INFP & Ethical Non-Monogamy: Chicken or Egg?
I spent 30 years as a "cold" INTP; but then I found my inner human and got the feels.
This is the most personal post on Help Me Poly so far. But psychology and personality have been on my mind even more than usual and seems worth at least an introduction. This post will show some of the traits that have helped ME embrace my natural leanings toward ethical non-monogamy. Your mileage may vary, as always.
Myers-Briggs Polyamory Overlap
Despite a lot of recent media “debunking” the very idea of Myers-Briggs, it’s still a test that gives you an overview of how you interact with your inner and outer worlds right now in your life. That’s all. It might not be a good idea to use it to screen job applicants or predict your future, but it’s information… and I love information.
My whole life I’ve tested as INTP, which is a type often summed up as blunt, indecisive, and unemotional. Check, check, and…. check? I used to not experience much emotion: I could not rise to almost any occasion whether excited or angry. But I am changing, and my personality has bloomed with the fragile petals of emotions where none grew previously. This nudged me from the “T” of Thinking to the “F” of Feeling, at least enough to put them in balance.
This growth in me has come at the same time that I am nurturing my friendships and opening embracing my polyamorous and ethical non-monogamy preferences.
So…. are they related?
I wanted to know if there was any data on distribution of the MBTI personality types within the polyamory and ethical non-monogamy crowd. There is at least one so far, thankfully. I found a Canadian writer and polyamorist who is compiling data by hand, from hundreds (or more) respondents. He uses the test at humanmetrics.com, which puts me as an INTP, barely. Over on 16personalities.com I test as INFP by a slim 10% margin of Feeling over Thinking for the “T/F” split.
Interestingly, in the website survey results for polyam folks, there are FAR more INFPs than INTPs. In fact, INFPs seem to be the largest percentage of all. Makes sense. Openness with communication, emoting, being able to accommodate others… all of these are needed for healthy polyam relationships. And those behaviors also make one test more towards F than T.
For me, I’m still not sure if we have a chicken/egg situation. They might not be direct cause and effect, but they certainly support each other: I have grown immensely in my ability to feel and communicate, and have ALSO grown in my ability to actively seek the relationships that bring me the most joy (and that means friendships, too).
Actively Seeking Fulfilling Connections
The “active” part is rather important and a shift from much of my previously passive approach to relationships from friendships to partners. Whatever was needed to keep the relationship going, AND NO MORE, was what I contributed. This was a terrible way to grow as a human and to be a person that people want to spend time with.
I had a long relationship that was stagnant in its growth, connection, and intimacy. My partner feared abandonment. I feared confrontation. We cared for each other. That’s how 15 years goes by. (Oof)
Part of my personality type contains a lot of self-recrimination for past decisions or inertia, and I still feel this. Wondering how I might be in a different place now had either me or my partner had owned up to reality far earlier.
And yet.
I am NOW who I am meant to be at this moment. I might have gotten to “here” a decade earlier, but so what. I am here now, and I am having deeply meaningful relationships as a result, in a city that I love, surrounded by growth and magic and feels.
That is what is reflected in that shift away from the rather harsh “THINKER” type wherein everything was rational and emotions were just squishy things in the way, toward realizing that humans are emotional creatures and it is the rare person who can get away with denying feelings for very long. Now I cry during lovely runs, tell people how I feel as early as I feel it, really listen to everything my friends are telling me about their lives, and let intimacy happen with those I adore. It’s a rollercoaster.
More to come on this…. It’s a huge topic.