Are you puzzled about how to regain INFP trust? Maybe you have wronged one unintentionally and you wonder if they will ever trust you back.
If that’s the case, then this post is for you.
What’s in this post? Here, we’ll talk about:
- INFP and Trust
- How do INFPs respond to betrayal?
- What breaks the trust of INFP?
- Do INFPs forgive easily?
- How to regain an INFP trust?
- Can you regain INFP’s trust in a relationship after cheating?
- Apologies that don’t work on INFPs
INFP and Trust
You may notice how INFPs maintain a small circle of friends. Usually, most are childhood or high school friends which they have been together for a long time.
Well, due to their keen observation of human behavior, INFPs can quickly evaluate whether to trust a person or not. Hence, they only give their complete trust to a selected few.
How do INFPs show they trust you? Here’s how:
INFPs, who are often seen as reserved, display warmth and goofiness around people they trust. They will be that whimsical friend who knocks on your doors nonstop just to tell how strange their day went.
They may be either cautious or self-conscious at some point. But if they trust you, it means they demolished the walls of insecurities and privacy and felt freedom in your presence.
INFP on trust? Extreme.
However, they aren’t naïve enough to blindly trust a person who betrays them.
Among all the personality types, INFPs are the ones who can disappear from your life in a blink of an eye.
They cut you out of their life if you ravage their peace. If you corner them into situations they’re uncomfortable with, then expect that they will check you off their list of friends.
An INFP when betrayed will ignore, ghost you, or pretend you don’t exist at all.
You might like this: INFP Friendship: 3 Reasons Why INFPs Are Hard to Get to Know
How do INFPs respond to betrayal?
INFP’s response to betrayal depends on the gravity of the mistake and the relationship.
Often, INFPs can easily forgive people who wronged them, but it’s not the case if you’re someone they completely trusted.
How do INFPs respond to betrayal? What do they think of you next after discovering treachery or disloyalty?
Here’s how INFPs would react:
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Ignoring your existence
They’re done talking with you.
An INFP who’s deeply hurt will ignore you and your efforts for an apology. The betrayal overpowers them and they just disappear from your space.
It may take a few days, weeks before they recover, or we’ll never know… they may never come back at all. It will depend on the severity of your betrayal.
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Backtracking and reconstructing their perception of you
An INFP feeling betrayed will map you out all over again and ask, “How in the world didn’t I see that coming?”
At the same time, they will rebuild a new perception of you. It’s ingrained in their mind how easy it is for you to deceive people. At this point, they tend to be both ragey and emotional.
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Indifference
An INFP just plainly loses their interest in you. They will freeze you up with their icy-cold shoulders.
They’re not trying to guilt you. Rather, they just literally don’t want to do anything with you. The stress exhausts them to a point that it numbs their emotions towards you.
Related post: The Dark Side of INFP Personality
What breaks the trust of INFP?
INFPs only trust a few people in their lives. The closer you are to them, the deeper the wounds are when betrayal takes place.
Here are the worst-case scenarios that will lose an INFP’s trust:
- Cheating and lying in a relationship
- Backstabbing
- Consistently broken promises they’re looking forward to.
- Exposing their privacy
- Humiliating them in public
- Physical abuse.
- Witnessing to false statements about them
You might be interested: Do INFPs cheat?
Do INFPs forgive easily?
INFPs avoid conflicts, hence, they easily forgive people who upset them. However, if it’s a person they fully trusted who betrays them, it will be difficult for an INFP to accept and forgive.
Disloyalty and deception from a romantic partner, best friend, mentor, or close family member is pure shock and misery.
Nonetheless, INFPs are big-picture people. They need to grasp the whole situation and the reasons why they were betrayed.
Once your actions made sense to them (intentional or not) and as long as your motivation is plausible, they will forgive you.
Here’s an example:
Back in college, a block mate tried to bully me to make himself look cool in front of his friends. It didn’t make sense to me why he said what he said.
As an INFP, I avoid conflicts. But at the same time, we’re absolutely not pushovers. So, of course, I retaliated (and quite aggressively).
Fortunately, he apologized that day, and I realized he wasn’t as heartless as I thought. Only that, he was peer-pressured. I grasped the situation, so I forgave him the same day.
As an INFP understands the bigger picture of why people do such things, forgiveness naturally follows.
However, keep in mind this one INFP trait – they forgive, but they don’t forget.
They will be casual, but will always be cautious.
Related post: INFP Rage: How Do INFPs Show Anger?
How to regain an INFP trust
How to win an INFP back?
INFPs take their time to forgive people who deeply wronged them. That said, what should you do to regain INFP’s broken trust? Here’s how to make INFP forgive you:
1. Admit to your mistake and sincerely apologize.
Don’t try to defend the mistake if it’s truly an error on your end. Admit and sincerely apologize for it.
But aimlessly saying you’re sorry even for a thousand times doesn’t mean anything to an INFP. What matters is you understand why it’s wrong. I mean, you must really understand, deeply.
INFPs can tell when your apology is only for the sake of apologizing. We don’t buy it.
Also, tell your INFP what you felt and what crossed your mind during that time.
In short, confess the whole situation from your perspective. INFPs are empathetic people. If your reason makes sense, they will slowly accept it.
2. Give them space, but don’t leave them by themselves.
A hurting INFP may walk away from you, not reply to texts, or block your social media accounts. In such situations, give them enough space to breathe.
However, don’t leave them by themselves completely. Message them from time to time. Ask them how they’re doing, and such.
Don’t leave them alone for too long, or else INFPs will take it negatively. They may think that you didn’t really care. This leads them resolute to ending the relationship.
Unfortunately, INFPs will only reach out to people they trust. Other than that, they don’t really chase anyone.
If you wronged them and you won’t communicate with them, then they won’t talk to you either.
3. Follow their pace.
Don’t force an INFP to forgive you. Don’t worry. They will come to you once they are ready. When that day comes, they might even apologize because it took them so long to forgive you.
If they truly love you, they will return as long as you don’t leave them behind.
4. Never do it again.
Indeed, the best apology is changed behavior. The first betrayal must have been unintentional. They can possibly let that slide and trust you all over again.
But the second time it happens, it’s purely your decision and it shouts “red flag” to INFPs. If you lied, cheated, or backstabbed them the second time, they conclude that it’s the “real” you.
Yes, they will forgive, but that doesn’t mean they will keep the relationship close. You may just have permanently broken the trust. Their guards will be raised all over again.
5. Consistently prove you’re trustworthy.
An INFP will start rebuilding their trust once you’ve proven them you’re worthy to be trusted again. It may take weeks or months, but being consistent with them surely overpowers that one mistake.
Can you regain INFP’s trust in a relationship after cheating?
It rarely happens that an INFP endures in an unfaithful relationship. In most cases, if their partners cheat on them, there’s a fat chance they would push the person away rather than pull them back into their life.
Once they’re constantly pushed into a corner or have experienced high degrees of discomfort, INFP’s instinct is to break away from it.
They chase peace of mind more than a disloyal relationship.
They may forgive you, like, look at you without any resentment at all.
But regaining INFP’s complete trust after cheating leaves a big question mark. They forgive, but they don’t forget.
Apologies that don’t work on INFPs
Make sure you avoid these steps to prevent infuriating an INFP more.
1. Don’t think that they demand surprises, food, and gifts to forgive you.
You probably saw from social media that gifts and surprises ease off a person’s anger. But for an INFP, sending them gifts as an apology work the other way around.
Such actions infuriate the hell out of INFPs. They will see it as offensive and might respond with, “you think I’m that shallow?”
So please, just don’t.
2. Don’t barge into their personal space.
Avoid apologizing too much. Instead, say your sincerest apologies and leave them some alone time to think and recover. Don’t corner them to meet you, neither drop calls nonstop.
INFPs respond negatively to force. Instead of forgiving, they will aim to stay away from you at all costs. They will block your number and hide from your reach.
You have to be gentle and patient.
Conclusion
INFPs are forgiving people. However, betrayal from someone they’re close to is mind-shattering and numbing.
Nonetheless, an INFP will forgive you only when you truly accepted and understand your mistake. In the same way, they will also admit to theirs.
Once an INFP forgives a person who deeply hurt them, it means they have cleared the issue and it won’t emerge again.
This is one of the reasons why INFPs maintain healthy friendships and relationships. They may be trying to solve it on their own, but getting to the core flattens the issue completely.
That’s it. Hope this helps you handle the situation with INFPs. Thanks for reading!
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Amen to all the above. *Especially* when gaslighting and rewriting history to deflect any responsibility is involved, or a refusal to acknowledge the pain they’ve contributed to. Nothing causes me to go from 0-100 on the rage scale like that does, and it takes me months if not years to come back from it. And I will likely never trust that person again.
“refusal to acknowledge the pain.” Ahh, makes me remember someone. Although INFPs can be forgiving with little slights, we can’t really give the same amount of trust after such damage and betrayal.
Thank you for this. I’ll try this. I really love this girl, but I took a stupid way to vent out my anger.
Glad this gave you insights, Ken. I hope it all goes well. 🙂
You are a Life-saver! Keep up the good work and thank you so much for this post!
<3
Thank you for your comment and support, AR!
I wrote this after hearing you can’t find such answers to your query. I hope this helped you and will help others who deal with INFP friends and partners. Best regards! ^^