Why Do INFJs and Other Deep Lovers Hold Onto Love for So Long?

Photo by Larisa Birta on Unsplash

My longest-lasting crush to date lasted 15 years. My second-longest crush lasted 13. Clearly, I’m not known for letting go of love easily. In fact, it’s far more common for me to hold on much longer than I should.

I know I’m not the only INFJ or other deep lover who has held onto an unrequited crush or no-longer-requited love way longer than would be considered healthy by others’ standards. But when you love so deeply, things like facts, reality, and logic tend to take a backseat.

Why is that? Here are five reasons.

5 Reasons INFJs and Other Deep Lovers Hold On So Long

1. We have a Gatsby-like gift for hope.

   I hope you haven’t had the painful experience of pining for someone even after they got married. (If you have, though, I’m not passing judgment.) But like Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, people who love deeply seem to have an almost infinite capacity for hope.
   
   We hope the one we love will come back. We hope they’ll change their mind. We hope they’ll realize how much they need us in their life. We hope our dreams will be realized after all.
   
   We hope our love will be returned. We hope they’ll see they made a mistake in leaving us or not choosing us. We hope. We hope. We hope.
   
   People who love deeply tend to spend a lot of time in their inner world. That’s where hope lives. It lives in fantasies and daydreams that have little basis in reality, and hope doesn’t care about that.
   
   It only cares about possibility and the wonderful feelings you get when you picture yourself with the one you love. As long as there’s any possibility at all and the feelings continue, hope holds on until it can’t anymore.
   
   Hope is a wonderful thing, and I think it’s something that’s sorely needed in this world. But if you hope for something for too long—something that wasn’t meant to be—you may miss out on having beautiful experiences or meeting people who would be much better for you.
   
   I believe in holding on until you can’t anymore. That’s why I don’t think you always have to walk away from unrequited love, for instance. But don’t let the hope you have for one person keep you from missing true love when it comes your way. (And for the sake of your sanity, try not to hold on as long as Gatsby does.)

2. Since we invest so much into our romantic relationships, it takes time to recover when things don’t work out.

   INFJs and other deep lovers don’t take relationships lightly. When we enter a relationship, we go all in. In us, our partner will find a devoted lover, a faithful friend, a confidant, a listening ear, a shoulder-to-cry-on, and anything else they need us to be.
   
   Taken to unhealthy levels, we may actually neglect our own needs to meet those of the one we love. But if we watch out for this tendency, our partner will never find someone as caring or devoted as us.
   
   This is true in both requited and unrequited love relationships. But in the case of unrequited love, we do all our loving as a friend, hoping the relationship will blossom into something more someday. In both cases, though, we will be there for the one we love in whatever way we can.
   
   After we’ve invested all this time, attention, energy, and emotion into a relationship, if the one we love ends up leaving or not choosing us, it’s the emotional equivalent of investing billions of dollars into a company that goes bankrupt. It takes a long time to get over a loss like that.
   
   Though we deep lovers have a lot of love to give, our supply is limited. So, if we invest all we have into a relationship and receive little to no return on our investment, it’s going to take us a while to get over that.

3. The “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy doesn’t usually apply to us.

   I only interacted with my 15-year crush for a few months in person—most of the fifth grade school year. That means I essentially loved him for 14 years without him actually being in my life.
   
   Sometimes people tell us that distance will help us move on from an unrequited crush or ex-lover. I find that not to work very well for deep lovers. Our love operates on a metaphysical level, which means we don’t need to be anywhere near the one we love to long for them.
   
   This can make moving on a challenge for us. Since distance does little to quell our feelings, we have to use other strategies if we want to really let go—things like journaling, replacing emotion with reason, and expressing our emotions creatively. (In this post, I suggest activities that can help you move on from unrequited love.)
   
   I would never advise anyone trying to move on from a crush or former lover not to limit their interactions with that person. In fact, they should limit their interactions as much as possible. It helps with the healing process. Just know that for deep lovers, we’ll usually need to use additional methods to be able to fully move on.

4. We tend to idealize the one we love, convincing ourselves we’ll never find anyone like them.

   We INFJs love to think in terms of ideals. As an example, we don’t tend to see the world as it is. We see its potential. We imagine how beautiful it could be if people loved more, cared more, gave more, and empathized more. And we yearn to do our part to create this world we envision.
   
   When we’ve found someone we love, it can be hard for us to see them just as they are. Instead, we idealize them. We romanticize our interactions with them. Everything they say is clever or funny. Every text they send is heartwarming. Everything they do is wonderful.
   
   In fact, in our eyes they can do no wrong. And we can see their potential to be even greater. We can see our future together, and we long to make that future a reality. We can’t imagine anyone else making us feel the way they do.
   
   And so, when they leave or reject our love, we blame ourselves. Since they can do no wrong, it must be our fault. We convince ourselves we did something wrong. And then the hope mentioned in #1 comes in and makes us wish they would come back so we can try again. We’re sure we’ll never find another person like them in this world.
   
   You may have found yourself a special person to love. Though they’ll never be able to live up to your idealized version of them, they may still be a worthwhile partner. But if they’ve rejected your love or are no longer returning it, you don’t want someone like them. You want someone who will love you the way you deserve to be loved.
   
   There are a lot of wonderful people in this world. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking you missed out on your only chance for love. Nothing will stop you from being with the one you were destined to be with. (But when you do find that person, try your best not to idealize them either. They’re still human, after all.)

5. We have trouble letting things go in general.

   I talk in this post about why I think it’s so hard for INFJs to let go. Basically, as I mention in #1, we spend a lot of time in our heads.
   
   Instead of being in the present moment, we’re often thinking about something else. We’re remembering something that happened, pleasant or unpleasant. We’re wondering about the future, or worrying about it.
   
   We’re analyzing something someone said or did. We’re overanalyzing something we said or did. With all these thoughts to dwell on, the present often passes by without us really noticing it.
   
   Mindfulness can help with the tendency to ruminate too much. But I’ve noticed that when deep lovers find themselves thinking about an unrequited crush or former lover, those thoughts can be strong and persistent.
   
   It can be extraordinarily hard to change your mental channel when it comes to thoughts like these. I think it comes back to how intensely we love. It’s like trying to wake someone up after they’ve fallen into the deepest sleep state—more effort is needed than after they’ve just dozed off.
   
   I’ve found that the only way to lessen these incessant thoughts is to express them, which is advice I’ve given often on this site. Put your thoughts, feelings, and emotions to music. Paint them, draw them, write about them—just get them out. All they’re searching for is expression. When you free them, they tend not to bother you so much.

Final Thoughts

I consider the ability to love deeply to be a tremendous gift. But it’s not without its challenges, one of which is that it’s harder for those who love this way to move on from love. It can be done, though.

But really, what fun would life be without its challenges? And when you do finally find your life partner, imagine how wonderful it’ll feel to be able to love them as freely and deeply as you desire.

Now I turn it to you. Why do you think people who love deeply hold onto love for so long?

~ Ashley C.

P.S. If you’re an INFJ or someone who loves deeply and you would like tips and advice about crushes, unrequited love, and the search for a romantic partner, feel free to join “The INFJ Search for Love” newsletter!

Last updated: July 1, 2024