Question for INTjs about cheating

[Beautiful sky]

"My friend has been cheating on their husband and she's coming to talk to me and we've been talking about her situation. What should I say to her? What should I do? Be supportive or I shouldn't be judmental of her?"

Any advice you can give to this ESE?

[Krig the Viking]

LIIs are probably not the best people to ask about this sort of heavily Fi-related question... I honestly have no idea what sort of advice to give. This is really not our field of expertise.

This is actually the sort of thing that an LII would need an ESE's advice on, not the other way around.

[ashlesha]

[EyeSeeCold]

ew, laghlagh

[PistolShrimp]

General probably not LII-style advice, laugh at me if you want:

Tell her to be supportive of her friend but also to encourage her friend to fess up to her husband, as he will find out eventually and the longer she waits the worse things will be. Her husband deserves to know, and keeping a secret like that is bound to kill the relationship sooner or later. Her friend will likely need all the support she can get to go through with something so difficult as confessing adultery, and judging her may just cause her to confide even more in her lover for support.

[Ave]

Its hard to say based on the lack of details given: ie what is really going on, what she tells you is going on, and what you tell us are all very different things, and what you have to do is more or less up to details which we dont know anything about.

[Beautiful sky]

General probably not LII-style advice, laugh at me if you want:

Tell her to be supportive of her friend but also to encourage her friend to fess up to her husband, as he will find out eventually and the longer she waits the worse things will be. Her husband deserves to know, and keeping a secret like that is bound to kill the relationship sooner or later. Her friend will likely need all the support she can get to go through with something so difficult as confessing adultery, and judging her may just cause her to confide even more in her lover for support.

Your response is very kind and sympathetic, but I'm afraid it isn't an analysis.

[Beautiful sky]

LIIs are probably not the best people to ask about this sort of heavily Fi-related question... I honestly have no idea what sort of advice to give. This is really not our field of expertise.

This is actually the sort of thing that an LII would need an ESE's advice on, not the other way around.

Really Krig, I thought you were a Ti type. Where is the same DEPTH of thought that resembles the nature of the type? Where is that abstract thinking, of analysis on topics, of construction, categorization of exploration in the depths of a problem?

Really Krig, "relationships" involve all human types, and if it was Fi and exclusively in my domain, than I'm sure most people who have a relationship are Fi? What an absurd idea; just another one of your misconceptions and false beliefs I'm afraid.

[Cuddly McFluffles]

Really Krig, I thought you were a Ti type. Where is the same DEPTH of thought that resembles the nature of the type? Where is that abstract thinking, of analysis on topics, of construction, categorization of exploration in the depths of a problem?

Really Krig, "relationships" involve all human types, and if it was Fi and exclusively in my domain, than I'm sure most people who have a relationship are Fi? What an absurd idea; just another one of your misconceptions and false beliefs I'm afraid.

It's an emotionally-loaded situation that requires a great deal of care and sensitivity to navigate. I suspect that is what Krig was getting at.

[ClownsandEntropy]

Really Krig, I thought you were a Ti type. Where is the same DEPTH of thought that resembles the nature of the type? Where is that abstract thinking, of analysis on topics, of construction, categorization of exploration in the depths of a problem?

Really Krig, "relationships" involve all human types, and if it was Fi and exclusively in my domain, than I'm sure most people who have a relationship are Fi? What an absurd idea; just another one of your misconceptions and false beliefs I'm afraid.

I was actually going to reply with something, Maritsa, until I saw you reply. I mean, surely if you're trying to get Krig's opinion, it would be better to say that you want his analysis (and advice), rather than adopting a passive-aggressive tone. As has been pointed out, Krig (to me, at least) seems to be saying that this situation is quite emotionally-hazardous and requires one to acknowledge the feelings of people. Indeed, it would probably be a poorer outcome if you were to treat people as merely agents with aims for analysis, rather than as people with emotion. Essentially, though, even though you think that Krig is wrong (not even that, you can hardly call Krig "wrong" in this situation: he just didn't answer your question the way you wanted him to) you should try to not take such a condescending tone if you're hoping for him or for others to participate in your thread.

[Beautiful sky]

And my point is that "abstract thinking" with Ne, a situation that is not direct, is somewhat hypothetical and rough is or should be right up in his domain. I think I will finalize his type with one more of his short sighted, directly judgmental and not judging statements. I'm waiting.

[Cuddly McFluffles]

And my point is that "abstract thinking" with Ne, a situation that is not direct, is somewhat hypothetical and rough is or should be right up in his domain. I think I will finalize his type with one more of his short sighted, directly judgmental and not judging statements. I'm waiting.

You could place a less personal situation in front of him and see what he does. To claim he's not because he won't bite at the -related hypothetical question you shoot at him is poor logic.

[Beautiful sky]

He's not analyzing something that he should be.

[Ryan]

Maritsa, you're just fishing for reactions. There is no right answer for that question. Be more direct and open about your objective if you want a serious answer.

[Beautiful sky]

This requires a serious analysis, one which only an Analyst is capable of doing. It is a requirement of ESE/LII duality to be able to decipher information in a particular way as to brush up confusions matriculated by an external reflective Fe as they sulk themselves in mixed emotions. If you can't do this, then you're not an LII.

[Crispy]

Say as time passes chances of getting caught increase towards mos def. Advise to choose who makes her happiest ASAP. Quit cheatin' yo!

[Beautiful sky]

Say as time passes chances of getting caught increase towards mos def. Advise to choose who makes her happiest ASAP. Quit cheatin' yo!

BINGO! You skipped! Not fair.

Give me the juice.

[Crispy]

BINGO! You skipped! Not fair.

Give me the juice.

uhhh, be supportive by default since your advice will not get listened to if you appear judgmental. Being secretly judgmental is aight tho

[Ryan]

This requires a serious analysis, one which only an Analyst is capable of doing. It is a requirement of ESE/LII duality to be able to decipher information in a particular way as to brush up confusions matriculated by an external reflective Fe as they sulk themselves in mixed emotions. If you can't do this, then you're not an LII.

Okay..

How would an INTj answer that question? Give me an example.

[Pa3s]

It is a requirement of ESE/LII duality to be able to decipher information in a particular way as to brush up confusions matriculated by an external reflective Fe as they sulk themselves in mixed emotions. If you can't do this, then you're not an LII.

Behold! Maritsa has just found the ultimate LII litmus test. Genius!

[Uncertainty]

I have to ask you why you're asking the question in the first place; you already seem like you have your own ideas of how they would react when placed into that kind of situation.

So...
What do you think an LII would say when posed those questions, maritsa?
And what should he or she say?

[Korpsy Knievel]

Behold! Maritsa has just found the ultimate LII litmus test. Genius!

Socionics just gets easier all the time.

[Krig the Viking]

Really Krig, I thought you were a Ti type. Where is the same DEPTH of thought that resembles the nature of the type? Where is that abstract thinking, of analysis on topics, of construction, categorization of exploration in the depths of a problem?

If the question had been, "Is cheating on your spouse morally wrong?" or perhaps "Can a relationship survive being cheated on, and should one even try to do so?", then I could have given you an answer full of abstract analysis, statistics, philosophical and moral pondering, etc.

But that wasn't the question. The question was, "What should I say to my friend who's been cheating on her husband? Should I be supportive or judgmental of her?" That's a whole different matter, involving specific details of an individual relationship. To give any sort of useful answer to that question, you would have to have a good understanding of how the woman in question feels, how her husband feels, how strong or weak their relationship is, etc. That's the sort of thing an ESE is much better at handling than an LII, and it would be pointless for an ESE to ask an LII about it.

In that situation, the LII's role would likely be in clarifying any more abstract moral or philosophical issues that might arise, like I said. The emotional and relational side of things is clearly in the ESE's area of strength.

It's an emotionally-loaded situation that requires a great deal of care and sensitivity to navigate. I suspect that is what Krig was getting at.

You could place a less personal situation in front of him and see what he does. To claim he's not because he won't bite at the -related hypothetical question you shoot at him is poor logic.

Precisely.

[Absurd]

Maritsa got her morals wrong, forgive her.

[Beautiful sky]

But that wasn't the question. The question was, "What should I say to my friend who's been cheating on her husband? Should I be supportive or judgmental of her?" That's a whole different matter, involving specific details of an individual relationship. To give any sort of useful answer to that question, you would have to have a good understanding of how the woman in question feels, how her husband feels, how strong or weak their relationship is, etc. That's the sort of thing an ESE is much better at handling than an LII, and it would be pointless for an ESE to ask an LII about it.

Yes, that was the question and the proper LII answer was the one I just gave (scroll down); but, we won't need your answer any more, because I'm not typing you LII. Go ahead and find all the support you need with your thumbs up gestures and such. IDK.

[Kirana]

I promised myself I wouldn't post here again, but I will. OK, I have 2 ESE friends - one from way back in school, the other a colleague. Actually they do like to ask me, an LII, this type of question. But because they know me well by now, they also know I will not give a straight answer precisely because of my Ne, which for some bizarre reason is precisely why they plague me with such things. If I didn't like them so much, it would be annoying. People treat INTjs like oracles. They expect the answer to solve their problems but are spectacularly poor at asking the right question correctly.

I agree this question is too open-ended, there are simply too many possible variants that could change the advice, generating very many possible answers and it is extremely difficult to rank them without more information. Yes, the Ne helps analysis considerably, but with variables opened up so broadly - clearly the questioner doesn't understand what it is like to be swamped by way, way, too many possible scenarios for a conscious mind to process. Aside from circumstances, it isn't even clear what is wanted - support, or a solution? Is there a subtext that emotional people often have in their questions but always forget to explicitly mention? and so on. The question as posed does not have nearly enough information, and the possible answer suggested assumes either the LII already knows some facts or social rules of thumb applicable for this case, or is giving a canned answer because she isn't really interested in giving serious assistance. Even so, if I were really not interested, it's quite hard to imagine myself even bothering to give a canned answer rather than no answer or a deflective reply. And, the canned answer varies by INTj. If I were forced to pick a set of assumptions to define the limits of the case and thus pick the likeliest best answer, I might not have chosen that line of reasoning. "First off, probably best for her to stop the cheating" might be my opener, before explaining how that is beneficial across many likely scenarios that might unfold.

If it was one of my 2 friends, I would invariably (because they're friends and so I consider it worthwhile to even entertain these quite pointless questions) help them feel out the question more by asking for more information. Either this helps them think through the problem and discover what they want to do all along, or discover what the situation needs (which is what an INTj is good at and what few other people would focus on even though obviously it is the most important part) as opposed to what the people want to hear, or at least I would get more information to narrow down the possible range of situations and therefore the possible range of helpful answers.

[Beautiful sky]

Here's an LII answer from an experienced LII

"If she is over 18, she should know better what to do. What’s her problem? That she is cheating? Or that she is having difficulty living with it? There is nothing an advisor can invent in this situation. She should either stop cheating or learn to live with herself. The choice is hers. I’d say, no matter what advice you give, you should always remain yourself. You shouldn’t show any other attitude to cheating besides the one you have. You don’t even have to show the one you have. No matter what you think, she will live her life the way it suits her. What’s important is to understand what the problem is and then think how you can help. You don’t have to bend yourself to help someone with different views. At least, that’s the concern I caught in your message. Let me know if I’m wrong."

[Beautiful sky]

Actually, in a real life situation an LII would have to confront these types of advice seeking from ESE because of the external nature of the type and how they wrap their feelings around situations and instances. This question had nothing to do with his presupposition which was that it was Fi related. And, he has made many misconceptions and stated many times without regard that Fi is not about relationships, but a static observation or impression of the bond that is shared between people. Just because an ESE has a friend who they share conversations about relationships it doesn't mean that the ESE is observing the bonds of relationship between her friend and her husband, in fact, she's ignoring that because in no instance did the ESE care or ask about those bonds. Her friend came to her looking for some answer as to what to do about the situation.

[ClownsandEntropy]

Sure, Maritsa, perhaps your right (and perhaps your not, feel free to fight it out with Krig), but the main point I was making was that the general tone of your message seemed overly condescending, which in general made me unwilling to participate in your thread.

[Beautiful sky]

Don't participate. I don't understand how or why you get so emotional about it anyway. Generally LII are analysts and thinkers; they don't get this emotional at something like this.

[ClownsandEntropy]

Ah, sorry, didn't mean to sound overly-emotional. You can understand why me, as a person, might find someone adopting a condescending tone slightly irritating, right? I don't what you to think I'm getting to the level of irrational anger at you, but I did want to point out to you my thoughts on your tone.

[Beautiful sky]

That's interesting piece of info, FACT.

[yellow82]

I realize you didn't want to hurt anybodies feelings sweetie, but remember, INTj's though logical, aren't cold-hearted beasts. They have feelings just like the rest of us.




Also, if it makes any difference, I agree with Krig. Every INTj I've ever known would shrink from a question like that without details. . . as I believe that they ought to. It's an emotionally charged question. How you respond to your friend ultimately changes everything in the situation. Either your friend confesses and her husband has a fit, confesses and her husband forgives her. Doesn't tell him and her husband finds out, [even worse]. Stops the cheating and does one of the above leading to other results. . . .

I mean, there are a lot of ways that it can be handled. But depending on the personalities of the lover, of the husband and of the wife, and the moral code of everyone involved, etc. You really have no idea which choice to choose if you don't know these factors.

In fact, I can't even answer your question without asking more questions.



Maybe if you changed how it's worded everyone could answer it a bit better, without feeling responsible for what happens to your friend if things don't go well. Just a thought.

[Beautiful sky]

Actually, INTj don't shrink away from answering questions like that, unless they are mistyped. You see ESE get into funky moods where they have to find out what other people are thinking or do think in certain cases and situations do to, obviously, the suppression of introverted (their own thoughts) thinking, this is why you will see ESE ask questions about what to do in a situation because they want to figure out what others think to see if their thinking is aligned to the outside and external thought. They would like their dual (a thinker) to come up with categories of thought judgment so they can decide about their own thought, helping to bring out confidence and support out of this subconscious function. Lovely how duality works, isn't it?

Someone who has thought in their subconscious function or feeling judgement may actually shy away from answering a question like that without an actual (existing and visible -sensed or circumstantial) case, such as an Si type like Krig. I've already typed him and am not changing my typing of him. It's very obvious to me that he can't use Ti to help his dual clear up some thoughts surrounding specific circumstances.

[yellow82]

I agree with you that an ESE would take more time deliberating on the situation then an LII once given all of the facts. But in both cases, the LII and ESE can see that this is a situation that needs knowing the facts before answering the question. This isn't just something that an LII goes, "oh well, I don't know the person so who cares if I ruin their life by saying something that I don't even know is true." LII's seek TRUTH. That is what defines their personality. The truth is important to them.

If they don't know if it's true or not they generally say: "wait a minute while I go find out what the right answer is." That's why they make great professors, because what they know, they know, but what they don't know, they have the common sense to not just try and teach you whatever comes to their mind that day and so they say, "hey, let me look that up for you and come back with the right answer on that."

So if given the facts, an LII can go, oh yeah, I know that this is TRUE. So I can say this. But an ESE will stand there going, yeah, that may be true, but what if they take offense? And in the long-run we'll generally go for the less offensive route because "we don't want to hurt someone's feelings." [Although, we still tell the truth, we just generally water it down, lol.] That's the difference.


Again, this question needs more facts in order for it to be a question that you can answer without searing your conscience.

[intjguy]

I can't believe throughout all this mumble jumble no one wondered if there are children in the matter.

You guys are all selfish, delusional wankers.

[Pa3s]

You guys are all selfish, delusional wankers.

How's your bathroom stalking trick working out? Good?

[Beautiful sky]

I agree with you that an ESE would take more time deliberating on the situation then an LII once given all of the facts. But in both cases, the LII and ESE can see that this is a situation that needs knowing the facts before answering the question. This isn't just something that an LII goes, "oh well, I don't know the person so who cares if I ruin their life by saying something that I don't even know is true." LII's seek TRUTH. That is what defines their personality. The truth is important to them.

If they don't know if it's true or not they generally say: "wait a minute while I go find out what the right answer is." That's why they make great professors, because what they know, they know, but what they don't know, they have the common sense to not just try and teach you whatever comes to their mind that day and so they say, "hey, let me look that up for you and come back with the right answer on that."

So if given the facts, an LII can go, oh yeah, I know that this is TRUE. So I can say this. But an ESE will stand there going, yeah, that may be true, but what if they take offense? And in the long-run we'll generally go for the less offensive route because "we don't want to hurt someone's feelings." [Although, we still tell the truth, we just generally water it down, lol.] That's the difference.


Again, this question needs more facts in order for it to be a question that you can answer without searing your conscience.

Alright, the TRUTH is:

My ESE friend is asking about what she can tell her friend who is cheating on her husband. So, what should she say?

[yellow82]

Alright, the TRUTH is:

My ESE friend is asking about what she can tell her friend who is cheating on her husband. So, what should she say?

Honestly, your friend probably already has the best answer, she just doesn't realize it. I would simply ask her what she thinks that she should say and then encourage her to say it. Usually, that's what an ESE is looking for. Reassurance. And we're usually right. . . so yeah.

That's what I would do anyway.

[Krig the Viking]

Honestly, your friend probably already has the best answer, she just doesn't realize it. I would simply ask her what she thinks that she should say and then encourage her to say it. Usually, that's what an ESE is looking for. Reassurance. And we're usually right. . . so yeah.

That's what I would do anyway.

That's basically what I was trying to say, too.