Ultimatum

I continued processing my roommate disaster for months after RM moved out. I'd known intuitively all along that the man had been flouting my boundaries, but it was only afterward that I came to understand that he was trying to impose power by not listening (i.e., by flouting boundaries). What makes you feel more powerless than when you've stated to someone--in plain English--that you need them to stop behaving in a certain way, and they nod like they hear you but go on doing the same thing, as if the conversation never happened? Being unable to get through to RM made me feel powerless.

Fortunately, the RM situation was self-contained: he would definitively move out, and our relationship was not of a personal nature, so after a few months of attempts, I felt no obligation to keep trying to make it work. I didn't owe him anything. Once I realized that I couldn't get through to him--that my please for privacy and boundaries would only fall on tone-deaf ears--I could withdraw. That was fair.

But an interpersonal relationship comes with different rules. Withdrawal is not fair; you owe it to the people with whom you choose to have relationships to make them work by directly addressing the issues getting in the way of the relationships. If you can't make the relationship work with a significant other, you end the relationship. If it's a family member, you either end the relationship or keep it at a simmer.

With F., I tried to be direct, but directness fails if someone won't listen. Recall the March Madness episode, in which I politely explained to my then-BF that my frustration was entirely based on the inconsiderateness and disrespect shown by backing out of last-minute plans (i.e., unrelated to how he spent his time). Like RM, F. nodded as if he heard me, but, I later understood, he dismissed my reaction as unreasonable. This continued on lesser issues--I would explain how other incidents of flakiness were not only disrespectful but also put me in difficult positions practically--but he didn't seem to care.

And to his dismissiveness, I responded the wrong way. To his dismissal of my code of conduct--that you to let the people you have plans with know when you bow out of those plans or are going to be late--as quaint and outdated, I responded by bitching to my friends about it and telling him that my friends, too, agreed that he was being a $hit. Now, everyone bitches to their friends about their bfs, but most are savvy enough not to then let the bf know. But for me, letting him know was a (desperate) tool: my own expressions of "when you do ____, it makes me feel ____" were being dismissed, so I resorted to, "no, really, you're objectively being a $hit; my friends agree." Which is irrelevant. The friends aren't in the relationship; their opinions are not relevant. The thing to do when a significant other doesn't care how his behavior makes you feel--makes you feel unheard--is to end the relationship. I was, at that point, unwilling to do so directly, so I tried to ignore the frustration... which led to me lash out in was I wasn't even conscious of. Which was what helped end the relationship indirectly.

With mom, the issue of trying to move someone who doesn't want to listen takes on a whole new level of complexity. She doesn't just refuse to hear you; she delegitimizes your feelings by attributing them to some perceived personality flaw. If you don't find it helpful to be told every five minutes that you've put on weight, you're overly sensitive; you should be grateful that someone is giving you the feedback you need to become a better person. If you snap at mom's persistent nagging, because your polite attempts to ask her to stop went ignored, it's you: you're cold and harsh and incapable of being in human relationships. It's never her; it's always you. She is who she is, and if you can't take it, there's something wrong with you. Remember when she chewed out her best friend because she found the artifact he brought her from (the Republic of) Georgia was ugly? Later, when she explained to me that I was too sensitive--because I'd asked her to please stop pointing out everything that she didn't like about my house, because I'd already heard it three or four times--she invoked that gift: "that's why he and I are friends. He understands me." Read: I can bitch at him, and he takes it.

Well, like I said, I'm not a saint. And I'm done. I've been listening to the bitching and the criticizing my whole life. Mom can either try to direct her suggestions for constructive criticism at herself, or the relationship is over. I don't care how old she is. There's only so much I can take. I owe my mother some level of patience and acceptance, but I only owe her so much, and I've been putting up with too much for too long.