An ENTJ-INFP Coupling

A reader of this blog recently emailed us with ques­tions about what it was like liv­ing with a per­son with a strong ENTJ per­son­al­ity type. Seems the part­ner of the reader was so career-committed that the reader was faced with extended peri­ods of sep­a­ra­tion in the future. The ENTJ mem­ber of the part­ner­ship was, at least in our inter­pre­ta­tion, putting career ahead of the partnership.

As we have men­tioned in prior of posts, we are an ENTJ-INFP cou­ple. For what it is worth, the two of us have both taken var­i­ous forms of the Myers-Briggs Type Indi­ca­tor (MBTI) assess­ment over the years and have always got­ten the same results. Is Still Here always tests as an ENTJ. Still Here Too always tests as an INFP. Also, for what it is worth, we are a het­ero­sex­ual cou­ple. Is Still Here is male and Still Here Too is female.

Let’s start with Is Still Here. Why start with him? Well, after dis­cussing his per­son­al­ity type, it should be obvi­ous. As we have said, he always scores as an ENTJ. How­ever, he shows a fairly strong I ten­dency along with the E part. What is com­pli­cated about this is that E and I are Extro­ver­sion (E) and Intro­ver­sion (I). If you can get Is Still Here to really open up, he will admit to you that he can really feel like two peo­ple; quickly vac­il­lat­ing between feel­ing very open to peo­ple and the world to feel­ing very inter­nal and intro­spec­tive. There are times when peo­ple are notice­ably shocked by the sud­den change from seem­ing bois­ter­ous and engaged to seem­ing almost sullen and with­drawn. It is often mis­taken for a mood swing but is really just a change in thought pat­tern to very deep inter­nal reflection.

The Myers & Briggs Foun­da­tion Web­site offers the fol­low­ing descriptions:

ENTJ: Frank, deci­sive, assume lead­er­ship read­ily. Quickly see illog­i­cal and inef­fi­cient pro­ce­dures and poli­cies, develop and imple­ment com­pre­hen­sive sys­tems to solve orga­ni­za­tional prob­lems. Enjoy long-term plan­ning and goal set­ting. Usu­ally well informed, well read, enjoy expand­ing their knowl­edge and pass­ing it on to oth­ers. Force­ful in pre­sent­ing their ideas.

INTJ: Have orig­i­nal minds and great drive for imple­ment­ing their ideas and achiev­ing their goals. Quickly see pat­terns in exter­nal events and develop long-range explana­tory per­spec­tives. When com­mit­ted, orga­nize a job and carry it through. Skep­ti­cal and inde­pen­dent, have high stan­dards of com­pe­tence and per­for­mance - for them­selves and others.

Almost a bit bipo­lar isn’t he. Well not really. But this is prob­a­bly not a bad descrip­tion of his real per­son­al­ity. Most of the time, he is a true ENTJ. But some­times, he is a more intro­spec­tive INTJ. The change can be sudden.

For what it is worth, ENTJs are often referred to as “The Exec­u­tives” and INTJs are often referred to as “The Sci­en­tists”. Wierdly accurate.

And what about Still Here Too. She test as an INFP. Is Still Here, who has a habit of ana­lyz­ing things and gen­er­ally treats every sub­ject as an aca­d­e­mic test (he can­not help him­self) believes she must also have some sig­nif­i­cant ISFP traits.

The Myers & Briggs Foun­da­tion Web­site offers the fol­low­ing descriptions:

INFP: Ide­al­is­tic, loyal to their val­ues and to peo­ple who are impor­tant to them. Want an exter­nal life that is con­gru­ent with their val­ues. Curi­ous, quick to see pos­si­bil­i­ties, can be cat­a­lysts for imple­ment­ing ideas. Seek to under­stand peo­ple and to help them ful­fill their poten­tial. Adapt­able, flex­i­ble, and accept­ing unless a value is threatened.

ISFP: Quiet, friendly, sen­si­tive, and kind. Enjoy the present moment, what’s going on around them. Like to have their own space and to work within their own time frame. Loyal and com­mit­ted to their val­ues and to peo­ple who are impor­tant to them. Dis­like dis­agree­ments and con­flicts, do not force their opin­ions or val­ues on others.

Still Here Too feels Is Still Here is cor­rect that she has some traits of ISFP because this is how she feels, espe­cially “Loyal and com­mit­ted to their val­ues and to peo­ple who are impor­tant to them”.

For what it is worth, INFPs are often referred to as “The Ide­al­ists” and ISFPs are often referred to as “The Artists”.

It may be a lit­tle dan­ger­ous to assume that how two peo­ple will inter­act with each other can be totally deter­mined by their MBTI types, but there are some peo­ple who do just that. Our per­sonal expe­ri­ence sug­gests there is very lit­tle real­ity in the approach. Hon­estly, if we had allowed our MBTI types to influ­ence whether we com­mit­ted to spend our lives together, we would not have done so. Before we were mar­ried, we were coun­seled by the priest who per­formed the cer­e­mony. As part of this coun­sel­ing, he had us take an MBTI type eval­u­a­tion. He actu­ally was some­what con­cerned about the pos­si­ble ENTJ-INFP per­son­al­ity mismatch.

When we first met, there was a near instant con­nec­tion. We were both strongly drawn to each other phys­i­cally. Very strongly drawn to each other. This strong phys­i­cal attrac­tion has not weak­ened over the years. It is more than just a strong sex­ual attrac­tion. It is a phys­i­cal right­ness that we feel when close to each other. And there is a very, very strong sex­ual attrac­tion that also remains undiminished.

We were both drawn to each other’s extreme intel­li­gence. Beyond any elit­ist lean­ings we deserve to have, we very quickly learned just how much we were inter­ested in the same things in life; our strong inter­est in the same forms of art, our love of nature, our love of lit­er­a­ture, our taste in fan­tasy sci­ence fic­tion, our love of TV series that the ass­hole net­works always can­cel, how we would rather spend our free time just doing things together rather than run­ning off with our sep­a­rate friends.

This is not to say that we have not had to adapt to each other’s personalities.

Many times, Is Still Here will take the lead in mak­ing a sim­ple deci­sion. That is what he does. Still Here Too is usu­ally very will­ing to let him do so. But there are times when Is Still Here gen­uinely wants to know what Still Here Too desires. The fol­low­ing con­ver­sa­tion (argu­ment?) has prob­a­bly hap­pened at least once a week over the last forty years.

Is Still Here, “Would you like to go to XYZ?”
Still Here Too, “If you would.“
Is Still Here, “I just asked if you wanted to?“
Still Here Too, “It is OK if you want to.“
Is Still Here, “I didn’t ask about me, I wanted to know if you would like to go?“
Still Here Too, “It is fine with me, if you want to go.“
Is Still Here, “It doesn’t sound like you want to go?“
Still Here Too, “No, it is fine.“
… sev­eral min­utes later …
Is Still Here, “Why won’t you just tell me if you want to go or not?“
Still Here Too, “I don’t want you not to go just because of me.“
Is Still Here, “I only sug­gested it because I thought you might want to go.“
Still Here Too, “Well, I am a lit­tle tired. Why don’t we just go home.”

You see, some­times we still don’t read each other right. Is Still Here makes a sug­ges­tion, Still Here Too wants to go along because she wants to please Is Still Here, Is Still Here is look­ing for a direct answer that is not there. You would think he would have learned how to read the response after so many years. We get through the mis­un­der­stand­ing because we really do love each other enough to know that it is just the way we are. After­wards it seems a lit­tle silly. And it prob­a­bly will keep happening.

Some­times Is Still Here will bend Still Here Too to his will because feel­ings are most impor­tant to her and she wants him to be happy because that is what makes her happy. Per­haps it is a win-win out­come, but we must be care­ful. Is Still Here has tried to learn to be mind­ful that this hap­pens. When he does not, it is easy for inter­nal ten­sion to build up in Still Here Too. No mat­ter how much hap­pi­ness she receives from mak­ing Is Still Here happy, there are still desires and wishes of her own that must be ful­filled. More often than not he is suc­cess­ful in remem­ber­ing to take care of Still Here Too’s own wants. But that are times he misses. Luck­ily there are many fewer times than those he does not miss.

But in the end, for all the silly lit­tle mis­un­der­stand­ings, there is so much under­stand­ing, so much agree­ment, so much in com­mon that Is Still Here and Still Here Too can­not imag­ine being apart. As dif­fer­ent as they may be, as much as peo­ple may have been sur­prised when they first got together, this is a cou­pling that is and will last. Per­haps ENTJ-INFP cou­plings are not sup­posed to be easy. This one would be hard to break.

Is Still Here & Still Here Too