Letting people back in

To answer the thread, I've never really door-slammed anyone. I'll fade away for weeks, months, maybe years, if someone has wronged me, but I'll always have that connection still present. I understand every negative or position decision everyone makes and I'm okay with that. Although I'll be very wary of my ongoing trust level with that person. I'll play my cards wiser making sure I'm 3 steps ahead just in case something inflicting decides to happen again. I wouldn't say I was generally happy letting someone back in, but I was seemingly satisfied to continue the ongoing loyalty & bond we had.
 
Persona said:
It's extremely bothering how an Fi user can let go of someone so easily after the connections that were made. It almost builds a stern hatred in me for that person as well. Being an Fe user, I'm into resolving even the worst of things. Fi users can let go of something/someone like it never happened and that irks me to the depths of the inside of the Earth. We spend all this time building a interpersonal connection and after a few things go wrong, Fi users can flush it all down the drain, and move down another journey like nothing happened. It disgusts me, but I understand it. :)

Apparently if an Fi user doesn't like the way someone or something makes them feel, they'll cease to perish it. Fi can be seen as self serving at times, they can also seem very inconsiderate to others if you don't understand them.
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I really do admire your courage for saying the things no one else does (but we all know!), and not just with this topic, but with everything. :D

It really is disturbing, isn't it? It's not easy though, it may seem like it is because of how abruptly Fi can do it, but it is extremely difficult and only done out of self-preservation. That's the thing with Fi, we are very protective of ourselves, wheres most of you Fe's out there are more of the risk-takers with the heart and self-sacrificing in the name of friendship or loveship. Fe is selfless, Fi is selfish. And no one get their panties in a bunch about me using the term 'selfish'! For one, it's true. And two, I mean it in a sense that it is the opposite of selfless and self-sacrificing, it's self-preservation.
 
Tamagochi said:
Some more thoughts on the OP: I assume that you're in a situation where somebody whom you have shut out previously now tries to come back into your circle. Most probably there was some level of romance involved :)

A simple rule here - do not expect different outcome by repeating the same pattern again. In other words either you, or the other person, or both of you must have had changed somehow in order for this to work. Does he know why have you shut him out in the first place? It only counts if you have properly explained the reasons, in person. Assuming, that he knows or indirect explanation is false ground. Then think of what has changed since then? What are the facts supporting this change? It's very easy to give in to emotional pressure, so that's why we need hard facts. Or maybe it is you who have changed? What are the reasons of that person to get back with you? Again, have you asked or do you assume? By now you should be ready to make a good decision.
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Actually, it's not a romantic relationship but a parental one. I agree with what you said about patterns of behavior. The person is my mother. She has changed and so have I but that would not have happened if I had kept going as things were. It wasn't a total doorslam but more like a fade because we still had contact but it was minimal.
 
Misadventure said:
I really do admire your courage for saying the things no one else does (but we all know!), and not just with this topic, but with everything. :D

It really is disturbing, isn't it? It's not easy though, it may seem like it is because of how abruptly Fi can do it, but it is extremely difficult and only done out of self-preservation. That's the thing with Fi, we are very protective of ourselves, wheres most of you Fe's out there are more of the risk-takers with the heart and self-sacrificing in the name of friendship or loveship. Fe is selfless, Fi is selfish. And no one get their panties in a bunch about me using the term 'selfish'! For one, it's true. And two, I mean it in a sense that it is the opposite of selfless and self-sacrificing, it's self-preservation.
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Very.. Very..! Selfish :) Haha.
 
Scientia said:
Actually, it's not a romantic relationship but a parental one. I agree with what you said about patterns of behavior. The person is my mother. She has changed and so have I but that would not have happened if I had kept going as things were. It wasn't a total doorslam but more like a fade because we still had contact but it was minimal.
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I've kinda done the same involving my mom. we send a voice manage back and forth via whatsapp about once every month, I sleep over one night each summer and see her with Xmas at her place and I see her at the birthdays of my siblings. It sucks a bit because I know the lack of contact is on my side, it's just that I really drain all the way out just sending her a voice message on whatsapp every month or so to the point where I need a full day to recharge after doing so... But I cannot simply completely doorslam her, she is biologically speaking my mother after all.
 
Artisan said:
I've kinda done the same involving my mom. we send a voice manage back and forth via whatsapp about once every month, I sleep over one night each summer and see her with Xmas at her place and I see her at the birthdays of my siblings. It sucks a bit because I know the lack of contact is on my side, it's just that I really drain all the way out just sending her a voice message on whatsapp every month or so to the point where I need a full day to recharge after doing so... But I cannot simply completely doorslam her, she is biologically speaking my mother after all.
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Yup. That was how it was with me, too. I understand the drained feeling as well. I couldn't totally doorslam my mother, either. It took years but she is trying her best now to have a different relationship with me and it's been good so far. I think the years of minimal contact actually helped in the long run.
 
Artisan said:
With me there's a freaking fortress wall, it requires some serious C4 or some serious wall climbing skills all the way to an unlatched window.
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mhmm ;)


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ruji said:
"Letting black people in"

Dyslexia strikes again... or Freud
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Yeah, dyslexia sucks. For example I read the above sentence as.

"Letting nigge-"

I'll see myself out
 
These days I haven't found much reason to completely remove anyone from my life. I just change the level of closeness.
 
I'm usually willing to let people back in. It probably has something to do with the fact that my dad was insane throughout my childhood (still kind of is, but maybe old age had mellowed him a bit), but I loved him anyway and always tried to have a relationship with him. I can forgive a lot. I have one friend that I haven't talked to in 3 years. I just stopped because of the way she treated me. There was no fight, I just stopped calling and she didn't call. I heard through mutual friends that she was angry at me for doing that, like I was a flake. But it's true, if someone makes you feel horrible to be around, why bother? To this day, if she were to call me, I'd still talk to her. I might be cautious about being friends again, but I would talk to her. If she had called me back then, I would have talked to her. I think that's what I was waiting for, to see that it wasn't all lopsided and she did care. For her to say, "What's going on?" And for me to say, "Stop treating me like an asshole." But it didn't happen. Maybe that's being passive aggressive. I was just tired of putting in all the effort. Boohoo.
 
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The optimist in me thinks that second chances always can happen.

The realist recognizes that if you had to shut someone out, you had to do it for a good reason, and that a LOT of INFJ's I've read online who have tried to reconnected had it end in disaster.

So I don't really know. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. A lot of why I shut people out is simply a time and place thing with my maturity and where I'm at in life.

I guess I've kind of reconnected with my mother. But only sort of. Stopped talking to her for years because of her being a narcissist, her suing my dad for alimony (who had supported me way more than she did), and for me just not really connecting with her well ever. But we've held slightly more contact recently. I try to keep it to a minimum, on a "go out to dinner once a month" sort of thing. Call it my duty as a son to forgive or whatever. I don't like the things she did but I know she's not an "evil" person and is someone who has a lot of genuine hurt going on in her life.

If I reconnect I have to know its for the right reasons. I can't do it because I want to rekindle a lost love or a crush, or lost feelings of deep friendship. If I do that, then I'm only reconnecting because I'm still clinging to the past, clinging to an ideal. But I am more open to it if I've moved on fully and want to reconnect because I recognize that I lost a valuable connection. That there were a lot of good things in that connection that were simply drowned under my feelings or my idealization, or any negative events that happened.

There was someone that I pushed out of my life earlier this year that I've pondered this question about. I have a desire to reconnect but right now it is partly for the wrong reasons. So maybe I need more time, or maybe I decide he's out of my life for good. I didn't door slam him by the way, it was a mutual discussion about establishing distance. So that helps. But I do miss being able to talk to someone like him, being able to relate to someone like him, outside of my emotional desires to rekindle a flame.
 
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I doorslam big-time.

It isn't especially deliberate/conscious, but once trust goes into the red, it is almost impossible for it to return to the black. [MENTION=5511]ruji[/MENTION] no pun.
 
Can't say I really door slammed anyone either. Just... kind of distanced myself.

That being said, I usually have a problem with keeping people out. At least, the wrong kind of people. The good people that I've stopped talking to and who actually deserve second chances tend to respect my space and because they're not there, I forget about them. The bad... well they're usually more persistent and pop up more often and I make the mistake of making peace with them against my better judgment.

I need a better people filter.
 
Scientia said:
Have you ever let someone you removed from your life who had done something terrible to you back into your life? What changed your mind? Were you happy that you let the person come back? Was there trust again? Did the person hurt you again?
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I doorslam. It probably happens more in my life now than before b/c I realize I have to advocate for myself and protect my emotions. One particular friend was engaging in behaviors in which I did not agree, enough that I had to remove myself from being friends with her. It was a doorslam, b/c she did something that hurt me deeply, and then claimed it was only a misunderstanding on my part. We didn't talk for a year. I thought about her often and decided to reach out to her. She was glad that I did and we talked about what happened. We still are at odds with our own opinion. Needless to say, it took the willingness to forgive her and also forgive myself in order to let it go. We are friends again, but it will never be what it was. There is trust, but only to a certain degree.
 
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