so unsure, so waivering and so 'insecure' in emotional matters.
We are not playing a game. We are genuinely clueless about our true emotions and even more clueless (at best , ever-doubting) the emotions of others. And we do not doubt their genuineness so much as we doubt their permanence.
This brings me to your other point/question: do we need constant affirmation of the other side's emotion towards us? The answer is yes. We do not need it in the sense that an F would need it. An F would become depressed or upset at a lack of such affirmation and constant "giving" or moral support/initiative from the other side. An INTJ is highly unlikely to become upset, but will grow doubtful of whether the other's emotions are still there, still as strong. And in the presence of such doubts, the INTJ will begin to take the only step an INTJ takes to protect oneself from further stress, dissapointment and emotional (gasp!) turbulence: distance himself from the other side. In the INTJ's emotionally primitive mind, this distancing kills two birds with one stone: it builds an emotional buffer zone that will lessen the force of what seems like an probable emotional blow and at the same time the creation of distance serves as a test of the other side's intentions: if the other is still genuinely interested in the INTJ, he/she will seek to close the distance by taking some initiative towards this. If the initiative is strong enough to be noticed by the INTJ, the latter can let his guard down once again, re-assured for the time being that the emotions are still there. Until the cycle begins again.

Yes, you do have to always take the initiative and you have to be prepared to play the role of the giver, almost never the taker, of constant affirmation on this front.

This is not easy for your personality type, for it doesn't come naturally to ENTJs. In my opinion, the only personality type who finds pushing forward and CONSTANTLY seeking to close that distance as effortless and natural as the INTJ finds retreating in self-doubt and building that buffer zone, is the ESFP.

I hope this helped you build some understanding.

Thank you!! That was immensely helpful, I'm glad you took the time and effort to explain things so thoroughly to me. The thing about you guys being keenly aware of what you know and what you don't know really hit home for me. Not because this is the first time I've heard this, but hearing it again really helped me apply that concept to this situation. He knows he hasn't much experience in these things, and he is just so unsure.

Hm, you mention distancing oneself. That behavior, I don't really see in him, because if anything, I was the one withdrawing contact and cutting him off. He responded by finding excuses to talk to me, see me, etc. If anything, he seemed to talk to me more, and me simply responding out of courtesy has been enough to keep whatever silent hope he has for "us" alive. He says he doubts if I ever liked him, but is that really true? Why would he be initiating (something he does not do naturally) if he truly believed that I never cared for him much anyway? Consistency is all I really want sometimes. He confuses me.

I haven't been communicating with him directly about my concerns (somewhat because I don't want to cause unnecessary drama, but a bigger part of it is that I'm still trying to gather as much information as I possibly can, to get the full picture). I'm realizing that I spend too much time trying to analyze his conflicting words and actions. I want to do the right thing for the both of us. I would like to make a decision regarding this situation and stick to it.

I'm not a naturally affirming person (unless they are extroverted feeling types themselves, they are actively doing things worthy of praise, and I'm on really good terms with them), I've known this for quite some time, and I don't know how much I can really change. A lot of my behavior is dependent on the other person, I mirror the other person a lot. With this particular INTJ, I never deal with feelings when I'm with him, for some reason. I feel like displaying them seem silly... and he just doesn't really do anything for me that is worthy of constant affirmation. Obviously when he does nice things for me, I say how happy it makes me, thank him, and say something about thoughtful/etc he's being. But he rarely does things like that.

I guess my question now is that... INTJ-ENTJ relationships in general aren't the best, are they? Granted my thinking function isn't that strong, we've hit enough roadblocks, I feel like. Time to let this one go?

Heh, I've been reading this too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence

[Abraxas]

Relationship Questions For INTJs.