I've always felt a connection with ENFPs. It seems every time I feel an instant connection with someone, they turn out to be an ENFP. My best friend is an ENFP, and I ended a 2.5 year relationship with an ENFP two months ago.
I still love him (and can't stop thinking about him every day, even when I'm sleeping, UGH), but there were too many issues for us to work out in the long run. I didn't want to come to this conclusion prematurely, so I dragged it out for 2.5 years until the stress finally manifested in a way I couldn't ignore (more on that later).
One major problem was that he wanted kids; I didn't. In fact, before dating him, I considered myself asexual and didn't want to date or get married. I felt very strongly against marriage, but tried to warm up to the idea of it for his sake. We progressed to the point where we'd say "when we're married" instead of "if we get married." But I didn't even want to want kids. In his naive optimism, he told me he'd give up kids for me because his desire to be with me was greater. I told him that he would inevitably come to resent me, and that it would feel unbalanced that he was more willing to sacrifice what he wanted than me. He didn't understand, though. My cynicism and his extreme optimism never agreed. We had the same ideals; the difference was I didn't have enough faith that reality lived up to those ideals, and he did.
Another problem I had was with his "the world is my playground, people are my playthings" approach to life. At the same time it was exhilarating and refreshingly innocent, it also made him unwittingly oblivious to other people's feelings. Even though one of the things I loved about him was how he went out of his way to bring introverts out of their shell, as he couldn't stand anyone to feel left out, he didn't realize just how much he meant to other people. He was one of those rare extraverts that are charismatic, theatrical, and admired but at the same time sensitive and genuinely interested in all the unnoticed introverts. Too interested in others... Those introverts he saw the beauty in and brought out of their shell—of course they would end up falling for him, and feel hurt when they realized he wasn't as attached to them personally. He cared about everyone, but his innocent affection was spread so far that he never bonded personally with anyone. He had a million friends and no confidant. He was extremely loving towards me when I was physically there, but I felt as if he forgot about me the moment we separated and his Ne was off to more adventures.
This was a problem our first summer apart. His car had been totaled, and he lived on the other side of town, and I didn't have a car. So we hardly got to see each other. I could live with that as long as I felt like circumstance was keeping apart, but I felt like he was apathetic and that was really what was keeping us apart. I only expected us to talk every other day on the phone, but I always had to be the one to call. I finally told him how I felt at the end of the summer and he assured me that he did think about me when I wasn't there. "I feel like I could stop calling you for two weeks and you wouldn't even notice," I said. He promised me that wasn't the case.
Fast forward to this past March. We had graduated in December and I had a new group of friends, separate from college friends, and only one of them knew my boyfriend. It felt freeing, because he had such a show-stealer of a personality that I always felt like it eclipsed mine. Like I was just "[insert name]'s girlfriend" to everyone, which drove me crazy. I didn't feel like seeing or calling him, and I figured I just needed a break—that was normal, couples need breaks sometimes. I hung out with these new friends more and more, not seeing or calling him, and he never called me. Never thought something might be wrong. While one of my new guy friends was initiating steady communication with me, the sort I had always wanted with my boyfriend. And it turned out his cynic-idealist outlook on life matched mine perfectly; I didn't have to jump through hoops to get him to understand my point of view. And he didn't want kids. And, oh shit... I like another guy... oh shit oh shit oh shit.
I continued to neglect calling my boyfriend because I felt so guilty. For a whole month, we didn't see each other and he only called me a couple of times because he needed me to do him a favor. He was so oblivious, he never thought something might be wrong. I was right... I could not call him for weeks, and he wouldn't even notice.
And that's how a loving the relationship fell apart. Our feelings for each other never changed, but our personality differences just didn't work out. I could have easily ignored a crush, if it didn't prey on my pre-existing doubts about the relationship. And if my boyfriend would try to work out those doubts with me, instead of assuming everything would work out because we loved each other. His Ne-Fi idealism gave him the values that I wanted in a partner, but he couldn't be realistic about it. I shouldered that burden on my own, and eventually it became too much.
I think if he had been a little more mature, it could have worked out. As guilty as I feel, I also feel like he let it happen. I never had any of the problems I had with him with my ENFP best friend. I think the difference is she has very developed Te, and his Te was extremely underdeveloped. When we struggled to communicate intuitive ideas to each other, he would spout out seemingly unrelated ideas until I forgot what we were talking about in the first place. He explained it this way: "Most people think linearly, but my mind is like soup. I have all these ideas floating around in the soup." I didn't understand why he couldn't just spell out the letters in the alphabet soup and then try to articulate them in an intelligible way.
Ne unchecked by Te is like mind soup. It was a nightmare trying to have an intellectual discussion with him, and I thrive on that sort of discussion. He would spontaneously make up facts to support his point in a debate. He automtically disregarded any evidence that didn't support his Fi-Si values. I always thought, "He's the most pure hearted, impeccably good person. That can't be taught. I can wait for him to learn all the practical relationship stuff." But he didn't seem to be growing; he was stuck in that cycle of using Te inauthentically, in the service of Ne-Fi and his inferior Si values.
That's exactly how I feel. I feel like it's so hard to find people whose ideals match mine, that when I found it with my ENFP, it was pure romantic bliss; yet at the same time, it was what I wanted to be real, not reality. In a perfect world, we would still be together, living out that ideal. But with the bliss I felt, the other side of the coin was torture, thinking "Just because we believe this, doesn't make it real. Just because he sincerely thinks he loves me that unconditionally, doesn't mean he does. Love is not that perfect. How will he feel about me when his naive idealism dies? Will I come to represent his disillusionment one day?" These thoughts ate away at me, but then he would reassure me with all the sweetness of the fairytale love I wanted to believe in, and I would cling to hope. It was an unhealthy cycle.
The problem is, if real life relationships don't live up to my ideals, I don't want to settle. With him, reality still didn't live up to my ideals, but at least he believed they did. I'm with the other guy now (ENTP), and he seems like a perfect match for me, but I can't reconcile those ideals with the reality of relationships. And he doesn't try to convince me the ideals are real, like my ENFP did. Which is both bad and good. It's very confusing. :-/
That's genuinely lovely. I think what I've discovered through being married to a wonderful ENFP is that being truly understood as if from within may be impossible in the deepest sense, that is an existential problem one has to just deal with, but being seen and appreciated is absolutely vital and I think few really do that. In my experience there is a mutual appreciation if a relationship forms. I think, perhaps there are other problems when it comes to intimate relationships...for me the way Ni kind of synthesizes info in a relationship setting is at some point there is enough to kind of in a seemingly "magic eightball" way to come to a "Yes" or a "No" wether it will work. It's hard to articulate and seems absolutely unfair but as one only has (around these parts) one life partner ideally it's somewhat exclusive, despite the appreciation. It's not as personal as it seems, it's not a judgement on the people in the relationship, but on the viability of the whole shebang. 
When it gets too boring my husband will just say "Put the kids in the car, now!!!" We go for a drive, no plan, and for some reason he more than once has wanted to drive to this other major city 2 hours away. Every single time we get there nothing's open and we can't do anything, because there's nothing to do. We waste tons of money on gas and bad gas station food. ...hehe...."Had we planned just a bit...", but you know... Sometimes it works out and we go somewhere that turns out to be great that I would have never thought of.
