SJs are practically minded while NFs are more dreamy minded. Love may seem more dreamy than practical to an NF but that just one part of love. Being with an SJ, you have the opportunity to come to a greater understanding of love yourself by learning to understand it from their perspective also.

Smitty,

That was very insightful and helpful. I can fully relate to the feeling of being a great match but not still not feeling wholly present in the relationship. It seems as though the relationship carries on without me, it perpetuates itself whether I'm active in it or not. My partner has somehow made it it's own machine...I think in part due to the amount of routine and stock behavior/responses he has put into it and that I have accepted and went along with. He very much enjoys having routine in the relationship, but the lack of spontaneity tends to snuff out any feelings of passion for me as perhaps you can understand. The routine only reinforces his feelings, somehow, and so I am left standing with a plug in my hand with no outlet to plug it into.

Exactly, love transcends the mundane! I feel the same way, but no one seems to understand this. I feel the need to sweep all the everyday things away to get to the formless, boundless atmosphere of love, but my lover finds love in all these tedious things. At the precise moment when I'm choked by the details and weary of a moment that seems empty, my partner will tell me how surreal it was for him...for example, my boyfriend and I went to the store, then we went to get ice cream and then did a few errands and went home. I was feeling frustrated by all the small things we were doing that prevented a real connection from happening between us in those moments, but he told me how "magical" it felt just to do each of those things with me, as though he got some kind of fulfillment from small talk and errands. I found it completely void of emotional content and any kind of true connection. This is a frequent occurrence where my lover is captivated by insignificant things we do together while I'm uninterested and bored. I find it very challenging to find mental stimulation in this relationship and thus often find what we share together to be meaningless, more or less.

I agree, it seems to be the case with him that marriage and NOT love itself is the crowning point. He has the love right now but is feeling terribly uncomfortable without the closure of marriage, something I cannot relate to...We frequently argue about marriage as he desires it deeply and I feel no need for it, only wishing the relation to continue at a slow pace with the possibility of marriage looming out somewhere in the distance. I feel things are way too under-developed for me to even think about marriage. I wish I could find the ethereal in our relationship, but I haven't so far. As much as he talks about love, it really is just as you say, a "tool" for him. It is as though all this time he has viewed love as an implement, like a wrench, to tweak and repair every area of his life that is lacking, detail by detail. He sees marriage as something that will solve all his problems. I keep wanting to sink into love, like a pool of water, but he wants to structure it and that just kills it for me.

I am still quite frustrated with him and this situation. I do think I could benefit from his grounding in reality, but he seems to remove so much of the wonder and imagination from life since he is not focused on the possibilities. I often wonder if I am just expecting too much and I should realize the wonderful thing I have with him and settle for that. Perhaps it is too tall of an order to expect to find someone who will understand people as rare as ourselves and we should just take what we can get.

You really hit the nail on the head and I'm glad to find others like you who understand this feeling and the frustration I'm going through. I appreciate your thoughts and advice, it really helps.
THANK YOU!!!

-Mary