I can be the most and the least compassionate person you will ever know.

Finding that person is perhaps the most overwhelming feeling. I’ll take care of you, and I’ll treat you like you’ve never been treated. I’ll remember every single detail about you that would traditionally have gone unnoticed by the majority…

You’ll think “wow – she really loves me!” Because I do. I will do that.

I’ll be the kind of person that will call you and wish you good luck on your important day. I’ll make you cards and send you cute messages…  I’ll even remember how many sugars you take in your coffee and what kind of toppings you like on your salad. With me, you will feel at home.

You will, most importantly, feel safe.

And that, more times than not, is where it starts to go wrong.

You’ll start taking me for granted. You will stop putting effort. You’ll ignore my calls. You will leave my messages on read. You will get way too comfortable.

And I understand. After all, I understand you better than you sometimes understand yourself. But… in all that madness, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. I’ll say “oh, he’s going through a challenging time…” Yet, day after day, things will continue.

Things will go silent.

Until one day. I stop… trying to reach out.

“She’ll text me”, you think.  “She’s just pretending she’s mad.” Days and weeks go by… and you won’t hear from me. You might start getting worried. You try to call me, text me – message me perhaps. I read, but I don’t reply. “She’s playing hard to get” – you tell yourself. But deep down, worry starts to set in.

When I pick up, I sound distant. My responses aren’t the typical me. I still ask how you are, about your day, life, even family. But you feel something has changed.

So you ask “what happened?”

I got tired.

I got tired of understanding you without having any type of an explanation from you. You weren’t even sorry. So I got tired.

So you apologize.

And I accept that apology. And then it continues – you think everything will be fine.

But it won’t.

Days go by and you wonder what’s wrong now… but in reality, nothing is wrong. I forgave you way before you apologized. In the midst of the lack of communication, I turned it off.

I still love you. I still care about you… but I feel indifferent. As an INFJ, we take so much bullshit from anyone on a daily basis. Once we are done, we are done. There is no turning back.

Why?

Because we pay attention to every single subtlety, we notice the colder messages; we notice the lack of response. We see you leave us on read… we feel the distant disconnect. We notice that you don’t ask us about our day or even so much as to acknowledge our efforts… we notice you not paying attention.

And it cuts us open.

We spend night after night overthinking and doubting ourselves.

And we keep forgiving because we know your heart. Or at least we think we do.

Until that one day, when something clicks in our heads and we say …”that’s it.” Tears roll down our cheeks, followed by a waterfall of emotions. Because we realize that no matter how much we give, we truly end up giving people more chances than we really should if we love or care for them.

INFJs don’t easily fall in love.

But when we do, that person means the absolute world to us. We don’t get into relationships that we don’t feel deeply for. It’s critical for us to feel understood. To be loved by an INFJ is to have someone that is absolutely without-a-doubt vested in you. An INFJ will push you to move forward in life.

When an INFJ feels like the love they are developing for someone will not be reciprocated, we go into “lockdown” mode. We cannot bear to have intense feelings for someone who fails to reciprocate. So we slowly and quietly push them out. Nothing destroys an INFJ more than feeling deeply and passionately for someone who can’t reciprocate or isn’t reciprocating  – it plunges us into an episode of extreme depression and obsessive anxiety.

INFJs don’t ask for much… we ask to be genuinely loved, valued and cherished for who we are.