Reply #33: It sounds like someone you cannot avoid - possibly a family member?

[Booberdawg]

I'm just picking up on what you have said in your original post that this is someone you cannot avoid in your life "completely"

Actually, I pick up several things from your post and now from reading this thread.

And, I know you were raised in the mid-west in the same area where I was and practically in my back yard so I feel a little bit of kinship there.

:yourock: Still! Again!!

The more you get in to describing how less "uncodependant" you are about the situation the worse it gets. In other words, the way I am seeing you describe this, the more resistance and self confidence you have to being controlled and manipulated by this other person, the harder they push to manipulate and control you.

If you are finding yourself getting the cold shoulder or you are apologizing for something that someone else has done that is making the situation get more uncomfortable then I can understand that because I have been there, but STOP DOING THAT! They will suck the life out of you so quit it and go with your gut on this. You are right in your feelings about this. They are manipulating and controlling you. It’s hard to learn to quit altogether, but once you have it mastered it, it is much easier recognize and to continue resisting it.

If you are in to reading books there was one I read many years ago that I considered a real eye opener that might be helpful on this topic. It is called “The Dance of Anger”, and it describes how we step in these dances we find ourselves in like codependence, and how we can choose to stop stepping into theses dances we find ourselves in. I know I found the book very helpful at the time.

Tell whomever it is to fuck off.

Just kidding.

But, … not really kidding.

I’ve done it.