Your Relationships

Since I am experiencing a significant amount of confusion in my personal reaction to any romantic relationships, and the act of calling on other INFPs for help would only provide me with answers that I could find within myself, I would like to ask EVERY type how they deal with their romantic relationships. What keeps you in a relationship? Most importantly, what ruins your relationships? Is it an internal problem of yours? Or something external? If it is not internal, how do you love someone without dreading an eventual breakup? Did you ever deal with that problem? If so, how did you get over it?
Thank you all for any responses.

What keeps me in a relationship?
Love, compromise, trust, communication, honesty, sense of belonging, faith, happiness, compatibility, shared time, supportive friends and family, laughter, acceptance, working through conflicts and putting them behind us...

I find it easy to love someone without dreading an eventual breakup, the same way I find it easy to love my friends without dreading the friendship ending. The relationship is what it is, and there's no reason to expect it will fall apart... and if it did we'd communicate and work things out.

I would only begin to dread a breakup if things went completely pear-shaped, and we couldn't work things out. But if we really couldn't make each other happy any more, breaking up would be the right thing to do.

PS - Not really in a position to talk about what ruins my relationships, since the one I am in now has been going for over 9 and a half years. Hopefully you'll get some more insight about that from others.

Originally Posted by decided

What keeps me in a relationship?
Love, compromise, trust, communication, honesty, sense of belonging, faith, happiness, compatibility, shared time, supportive friends and family, laughter, acceptance, working through conflicts and putting them behind us...

I find it easy to love someone without dreading an eventual breakup, the same way I find it easy to love my friends without dreading the friendship ending. The relationship is what it is, and there's no reason to expect it will fall apart... and if it did we'd communicate and work things out.

I would only begin to dread a breakup if things went completely pear-shaped, and we couldn't work things out. But if we really couldn't make each other happy any more, breaking up would be the right thing to do.

PS - Not really in a position to talk about what ruins my relationships, since the one I am in now has been going for over 9 and a half years. Hopefully you'll get some more insight about that from others.

.......this

As an IxfP trust and sense of security; being reassured alot, though still with degree of independence. Be careful not to let it turn very toxic and codependant. Be romantic here and there, be affectionate. Communicate. Above all else know to step back if it's not working out.

What ruins it: Lack of communication, me paniking inside and letting it all get pent up, exceedingly irrational, quietly self-destructive and finally exploding. (Think OCEAN Neurotic incarnate). Not being comfortable enough within myself to know how to deal with it. Feeling like I'm being pushed into a corner and reacting quite blindly - communication is key.

Fi goes negative, P means I end up frozen with so many thousands of things, paths, choices which I'm so capable of screwing up and sense that I must do it perfectly because the other can't like me if it's not perfect. Feeling terrified and hideous and unprotected and it all coming out in jolts and starts due to lack of communication.

Reacting blindly/acting out irrationally to try and find some sense of where to go - S/Ne (yet also increasing terror of doing anything at all, and detachment from reational thinking and feeling - Ni), trying to excersize some twisted control through my own quiet self-destruction - Te/Si, withdrawing from the person I should be closest to because I fear them judging me and rejecting me because I'm so terribly wrong, not being able to ask for their help because of irrational fears they're going to hurt me to punish me, a sort of neurotic victim complex- Fe/Fi/Si, rationalising it all detached from any real outside input - Ti

A sort of swing between INTx and ESFx

Any time that I've gotten a chance to have a relationship (when the guy I'm interested in shows interest in me), I end up feeling awkward and uncomfortable and start pushing him away and ignoring him. It's like a gut reaction or something, then I regret it afterwards. I've never really been able to figure out for sure why I do this, but because of it I've never been in a romantic relationship.

I had a tendency to hold on so tight that I actually end up pushing my girlfriend away. I've gotten better. I've found that it relies a lot on finding the right sort of person. I need someone who is kind, gentle, and attentive. I mean, I don't want or need a girl to pay attention to me at all hours of the day, but I greatly appreciate the little compliments and the "I miss you's" I didn't get much of that in the couple past relationships I had.
So, yeah. My pitfalls have really been due to neediness.

Assuming this is about serious relationships; I need commitment first and foremost, a statement/ certainty. It's my cue to treat it like a relationship.. pretty much like a plant. Then what keeps me in it..

When it still works, I will stay. Meaning, there's still affection and we care about each other, that if evolving happens we still be compatible, when it's still worth fighting for-- and/ or it still has a fighting chance. I understand that hearts change, and you can't help the way you feel (or not feeling), although to some degree you can control the things you do.
If at one point it no longer works, I will leave. And vice versa, I'd rather have them tell me upfront rather than 'consider my feelings'. I find that the ones that do usually just lack the guts to face the issue/ problem/ me head on.

haven't been in a relationship in over 5 years now, I just don't see it worth the stress or effort.

Of course, there's also external reasons.. like family, or any other reason why it's better for everyone to just give up. I found external reasons to be the hardest, because sometimes you just can't win.

For me, the biggest things are trust and chemistry.

If I feel like the person isn't someone who is able to trust me, or vice versa (or if the relationship feels "shallow", only addressing surface issues and incapable of facing/addressing ideas together) - it's not someone I want to commit myself to. I'm not interested in heart/head games, but I am interested in genuine sincerity and honesty.

Intelligence (not just booksmarts, emotional intelligence is also attractive) is important, we should be able to hold each other's evaluations/opinions in high regard and rely on each other. ...I also have better relationships with people who also need occasional space/recharge time.