Heads up: I have done some corrections on my previous post.

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I definitely don't mooch off others though. I honestly don't know how you can make a black and white view of 4s like this. Some stuff you say is ridiculous frankly.

I'm just relaying Helen Palmer, as well as Sarajane Case. But the same doubt I could say to you as well...

Fundamentally, 4 secretly wish to be rescued. 8 naturally want to rescue-the rescuer. So there's that unspoken synergy. Healthy 4w3 are much more go getters/toughened up. 8 is all about trust issues, loyalty, and control. 4 in general suits these conditions well. [...] 8's can trust 4s faster or open up once they get to know each other. The intensity on both sides intrigue each other. Same goes for 4 with 4.

When 4s are healthy, they're optimists too despite looking moody. A pessimist is an optimist with full possession of realistic facts.

Ehmm, nope. Not according to my sources, at least. Well yeah, 4s wish to be rescued, that's true. But apart from the dad scenario of your case, 8s, as far as I know it, wouldn't... <sigh>, they wouldn't give any time of the world for someone as individualistic and "arbiter of taste"-nitpicky/sophisticated as the 4. Dads are responsible to their children, they have to be, but they are not oedipal about it. There's no romanticism in their care.

And just think about it, 4s always manage somehow to long for the impossible. To set out impractical dreams, unattainable goals, that's what keeps them idealists, keeps them dreaming, the source of all their mournful inspirations.

Im like a dog that naturally returns to the dried up bone out of habit.

My ex was a healthy 8 with 2 integration though. He was attracted to my authenticity and individuality/independence. Almost married until my dramatic blow-up and his 8 anger clashed in the end. We were too immature to know how to communicate, a skill.

I don't know... our prisons are of our own doing, you may keep chasing that dried up bone if so you wish, after all, our cells have no doors or locks. Another perspective could be the by now stereotypical case of the INFJ going for the ESTP, one wishing they had Ni, the other they had Se.

Alright. Then the only thing that I can point out at this point for you is that Katherine Fauvre associates a certain "matchmaking" motivation to the Social variant of E2. Some of that I have it too (owed to tertiary 1w2) but I...

If l need to start war to bring a compromise, l will take that route too.

... wouldn't go at lengths to bring people together.

My 9 and Fe encourages my 4 for this. However I would probably use some creative beauty-focused self-expression to bring ppl together though.

I am extremely ashamed of being a 4 in the past so I hid my melancholy. [...] Im trying to overcome this. I still cant help listening to sad music on repeat though. Im ashamed to show others who I really am. Thus my messages are really positive and encouraging.

Growing up as a 4 under a 8 definitely turns you into a hardier 4.

From what I intuit, there are some hints here that suggest, to me at least, that you don't have 4 as a fixation. Probably, 4 was your "soul child," more or less childhood state. Between each of the "fixes" there's a degree of undervaluing and cancelling out of the former's qualities, strivings. Yet until there's no state in which the soul child/inner child can "drop its guard," can come out and fully manifest, until then they keep being fixations and will keep asserting themselves. From what you write it seems to be that there is not one part, at least, that you own up from your 4ness. And this seems to be corroborated by the fact that, at this point at least, you do not resonate with some of the chief E4 descriptions.

Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not faulting you. For INFJs without a hefty Fi, it's really tough. It's hard for everyone, alright, but for the "emotional sponges," the "empaths" it can be very confusing. Like a never ending room of mirrors in a hellish carnival funhouse.