-t, I know! Astonishing, what?

Yes, chocolate and croissants are available at the lovely cafe, but I decided to go to the hot tub. Unfortunately, February is pool area maintenance time, which is not unreasonable, because they have to do it sometime, and late winter makes sense. Fortunately, Winter Soldier was on the cable, so I lounged and watched pretty men angst.

If it helps to have corroboration from outside the family, Tep, you can tell your brother that warning and then hanging up also worked for my mother with long-overdue boundary-setting with her own mom. Drastic, but it worked, and her mom (who was massively problematic, but not stupid) never pushed that particular boundary again.

I am so very happy for the Kalshanes! Felicitations to you both and to your no-longer-quite-so-wee-one!

Vibing hard that something works out, meara, because good God does that sound frustrating.

ION, why does the advice nurse not call back? He called over an hour ago; I missed his call by literally one second -- he hung up after 3 rings, while I was wrestling with the phone, I called back instantly and was told he'd call back again as soon as he was free, and my still-hurting-after-5-weeks-now-with-numbness-and-tingling arm and I are still waiting.

THanks, Connie! I"m glad to know that.

Yikes, JZ! Here's hoping posting makes it happen.

I 100% refuse to even engage with Dad on the subject of my mother, and by telling him that Mom never shit-talks him, that would be engaging him on the subject, so I won't do it.

This is a gold-standard plan.

It's astonishing how long people can hang on to a defense mechanism. After all this time, the shit-talking has GOT to be about something other than the subject of the shit-talking. No point in engaging.

It was incredibly liberating when I came to the point of telling the owner of the pet care company that I did not want to hear anything another employee said about me.

It was frustrating for _her_ weirdly, but ultimately my "Your opinion of me is none of my business" (thanks Mark Twain) stance has garnered an excellent result. He doesn't talk about me at all any more.

I'm with -t, JZ! May the ~ma ring your phone!

Please let us know what happens and what you learn...asking for a friend.

I suppose just copying last years self-eval and pasting it into this years would not optimal. Tempting, though.

I've done that, -t. Boss didn't even notice, or didn't care.

I've never wanted to go to Vegas, until Connie started talking about the awesomeness of lounging poolside and eating croissants in little cafes.

It's astonishing how long people can hang on to a defense mechanism. After all this time, the shit-talking has GOT to be about something other than the subject of the shit-talking. No point in engaging.

He gets something out of it, but I'm not sure what. After all this time, does he still need the ego boost of trying to come off as the wronged party in the divorce? I don't know, and I'll never ask him, because, again, I'm not engaging with him on it.

It is, of course, super complicated (isn't it always???) by the fact that my mom was a horror of a parent, chock-full of narcissism and gaslighting. And so for a while, post-divorce, when Dad would shit-talk Mom, it was actually beneficial for me, because he validated that Mom's horrible behavior really did happen, and it really was abusive and awful, and I wasn't making it up/blowing it out of proportion.

I needed his validation to be able to process and deal with Mom's horrible parenting. And yet, letting him shit-talk Mom back then did in fact set a precedent, and he thinks he can continue to shit-talk her.

But like I said, *I* shut him down HARD when he tries it with me these days. I don't know why he insists on trying it with my brother. I guess he figures my brother is his only outlet left.

I told my brother that he should hang up on Dad, and if Dad calls me to complain/act like the injured party, I will back him (my brother) up 100% and tell him to cut that shit out.