| Socionics Personals |  | Female
Straight
16-25
Oceania
Libra
ENFj |
|  | Male
Straight
16-25
Middle East
Sagittarius
INTj |
|  | Male
Straight
26-35
North America
Pisces
INXj |
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| Questions & Answers |
| Question #1140957862 | Sunday, 26-Feb-2006 |
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| I am an ENTP wife married to an INTP husband. I feel like I can not get anywhere with him. When I try and talk to him about problems that are currently effecting our lives he looks at it as a personal attack on himself and tries to place blame else where. We have been together 5 years, and 4 of those years he has been totally unemployed and being supported by me or his parents. I love my husband and I want to stay with him but I feel like I don't get anywhere with him. When I try and talk about our problems he gets so angry and says something like "I am just a failure, that's what you taught me". I just don't get how he can sit there and watch me work 16 hour days and not even want to clean up the house. I don't understand how he doesn't feel motivated or guilty by how hard I work just to take care of him. I have tried pretty much every way of approaching him. Being nice and sweet, asking him questions, leaving him alone, and rewarding good behavior, even yelling at him and nothing works. I have sent him to therapy multiple times and I know he is depressed but he won't talk to therapists either... every time he gets on medication he will take it for 2 days and then just drop the treatment. He spends most of his time staring at the walls. He doesn't have any friends (because he doesn't like to talk much), and no extra curricular activities besides collecting comic books. The only think I have ever seen him really succeed at is college and since he doesn't use the degree that he already has I am afraid to go into debt to send him back for a second degree. When I bring up the fact that he doesn't have a job and ask him to look for work he says "You think I like it?" but he refuses to do anything about it. Or he will say he is looking for work and just do nothing. I am at my wits end here... I am having a huge communication problem. Being an extrovert I feel really lonely and alone. Every time I bring up something like the news, or just some general bull**** he will go "why is that important" or "so?...". He also leaves out major things that happen to him daily because he doesn't feel the need to tell me, and doesn't understand why I would want to know. It is really frustrating; he lives inside of his head and I never know what he is thinking. Any advice would be very much appreciated. -- Aderly |
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| A15 I pretty much agree with A11. I'm an INTp who has twice been unemployed, once for a few months, and once for over two years. In both cases, I have to admit I pretty much sat on my hands until I saw the money running out. In both cases shortly thereafter I got a good job. The prospect of an imminent drastic reduction in my lifestyle is what got me off my butt. During the unemployment I was convinced I was doing everything possible, but somehow I found a lot more I could do when push came to shove. -- Anonymous |
| A16 I don't know too much about borderline personality issues so what I say could be in error or insensitive. I just know that i've been depressed and despondent for a period of a few years in the past, on top of my apathy I had a job which I hated, but I stuck it out, paid the bills and didn't let them or the system beat me. I am not trying to be offensive but I take a lot of comfort in seeing that period through WITHOUT BEING DEFEATED. Pay someone enough money and they'll diagnose you with anything. Sometimes folk just need to get on with it and be hard men or women. -- ISTp |
| A17 (((Pay someone enough money and they'll diagnose you with anything. Sometimes folk just need to get on with it and be hard men or women.))) -- this is so true. i'm usually the only voice willing to state it so bluntly ... and i've had some experience with psychologists, etc. ... be careful not to voice that TOO loudly or they may find something "wrong" with you too (god forbid you voice a differing opinion eh?) ... congratulations on actually having a pair if you're male and not lacking spirit if you're female. -- Anonymous |
| A18 I am indeed male so thank you I like to think I can make a stand! Re psychologists and their diagnoses- I am sure I heard one who conducted an experiment-he got himself and some perfectly healthy volunteers to walk into mental homes and kid on that they here a noise going 'thud' they were of course institutionalised. However when they said it was a hoax and they where fine now the 'psychologists' did not believe them and they where incarcerated for months-to get out they had to admit they did hear the noise, they had to spend several weeks accepting treatment for something that wasn't there then had to say they had responded to said treatment and that made them better. When this hoax was announced the mental institute went up in arms-thereafter saying they identified another two dozen fakes. There were of course no more fakes-they had got it all wrong again. Ha ha its a charlatans profession! -- Istp |
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| A19 I once dated an intp. It was horrible...most unaffectionate and unloving person I ever dated. -- entp |
| A20 Unfortunately I don't have any links on hand, but I have read in several articles how depression eventually becomes a self-reinforcing brain chemical state. That you mention a time frame of 4 years for your husband's unemployment leads me to theorize that he's been depressed for a similar period - that's a long time. I don't necessarily believe that medications are the only road back to a better brain chemistry balance, but I would also caution that no change will happen quickly. I (an ISTp) married an INFp who fell into a depression. A month after our marriage, he got cut back to part time, and admitted that it was a blow to his self-esteem. I told him to relax, since we had enough $, and apply his extra time to personal pursuits. I was hoping he'd finish some of his half-finished projects that littered the floor, but he chose to play online video games, and I chose to not judge that - yet. 6 months after that, he got laid off. Again I told him to not stress, and suggested that he spend time looking for a job he could enjoy rather than running out and finding the next place willing to hire him. Instead, he played more of his MMORPG (if anybody's interested, it was World of Warcraft). About a month later, I started approaching him with my concerns about how much time he was spending in a fantasy world - and about how even while playing the game, he seemed unhappy. He acknowledged my concerns verbally, but didn't change his patterns. 5 months after he got laid off, we agreed to move to another state so I could pursue a home-based business with my best friend, and he promised to get a job as soon as we unpacked. However, it took him another 3 months before he even started looking (I unpacked us in a matter of days). And once he started working, his pattern became that all he did was work & play WoW. I kept trying to draw him out, offering to do things with him, asking him what he wanted, etc. - eventually mentioning that his depression & extreme withdrawal were straining our marriage. But I hate (HATE) ultimatums, so I thought I was being reasonable & respectful without avoiding our problems. By the time I said divorce, I meant I wanted it, and nothing he could do would change my mind. Somehow, even though I had been bringing up the imbalances in our relationship for over 13 months, it took the D-word to penetrate his brain. Now that the divorce has been finalized for over a year, I've had enough time to step back emotionally and ask myself what I could have done differently, and I wish it had taken less time for me to admit that my "reasonable & respectful" approach wasn't working. Perhaps if I had been willing to drop an ultimatum it would have at least given him a wakeup call before I became too fed up to keep trying. I'm not sure if I gave up too easily, but I do wish I had recognized that my approach was unproductive and tried something different before exhausting myself and giving up. It seems to me that we were both operating from within our relative comfort zones and resented the implication that improving the relationship necessitated one or both of us pushing those boundaries. In your case, it does sound to me like your INTp needs to feel a bit of a crunch to motivate himself - if talking to him about it seems to provoke a reaction in him as if he feels you're confronting or challenging him, perhaps the suggestion by other posters that you cut back your hours and therefore necessarily your lifestyles may get through to him. Since he seems unwilling to respond to therapy, maybe you can get counseling yourself - that may in itself help get through to him that 1) you feel there are imbalances in the relationship, and 2) you are willing to work on those imbalances (because he may feel like you're putting "blame" on him for them, which whether or not you are/should be is besides the point of having a consistently functional relationship). And always remind yourself that you are an individual, and that you can survive even if the relationship doesn't! -- iAnnAu |
| A21 You two are pretty young; wow. Well, I guess I'm 19, so I'm young too- but I don't have a significant other, neither do I want one anytime soon. I'm fascinated with the MBTI, but I'm certainly far from being an expert. This is just my take on it. IN types can be pretty crafty with knowing how to set up a sweet deal for themselves- and the P in his type might be the discouragement, or just plain laziness- if he knows he has someone to support him. I realize as an extrovert, you long for interaction, but as an Introvert, maybe your husband thinks you're stifling him with encouragement, or too much attention. When you talk with him, you could suggest to him about doing these things not for you- but for himself. Try to inspire muse in him. (It's always the 'I' men that care so little about anything, unfortunately...) It's worth a try; and if it doesn't work- sit down and have a talk with yourselves. That's what I would do. As whoever said, as well, you could also offer him space. He should want to interact with you without asking why you'd want to know something. See if he does when you give him room. -- Female INFp |
| A22 "I once dated an intp. It was horrible...most unaffectionate and unloving person I ever dated." Maybe INTp's just find difficult time being affectionate towards narcissistic and emotionally shallow ENTp's. -- Anonymous |
| A23 You could tell him that if he does not get a job in say two weeks that you are leaving him. Not to be rude, but you are enabling him to continue this behavior. You do not have to accept it and he needs to choose to work on your lives together or hit the road. Things will not get better if you keep taking care of his problems for him. Let him go back to his mother since he has now projected you into this role. I hope you do not have children with him. But please do not suffer for his sake, you deserve to be happy. -- Anonymous |
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