Re: Avoid being a target EDITED

Add this one to the list:

The S attempts to make the target responsible for the consequences of the actions taken by the S. "You have to do this act or I will say that you are being difficult." or "Well I have incurred an obligation to a third party and we are now relying upon you to agree to this request." I once had a friend book a vacation, hotels, air fare, time off work, and then while she was enthusiastically celebrating her anticipation by sharing with us her plans, she turned to me and said "So, we need someone to stay at the house and take care of the cats and pets. You will be able to do that for us, won't you?" In other words: Are you going to make all my plans collapse in front of anyone and at the same time demonstrate your ungenerous nature and not be there for me when I clearly trust that you will be!

When I stepped back and said that I did not have plans to move to her house for housekeeping services her face immediately darkened, she became the victim and almost sobbed "Well what am I to do then? Cancel my vacation!" and suddenly I was a criminal destroying her property interests.

Foolishly I agreed thinking that if I gently reprimanded her for her presumption it would not happen again. I could not have been more incorrect. What followed was a series of violent confrontations premised on her entitlement and a fictious background of my "letting her down" as a character of our relationship. She had injected that character into her tone when she established her manipulative move and by smoothing things out for her "just this once" I unwittingly endorsed that premise. Predictably I was seen as the one who caused her grief and she the one who tried so hard to make the relationship work. Tweet