Letting Go: Raging INFJ Pt. 2

I mentioned in my last post, Raging INFJ, there is a difference between the infamous INFJ “door slam” and simply letting people go. To follow up, I want to add a few musings.

Primarily, my motivation behind letting someone go is the realisation I am the only party in this so called “relationship” who is putting forth any effort into maintaining contact, dialogue, interaction, etc.; so much so it takes extraneous efforts to sustain my own initiating.

We INFJs are not initiators. I think we can be when the necessity calls for it, but naturally, we are not initiators.

Thus, I come to this fork in the road where I know I could either continue spending my energy, sometimes at great cost, and gain little to nothing in the barely existing relationship, or to reserve this energy for spending on something worthwhile, something where the efforts are reciprocated because reciprocation is good. (It might not be needed, but it is still good.)

The challenge I faced when deciding whether to let someone go or not was denying that intrinsic altruistic nature within me, which says continuing to put forth effort into a stagnant relationship is showing deference to the other, is showing I still care about and love them.

False.

I have taught myself there is no love in sustaining a dying relationship, regardless of its nature. Why?

How can I give them love when I’m not loving myself? Besides, if they are not putting forth any effort, then maybe it’s because they don’t want to continue since investing in the relationship ended ages ago for them. Therefore, letting them go would prove beneficial to all parties involved, especially myself who would gain more from the restoration of my wasted energies.

I think it takes more love to say, “Farewell” or “Until we meet again,” than to sustain a decaying friendship.

It’s not that the relationship has ended permanently. It’s simply realising it has fulfilled its purpose, run its course, and the journey is over; whether for now, to be continued later or forever.

There’s a poet, Atticus, who says we fear saying goodbye because we fear losing the pieces of our souls we gave away more than the person we gave them too. Thus, not letting go is selfish. It’s about sustaining those pieces of ourselves rather than allowing them to exist apart from us.

Whom we say goodbye to, whom we let go, inevitably, is our self.

But love is never wasted.