Originally Posted by
17types
A year on and our once strong friendship no longer exists. It makes me ponder and look at those relationships that go through the honeymoon phase and don’t survive it. It’s lovely, then not so lovely, then ugly and now feels like a friendship (or relationship) never existed.
Whats your story? Have i got benefit relations all wrong???
I think this happens in many relationships. At least that has been my experience of it. At the beginning there are positive expectations, the newness and the common goals, the future looks bright, you feel uplifted and inspired, but then there comes some critical point, some downturn or difficult times or some unpleasant situation, and if you can't get past that things end, or at least there is estrangement for some time. I'd say the some ITRs like "benefit" are more susceptible to these check points. Also "supervision" and "mirage" ime. Honeymoon period ends in any case, even for duals. Then you might see something that you don't really like from each other. This is like an assessment point - both of you need to feel like everything else was worth it to continue. Some "benefit" pairs survive this, and you could still mend things with your ESI friend, if you feel like it's worth it. Gulenko ranks "benefit" as either #4 or #5 in his list of intertypes due to how common this 'connection' is between friends and in couples. It is definitely a relation of pronounced ups-and-downs.
What happens in benefit relations is an asymmetric trade of energy and information. The "benefactor" is the one who inspires the beneficiary towards some actions or some projects, but that creative impulse isn't reciprocated due to the asymmetry. So the "benefactor" sends out this energy impulse, but it is is never replenished. Then the benefactor ends up feeling like he's giving and giving, though usually not in a material sense, and the beneficiary isn't really up to par. In casual "benefit" friendships this breaking point is sometimes felt like simple boredom - the benefactor feels bored and underwhelmed with their beneficiary, stops giving them attention, and they drift apart. In a relationship, this creates a precedent for an a argument and a parting.
I think every benefit ring has a certain different flavor to it as to what happens between the benefit pairs. Strati has recently come alive and published a series of articles on superego and benefit relations. She started with the involutionary introverted ring, which is SLI-ESI-IEI-LII. So here's a couple paragraphs of interest:
Like all involutors, the "asking" introverts consider critical opinions to be the most worthwhile (although they don't exclude criticism from jealousy or meanness), while they refer with disbelief to reviews of praise and commendation (which doesn't prevent them from referring to these for prestige). Themselves feel awkward even when they praise someone sincerely - in these instances they seem unconvincing to themselves and to others.
The combination of these three features - involution, introversion, "asking" trait - and the commonality of characteristics that are manifested in all representatives of these TIMs, that are united by a common introvert-involutionary ("Questim") ring of social progress, imposes a certain imprint on their relations in dyads, making them especially painful because of the endless squabbles arising from stinging, petty, cruel and sharp mutual criticism of the actions of both partners, and their condemnation of each other's actions as being illogical, untimely, unethical and unaesthetic during the crisis periods of their relations, which precedes the rejection of the "beneficiary" and his subsequent exit from the influence of the "benefactor" (from the social order).
Full version in Russian: https://socionika-forever.blogspot.c...BA%D0%B0%D0%B7