This all happened two weeks ago. Other than reaching out to him to wish him a happy birthday a week after we had this conversation–and we told each other we missed one another–I've basically had no contact with him at all.
Oh well there you go... it's a bloody
ARIES, isn't it?
I've been following this thread for a while, intrigued by the subtext that you're communicating between the lines. You're asking about 'INTJs', but it's that subtextual context which determines what our responses are going to be.
As I think
@acd and
@Reason picked up on, there's some fishy fuckery going on here that you haven't been particularly forthcoming about, and I suspect that it's this that is determining his behaviour.
In particular, it's this:
(and while my old flame is still lingering due to circumstances out of my control right now)
Are these 'obstacles' you're speaking of actually real, living, breathing human beings with emotional attachments to the both of you? Is he still in a relationship with another person?
You've done a lot of cognitive distancing in the language that you use to refer to these 'obstacles', including making sure you refer to them as going on longer than they 'should have', thereby placing a premature 'end' to relationships which, for all practical purposes, are/were still ongoing.
This serves to abrogate yourself of any responsibility or guilt of overlapping relationships - at the very least I think you're aware that you engaged in some emotional infidelity towards the tail end of your relationship, and who knows about the guy.
So you're building a picture here of the two of you constructing a narrative which functions to smother whatever subconscious guilt you might be feeling. The other partners are dehumanised as 'obstacles', and the relationships they invested in as having gone on 'longer than they
should have'.
Of course, the problem here is that it's ersatz or artificial closure - you're performing a language spell on your
long-term partners to attempt to banish them into the past, whereas what you really ought to be doing is taking some time to disconnect properly from the relationships.
It's not difficult to understand why your INTJ is feeling weird about things if this is the context, and so I'd have to agree with Reason.
Now, I happen to be an INTJ myself apparently, so to answer your questions:
What is your experience with/as INTJs when they/you feel and say something like this?
I've never put anyone in a position of emotional ambiguity like that, and I'm pretty clear with my intentions and position. INTJs, with that tertiary Fi, tend to be black-and-white like that, and so I'd agree with
@acd's experience. If your chap is INTJ, then the ambiguous position he's put you in indicates that he's in some
serious turmoil.
What are you guys thinking?
This week, I've been thinking a lot about
Dune, and the week before it was fighter jets. Just tons and tons of fighter jets.
And am I doing the right thing here?
I'm mostly curious about where his head/heart is during a time like this and whether my absence is affecting him negatively or positively?
If my assessment isn't totally off, you're the source of his turmoil. You're the kernel of his guilt. He's robbed a bank and you're the dirty bag of cash under his bed; the symbolic embodiment of said guilt. He needs to get as far away from your influence as possible in order to figure out what the 'right thing to do' is. I don't think your absence is really anything to do with either of you as much as it's a necessary condition of navigating the situation.
If he's said he loves you, then he does. If he's said he wants to be with you, then he does. INTJs are pretty solid on what they want.
Maintain the distance, but reach out to push him on his commitment.
