I Slammed the Door on My Parents
Confession of an INFJ
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INFJ is the rarest of the Myers-Briggs personality types, making up less than 2 percent of women and less than 1 percent of men. We tend to be warm, quiet, thoughtful and principled. Insightful, honest and understated. But we can also be very sure of ourselves and refuse to believe other people’s opinions to the point of being stubborn.
There is one phenomenon that above all seems out of character considering our usual gentle, caring nature: the INFJ ‘Door Slam.’
What is the INFJ ‘Door Slam’
INFJs have a tendency to be people pleasers because we really hate conflict. We are often reluctant to tell people how we are really feeling if it will lead to conflict and sometimes try so hard to make other people happy, that we forget to make ourselves happy.
If conflict arises, especially in a close relationship, it can cause us a lot of distress because we bottle up our emotions rather than letting the other party know how we feel. We suffer sleepless nights or physical manifestations like headaches, shingles, hives or an upset stomach. Trust me, I’ve experienced all of those, and more.
Because of our reluctance to share our feelings, the conflict never gets resolved. It merely gets kicked down the road in order to satisfy our need for peace and the ill feeling inside us continues to grow.
Eventually, the situation reaches a tipping point and we see no other option than to cut the person out of our lives altogether. We slam the door. Ideally we’d never have contact with the person again but if we’re not able to completely remove them from our lives, we may continue to politely tolerate their presence. But they will no longer have any meaningful connection with us.
To paraphrase Jenn Granneman:
“We don’t hate you. We nothing you.”
This drastic action could appear from the outside that it’s come out of the blue, but for us that couldn’t be further from the truth. This has been simmering under the surface for months or, more likely, years.
The funny thing is that the person on the receiving end of the door slam may not even realize it has happened. INFJs tend to be more perceptive than most so although it is obvious to us that there is no longer a connection, the other party likely hasn’t picked up on it. The ‘friend’ will keep texting asking if we want to meet up but strangely we’ll always be too busy doing something else. Eventually we hope they’ll get the message.
Why did I slam the door?
My relationship with my parents had been deteriorating for a long time. Of course, they didn’t realize this.
Time spent around them felt incredibly draining. I felt exhausted after seeing them. Maybe it was a combination of my mum’s need to always be right and my dad becoming increasingly bitter and mean. His meanness wasn’t generally directed at me, but as an empath, I was finding his constant delight in other people’s misfortune was becoming incredibly draining. Conversations were always totally one-sided. I felt like they never asked anything beyond surface level ‘how are you?’ questions and knew almost nothing about my life.
Even though I’m sure they didn’t mean to (there I go defending them!) I always felt like they were dragging me down rather than building me up. INFJs are very sensitive to the words and deeds of others. We need support. We need meaningful two-way relationships.
Tipping points
The first tipping point came when I came back from working my first ever wine grape harvest. A life changing couple of weeks of new experiences making wine in one of the most beautiful places in the world. ‘How was it?’ they asked. ‘Oh amazing. Hard work but a lot of fun and it was such beautiful weather.’ ‘Oh yes it’s been lovely here too,’ they cut in, ‘we’ve played lots of tennis.’ And that was the sum total of what they ever asked me about one of the most important things I’ve ever done.
Second, when I tentatively told them that I was considering selling my house and business in order to move on to a more nomadic lifestyle. It had taken a while to pluck up the courage to tell them as I had a feeling how the conversation was going to go and sure enough I received a 5 minute barrage of reasons why I was ‘stupid’ for even thinking about it. I felt like I was a child all over again.
Leaving their house that day, I realized I had to cut them out. Slam the door.
How did I slam the door?
Slamming the door was going to be very difficult. I owned a shop and one of the key things about shops is that they literally have a door that is open to anyone. Including parents who feel the need to pop in several times a week for a chat even though you’ve tried to hint that it’s not convenient. Pretty hard to shut that door to them.
So, how does someone who struggles with conflict and has no choice but to see his parents several times a week cut them out of his life?
I wrote a long message to them explaining how I felt, how I needed their support not criticism. That I needed a two-way relationship that we both benefitted from. I wrote and rewrote that message until I was happy with it.
But I never sent it.
Instead I just cut them out on an emotional level. From then on, I’d be perfectly pleasant but I was now emotionally closed off to them. This was actually pretty easy considering they rarely asked me anything important anyway but I now felt like I had my armor on in case of attack. It was impenetrable. Our relationship continued like this for nearly 2 years.
Lockdown saved my relationship with them
Fast forward to March 2020. Lockdown has hit. We’re not allowed to visit anyone. No more surprise visits from my parents to catch me off guard.
Instead we can only see them over FaceTime. The weird thing is that they behaved totally differently when we were separated by a screen. They asked questions and they actually listened to the answers instead of constantly trying to wrestle the conversation back to themselves. Our relationship gradually started to improve. I slowly started letting them back in. I started sharing more personal things with them.
Now that I am travelling (yep, I sold my house and business and am now a nomad) I haven’t seen them in person for a couple of months. The whole relationship is now carried out over FaceTime. And although I know they miss me, I’m actually much happier with it this way. We have pre-arranged times to speak rather than surprise visits. We have deeper conversations. The door has been reopened.
Awareness, not justification
It’s great to understand more about ourselves via personality typing such as Myers-Briggs. But we need to use it as a tool for self-awareness rather than a justification for our actions.
I’m aware I did not handle this situation well and I’m sad that I lost the relationship with my parents for a couple of years. I still wonder what would have happened if I had sent that message. Would it have caused them to change their behavior or would it have just opened up an even bigger chasm?
In future I need to be less ‘Oh that’s just how I am, I’m prone to slamming the door’ and more ‘I’m aware that if I don’t work on setting boundaries and sharing my feelings it can end up in the loss of important relationships.’
All personality types have their strengths and weaknesses. One of the biggest challenges for INFJs is that we tend to have a stronger conviction than most that we are correct. We therefore find it difficult to take criticism and accept that we need to change our behavior.
Thankfully we also have a penchant for self-development and learning. If we can channel that trait into overcoming our reluctance to speak up about our need for boundaries and our fear of sharing our true feelings, hopefully we won’t have to slam the door so much.
