I had a very rewarding encounter this week.

I tried to offer a guest post on a site that focuses on INTJs.

When my submission was rejected?

I realized how much I’ve grown.

Because what the site owner was looking for from me?

It was exactly the wrong thing.

He wanted me to provide his INTJ readers with a typical strategy list for love. He wanted me to give him know-how, tips, and explanations how an INTJ mind works in relationships.

But that’s just the thing I had to learn.

My mind didn’t work for relationships at all.

What I’ve used my mind to understand instead?

How Romantic Love ITSELF “works.”

I learned I had to get out of my mind.

And actually get into my FEELINGS.

I also had to remove the obstacles.

To truly make room for love.

So I thought I would share that refused blog post submission below. Because it is my story of exactly what I’ve learned about love.

I’ve left it in the format I wrote it for that submission.

I hope you enjoy it and I’m so glad the owner of THIS blog was willing to publish it here.

BLOG POST TITLE: HOW THIS INTJ FOUND HIS HEART (REJECTED)

GROWING UP

When I grew up of course I didn’t know anything about Myers-Briggs, let alone INTJs. I just knew that I was “different” and tended not to hang out with my peers so well.

While my fellow church youth group attendees where enjoying activities at the youth conference, I’d be spending my time talking with the session speakers. At 19 years old I pastored a church. You could say I was not the typical teen!

GETTING THE GIRL

At 25 I married the “girl of my dreams.”

Somebody who seemed less flighty and more level headed.

Through a business course I took my Myers-Briggs and then had her take hers as well.

She was an ENFP.

No surprises there I guess.

But she was one who had found a bit of her feet after floundering.

Unlike me she didn’t grow up in the church.

She had “sewn her wild oats” extensively.

By the time I came along I was that strong, stable guy she was looking for to technically “save her.”

Little did she know the relationship mess she was about to enter.

NOT SO WEDDED BLISS

On our wedding night I couldn’t have sex.

I was terrified and froze up completely.

Shortly after that, my feelings for her completely disappeared.

I spent the rest of our married life trying to find them again.

Of course the extreme I’m describing is not just INTJ.

But it is a common pattern we logic types easily fall into.

We don’t connect emotionally and we tend to leave our partners lost in a relationship desert alone.

She and I continued on this way for many, many years.

Me avoiding sex and not really connecting.

I left my poor ENFP with only her chidren to give her any love in return.

That’s not fair.

I still loved her and cared about her.

I just couldn’t find those deep feelings I had at the start.

RELATIONSHIP CRISIS

Finally the crisis came in 2010 when I found out she was debating leaving me at last.

That was my two-by-four to head.

Time to start figuring myself out.

And figure myself out I did!

Not only did I find my feelings for her again.

I came to understand our common relationship pattern too.

LOVE ADDICTION AND LOVE AVOIDANCE

A pattern lots of INTJs and ENFPs experience, though other personality types can as well.

I found out she was a love addict and I was a love avoidant.

Love avoidance is something we INTJs come by quite naturally.

Because we’re so logic driven and so low level feeling.

Connecting is just not our great strength.

Needless to say emotional neediness is something ENFPs fall victim to as well.

In many ways we were both like moths drawn to a flame.

FIGURING MYSELF OUT

Were it not for my INTJ determination to understand, that might have been the end of the story.

Instead I began to study relationships and turn myself around.

I found my heart again.

I went from someone who didn’t understand what sex had to do with love, to somebody who doesn’t want physical intimacy without real emotional connection.

IN A BETTER PLACE

No I couldn’t save that relationship.

It was too much too little too late.

But I’m in a better place emotionally now than I’ve ever been in my life.

And I have relationship experience since that time that shows me I’ve really made good on it.

Maybe you relate to what I’m saying here.

Maybe you’d like to talk to someone who’s been there too.

If so I hope you’ll reach out to me.

I’d love to talk and hear your story too!

What do you think? Was my submission too lacking in substance to be of value or does it strike a chord in you heart?