catfeeder

Why would you put up with this and teach your children that this is an acceptable way for adults to behave? That man would be kicked out of my house so fast, he’d need a GPS to get his bearings. Show your children the importance of loving yourself and them far more than anyone who would mistreat you in their home. Head high, and enlist the help of an attorney for legal advice. Contact your local hospital for a referral to a social worker who can set you up with counseling with a support center for domestic violence prevention. Verbal abuse typically escalates into physical abuse, and there are resources available to help you that are not widely known to the public. If you have a mental health counselor at your school, start there. Some people are best loved from far away.

This is a great point. I know a few people who learned this the hard way.

I agree. You can't 'fix' someone else's mental problems. Plenty of people have them without using them as a banner to hide behind so they can manipulate and annoy with impunity. The longer you belabor this, the more you enable her at your own expense.

I’m sure he likes keeping his job far better than he likes you.

I wouldn’t put up with anyone assuming themselves into my home without my invitation. And all my invitations have a beginning, middle and end. Any attempt to guilt trip me about that would land them an invitation to leave. Permanently.

You’re probably a wonderful parent and haven’t needed to learn the non-response method of dealing with juvenile temper tantrums, but I can offer that it works wonders and communicates exactly what acting out deserves—to be ignored. I’m from a large blended family. Every time someone brought their bratty stage to a gathering, they huffed and puffed to silence, which someone would break by asking someone else to please pass the rolls, or an ask whether I can bring anyone back a drink… We might have made some faces or eye rolls at one another, but none of us were willing to play. We all learned that the only thing that a fit would accomplish is nothing. That may be the best way to get yourself through a vacation with an attention seeker. If you want to nix her for a while after the trip, then use that plan as a mental safety net to keep yourself in line while with your parents. You’ll thank yourself for not taking the bait to regress back to childhood. Head high!

Consider asking him to review the household budget and revise each of your contributions to align with a percentage of your earnings as opposed to a 50/50 split. That’s how many couples do it, as it allows for both to have a leftover discretionary income. Factor in your services to the household, such as cleaning, cooking, laundry if applicable. That’s the practical side. The emotional side can be reserved for learning his response to this suggestion. If he’s not open to this, then yes, you’ve got a problem to address.

Consider signing up with temp agencies, and accept assignments that will expose you to different work environments and cultures. When you find places you like, you’ll be positioned to apply-from-within for opportunities that are not offered to the public. Sending resumes is not enough to get yourself onto the agency rosters. Make appointments for interviews, at least 3 per week, preferably in the morning so you can treat yourself to some kind of reward afterward. Start with the firms closest to you, then work yourself through an outward radius. All agencies do not have the same accounts, so the variety is important, especially for exposure to the marketing areas in different industries, where writing copy and releases and learning both internal and external operations will add to your value in in journalism. The best reporting on the world requires embedding yourself within it rather than hiding from it. You have the technical skills down—get out there and learn how to use them in lots of ways. Join the working public to understand it and service it. You’ll make new friends, and you’ll feel more connected with your audience.

You didn’t fall for him, you fell for the glamour of the vacation bubble. He’s a stranger beyond the boozy sex, and he’s made it clear that he’s keeping it that way. We all need to tough out some degree of grief over the end of a fabulous vacation. We each get to decide whether to make that easier on ourselves or more difficult. I’d offer myself some fun rewards to help make it easier, and I’d avoid drilling myself into a deeper hole to climb out of in order to enjoy my real life at home again.

I hear. I’d also drop the score card. I’ve held countless secrets for my sister, but the reason I can’t count them is because I’ve let them go. Pulling up events from many years ago is no way to cultivate a reasonable relationship today. Those are grudges, and holding onto them isn’t protective or productive. It’s hyper vigilant judgement that harms your relationship and your stomach lining. If sister were a neighbor, a family friend or a cousin twice removed, you’d treat her with a higher degree of respect and less measurement against your standards. So pretend she’s that—a respected friend. This will help you to get clear about your limits, and you may find yourself enjoying a more balanced and mutually beneficial relationship with sis.

Is she 12? I’d have told her to psss off and mind her own business a long time ago.

It's wonderful to hear that you're enjoying yourself. Given that you're getting a bit swarmed by guys, allow yourself to grow more comfortable turning them down unless and until one inspires you to feel happy about dating him. Otherwise, you can simply tell the guy that you're not open for dating, and you'd like to just enjoy making friends there. Also consider that with meetups, it's the 'new kid' that often gets a lot of attention, and the swarming will settle down. You're not obligated to date anyone--especially from within the groups you really want to continue attending without feeling awkward about any dates-gone-wrong. Remind yourself that you do not need to justify anything about a lack of attraction. That can simply be a 'feeling' rather than a bulleted list of data points. It's reasonable to have a lack of attraction to the majority of people--it's natural odds. Weighing this too heavily will exhaust you, and that can rob you of enjoyment and possibly send you back into the comfort of solitude. Skip that, and allow 'no' to mean 'no,' and that's that. Head high, and thanks for the update. EnjOy!

I'd learn from experience with sis that she views you as a sibling rival, and that you are one person from whom she will not accept criticism. When you raise it, it locks her down harder, and she embeds herself deeper into the problem. People tend to believe what comes out of their own mouth. They can often even convince themselves that a lie is the truth. So when you badmouthed the last BF, she defended him, and she ended up believing her own defense. You created a 'Romeo and Juliet' scenario where, in her isolated position, she clung more tightly to the BF, and viewed the two of them together as "Us against the world..." So what could have run it's course in a reasonably short time with a family in whom she felt she could confide, instead it felt more urgent and possibly passionate. She felt ostracized and humiliated, and she spent the next 11 years trying to force a fit with this guy to save face. I'd avoid creating another face-saving condition for sis. You love her, which means you'll want to help her feel that you are on her side instead of competing with her to be 'right'. We can't prevent our loved ones from making mistakes, but we can offer them a safe place to confide and work through their mistakes instead of hiding them from us. 'Tough love' interventions are reserved for exiling those who can take us down by creating dangerous conditions with substance abuse or criminal activity that presents a risk to us physically or financially. Applying tough love too rigidly to every poor life choice only ostracizes a loved one and pushes them beyond our reach to help. So rather than operate from a place of what she perceives as, "I was right, and I will forever feel justified in 'correcting' your lousy judgment...", I would offer her some humility and vulnerability. I'd express how sorry I am that I made her feel so isolated in the past, and I will never do that to her again. I love her, and I want her to know that she can speak with me, and I won't impose my choices on her. She can think out loud with me and weigh things and try out her own conclusions instead of feeling a need to defend against my judgment. This requires patience for the long run, but it allows HER to speak the negatives, so she can believe them.

I'd say, "Tell it to my lawyer." and block him. Remember WHY you left him, and respect your Self.

It might help not to think of it as a date, just a quick drink to decide whether you'll like him enough to go on an actual date. If so, great, and if not, enjoy the experience for it's own sake, and move onto finding the next potential date. I'd think of him as more likely to meet, not less, as his work has him making and keeping appointments all the time. He IS curious enough about you to set a time to meet you and learn more about you. If he bails at this point, you can be confident to know that it's certainly not about you. He doesn't know you, he's never even met you, so there's nothing about you for him to want to reject. He's just another human being, complete with his own insecurities and vulnerabilities. Meet him on that level. If he turns out to not be a good match, then he won't own the right lens through which to view the right stuff about you. That would only speak of his limitations rather than of any deficiency in you. If you hit it off, great. If not, depersonalize it. "If the train doesn't stop at your station, it's not your train." Challenge yourself to see how well you can enjoy a simple drink with someone who is no better than you--and no worse than you. Head high!

Sort of like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, you've had the answer the whole time. It's right here ^^^. Whenever one demonstrates a capacity for disloyalty, walk away. Don't trick yourself into believing that, somehow, they will only be disloyal to other people.

Good progress. The happy and okay days tend to increase and the sad times decrease, but not exactly on their own. Healing happens to the degree that we participate in moving our focus away from the stuff that keeps us sad. If we sentence ourselves to feeling lousy, and we dwell on the things that keep us feeling that way, then those experiences will feel like they are dragging on, and they won't just change on their own. Hang in there, and keep up the good work.

Cousin sounds like battery acid. The things this woman has said are a reflection on her, not you. People who are cruel to someone who has been kind to them have a problem. It doesn't need be about you personally, or anything you've said or done--it's their belief in a deficiency in themselves. The fact that cousin has concealed her behaviors from your family and others who know you both speaks of her shame for the behavior. She knows it's ugly, yet she'll go out of her way to be hurtful to you when nobody else can hear her. If you think about it, that's pretty sick. I agree with @boltnrun that cousin is jealous of something about you. She likely came home to find that you've grown beautiful or otherwise have traits or potential opportunities that she envies but believes are not present in herself. While that's disconcerting, it also can probably tap some compassion in you. Your plan for limited civility is a good one. One response you might keep in your pocket for when she shocks you with a rude comment is a blanket, "How kind of you to say such a thing." Head high.

Thank you, RR. @Loka56, hovering is a nervous habit that it's best to train yourself to drop. I've found that when someone close treats me as though they take me for granted, pulling back does us both a big favor. I invest my focus in my own interests, mental and physical health, and my own social life, where I dress up and spend my time with people who can use my attention and help. This creates enough of a gap for the other person to reflect. You may find that he grows more attentive once you've moved forward with your own life and you've stopped suffocating him by making him the center of your universe. You'll become more interesting, and he will value you more given that there is now some competition for your attention. Give this man the gift of missing you. You'll thank yourself regardless of whether he steps up, or not. If so, you'll enjoy the renewal of your mutual interest, and if not, you'll have already begun cultivating your world beyond him.

Probably best to ask the pot stirrer who has reported this to stop meddling and stop telling you stuff about her.

Okay, you're answering your own question about why she 'appears' to have moved forward quickly. It hasn't been quick for her. She's been languishing in this partnership for years while enabling you to get worse instead of better. You weren't even well enough to notice the point at which she actually checked out and started noticing other men to potentially date--it could have been years ago. It just took her this long to plan her exit and follow through with it. I once heard a psychologist say that the typical divorce process actually starts on a mental and emotional level about two years prior to one of the partners leaving. So from the outside looking in, friends and family might find it sudden, even while one or both partners have been mentally preparing themselves to get out for a very long time. Whenever it seems sudden to one of the partners, it's either because they haven't been paying attention to the deterioration of the relationship, OR, the exiting partner did a marvelous job of maintaining a reasonably happy face during their position on the homefront, even while they were miserable and planning to leave. My heart goes out to you, and please write more if it helps.

Nah, you replied honestly, and it doesn't really even matter. Nobody can say why she gave you her number in the first place, but to respond to a date invitation with a blanket "I'm working and very busy..." with no offer to reschedule for another time, that pretty much says that she's not interested in dating you. I'd stay civil whenever your paths cross, but I'd skip any further offers to her again. Head high, she's just not the right match for you.

Would you really enjoy a relationship with anyone who would be that superficial? The right girl for you will feel honored that you chose her.

Okay, so why not just walk away from him then? Breakups are not a democracy. You don't need to build a case, you don't need to negotiate, you don't require his approval. You can simply say that you're not feeling it anymore and wish him the best.

Oh, yes, go! You can befriend the guy and network with the team members, especially if there are similar projects in the pipeline where you might be working with that team again. Enjoy!