My name is Ray, I've just arrived and seem to be the only male around.

You don't actually have to be a woman married to a p to come across them or get
tangled
up with them, and I've come across my fair share (Starters: my mother got
married to one,
so while never having been married to one myself, I have som vague inkling of
what it
might be like), a couple of whom caused real and lasting damage, and many of
whom got
warded off and are filed as interesting anthropological specimens and fun to
study
(preferably from behind armoured glass).

"Fun to study" may sound crazy to you, but if you're a linguist with a special
interest in
communication vs manipulation, then it makes some kind of sense.

PS to last post:
Belle, I don't think its' too graphic, and you don't need to be forgiven.

You're staying with him because you love him. That's a classic, and you're like
so many
others in that. In the case of a relapse, walk! Will you be able to do it? Just
do it. Do the
sentry on him. What does that mean? "Halt or I fire!" isn't a debate. It's a
description of
reality, and you're being honourable enough to inform him, BUT IT ISN'T A
NEGOTIATION.
Get that last bit straight!!!

Make a statement - most importantly to yourself, and keep your word without any
discussion - not least to yourself. This statement will normally take one of two
forms:
"Next time you do A, I do B." or "Until you do A, I don't do B." and stick to
it. Strength?
Disconnect your fellings - and stick to it.

Two examples from realities that don't in any way measure up to what you're
going
through, but do illustrate the principle:

a) My friend V left her ex because he was telling her what to eat for breakfast
- and exactly
what to do with every single minute of her day too - in spite of all her
remonstrations. One
morning she told him to watch her lips and follow closely, and told him that if
he breathed
one more word about muesli, she was leaving. He wasn't listening. "Don't be
stupid. Eat it
up. It's good for you." he commanded. V says, "At that moment a switch was
thrown in my
head and I just turned off." She stood up, said one word - "Goodbye", and walked
out. She
went back in the evening with a friend with a large vehicle and a police escort,
and took
her things, and that was that. Her words: "Why the hell didn't I do it a long
time before?
Probably because I wanted to waste a part of my life, I suppose."

b) I was visiting my ex who is a really good friend, and her mother dropped in
and started
talking about the guy she was living with. Calling him a dangerous p would be
unwarrented, but he was destructively manipulative. He was the depressive
piteous
hypochondriac. He never wanted to go anywhere, and didn't want to be left alone,
which
sort of made her a bit of a prisoner (by her own free will because she went
along with it
without physical coercion?!?!). If he didn't want to come, which he never did,
she asked
him if there would be a problem if she went. His response to this was to look at
her
plaintively and mutely like a sick spaniel, which can be a bit wearing over
time, and she
didn't know what to do about it. I gave her a piece of advice, "Look, it isn't
you job to
stand to attention until he can be bothered to say something. Next tike just
tell him that if
he hasn't got a problem he tells you about, you will draw the conclusion that
there isn't
one.Tell him he's got ten minutes, and if he doesn't say anything in the course
of ten
minutes, leave and talk to him when you get back. It's quite simple." She
baulked at the
word "simple". I Added, "I said it was simple, not easy. It's actually very
hard, but it isn't
complicated. Getting a 100 kg sack of potatoes from the floor to the table isn't
complicated, but it's a heavy lift. Steel yourself and just do it. Once you've
done it once,
it'll be easier next time if you have to, or perhaps he'll start talking to
you." Well, she did it
once, and he talked next time and started to communicate. If he hadn't started
to talk, she
would still have broken the spell.

So just do it if you have to, and don't wait as long as V. She doesn't advise
it.

Sorry about all this volume first time round.

Ray.





































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