What INFJ/ENTP Marriage Looks Like

Let me first preface this by saying: I cannot speak for my husband and my perceptions about him may be slightly off (regardless of just how perceptive I can be).  ENTPs are nearly impossible to pin down, even for the hawk eyes and senses of an INFJ.  I simply want to write this post to share our strengths and our struggles.

Keep in mind that my husband and I have been married for less than 2 years, so we are still ‘figuring each other out’.  He is also an only child and in the military, and I believe these two factors have altered his personality a little and he can often act a lot like in INTP.

Okay, ready?  Let’s do this.

Good lord, there has never been a truer meme.  Quite obviously, I am the INFJ in this picture and my husband is the ENTP.  There are so many times when I stare at him and just admire the green of his eyes or the way his brow furrows when he’s thinking. And then I’ll wonder if he ever thinks anything like that about me.  That being said, I am 97% sure he RARELY thinks things like that because he is thinking about so many other random but brilliant things.  That’s not to say he doesn’t love me, he is just not wired the same.

How the ENTP and INFJ are VASTLY different:

• My husband is has a quick wit and humor that could crack a smile on even the hardest of hearts (think Robert Downy Junior in Iron Man).  I can be witty at times, but for the most part, I think of something I SHOULD have said thirty minutes after the conversation is already over.
• He LOVES to argue (he claims it’s ‘debating’, not arguing but to me it’s all the same).  I don’t like being at odds with someone.  I like peace, harmony, and agreeing.  It gives me anxiety to disagree and I’ll only do so if I feel it’s really important.  There are times when he argues with me, not because he actually disagrees with me, but simply for the sake of arguing.
• I am an eternal optimist.  I am best and happiest when I’m thinking about the way that things COULD or SHOULD be.  My ENTP husband… let’s just say he has a plan for every possible scenario that could go horribly wrong (even a zombie apocalypse).
• He is an extrovert with introverted tendencies.  I am an introvert with extroverted tendencies.

How the ENTP and INFJ are somewhat similar:

• We both need quite a bit of alone time.  There are evenings when he spends hours out in his workshop tinkering around with different home improvement projects while I hole up in our room with a good book or Netflix.  And that’s okay with BOTH of us.
• Though we are extremely different, we both desire to understand and be understood.
• We are both walking contradictions, but in different ways.  ENTPs are described as the nice asshole, rational unrealistic, impulsive longterm planner, etc.  INFJs want to be noticed and appreciated yet hate attention, we like to be alone yet we desire companionship, we are logical yet we can disregard logic if our intuition tells us something different, etc.
• We are the biggest nerds imaginable.  We love Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, self-improvement books, and of course MBTI.
• We are very passionate individuals.  We have a fiery connection that extends beyond anything physical.

 

Our Strengths as a Couple:

• Where I am lacking, he is strong and vice versa.  It also helps that he has eidetic memory (photographic memory), because I have had three concussions and can be quite forgetful.  He helps me to see the logical side of things when my emotions get in the way and I help to soften his outlook on certain things.
• We both understand our needs for alone time and we don’t take it personally.  That is invaluable.  In a lot of my past relationships, I would force myself to push past my desire for alone time because I knew their feelings would get hurt if I chose alone time over time with them and would get to the point where I would shut people out for days and ruin relationships because I refused to listen to my own needs.  That never happens in our marriage.
• We are both so strange and nerdy that we are unfazed by the other.
• Because we are polar opposites, I think we both respect each other for those different qualities.  He respects my patience and selfless nature, I respect his unabashed honesty and his beautiful thought process.

Things We Could Definitely Work on:

• I am highly sensitive to criticism and brazen honesty, whereas he places a high value on unfiltered honesty above sparing feelings.  We’re both getting better, but we need to find a place somewhere in the middle.
• I despise any type of confrontation while he almost welcomes it.  To him, it’s boring to never argue or disagree.  Therefore, our “debates” usually end in tears on my end and frustration on his end.
• We can both become entirely too comfortable with spending our evenings and weekends at home.  We tend to spend long stretches of time as hermits without reaching out to our friends (our family lives too far away), content to spend time with just each other and our puppy binge-watching Walking Dead.  We need to be more social while we are young and don’t have children.  It’s not healthy to only hang out with each other.

And there you have it, the basics of an INFJ/ENTP marriage.  We are vastly different people, but we work well together as a team and we are crazy in love (like Beyonce).

Thanks for reading!  Happy Hump Day Eve!