ME!

[Pepin]

Interesting that you mention the rep asking you questions and you not liking it.  I am the same way, I think it is a leftover from late husband questioning me.  Not the questions as such, with him it was always because he wanted something so was looking for a way to indirectly get it.

So as example, he might very pleasantly have asked if I had plans that day.  Then from my answer he could gauge if I was going near a shop he wanted something from.

Always an underlying motive.  He would never just say, when you are passing a certain shop, could you pick up whatever for me.  Which I would have been quite happy to do.  It was the underhand manipulative questioning that juddered on my nerves.

So any questions immediately make me think - what is this person after!!  Haha, hopefully this will leave me in due course.

This example of yours really made me pause for a minute....I had to reread it several times to make sure I was understanding it.  And yes, I have been through similar for at least the last 20 years of my life. 

DH would ask the same damn question every Saturday if we have something going on because he should probably go see his mother.  The master calendar has been hanging where it always is with all the things we have planned.  Why couldn't he go look there?  As if I was hiding plans in my own head?  UGH!  Every. Single. Damn. Saturday.  And this is why I have hated weekends.  I love Monday and yeah the world hates Monday...   

[GentleSoul]

That's also great news. I find that the more comfortable you are with yourself, the less you get intimidated by others. I used to want to speak up much more than I did, and if I did my voice trembled. Now, I just talk without fear. It took years.

Very good work you have done.  To get to that strong place in you are.  I am getting a lot out of your sharing on here so thank you.   

I agree that the more comfortable I am in myself, the easier it is to speak up.  Or not speak up!  That is another thing I am finding, I now see that a lot of things are nonsense and not worth wasting my time on.  Now I value my time and energy more. 

I think at first when we find our voices, we speak up at everything.  We need to.  We deeply need to.  Because we have been so silent.    As we grow though, that need passes, we speak up more discerningly.  Which is beautiful.  We use our voices and energy more effectively.

[GentleSoul]

This example of yours really made me pause for a minute....I had to reread it several times to make sure I was understanding it.  And yes, I have been through similar for at least the last 20 years of my life. 

DH would ask the same damn question every Saturday if we have something going on because he should probably go see his mother.  The master calendar has been hanging where it always is with all the things we have planned.  Why couldn't he go look there?  As if I was hiding plans in my own head?  UGH!  Every. Single. Damn. Saturday.  And this is why I have hated weekends.  I love Monday and yeah the world hates Monday...   

Ugh is right.  This sounds the same dynamic as I was.

Everything was all very sly and indirect.  Instead of open and honest.  All via backdoor means.

Again I come back to my late husband, most of what he wanted was fine and completely reasonable and I wouldn't have minded doing it at all.  Slotted it into my day no problem.  BUT the issue was always the manipulations and sly way of him trying to get me to do it.

Which my body reacted to and created cortisol release and discomfort in me. 

I came to a place where I viewed everything from a stance of - why is he asking me this?  Sometimes he was laying the seeds for something way in advance.  Playing a "long con" as I have seen it called in films. 

So something completely random would happen and then some days later, I would realise what he was up to!  I am laughing now as I write about it.

A lightbulb would go on in my head,  Ahhhh!  So that is why he did/said that!   

He never did anything without a motive.  I would laugh and point out his "con" his was working on.  Depending on the persona he was in at the time, he would either glare or laugh! 

I think the personality disordered traits that affect me the most were the COVERT ones.  The sly ones.

If you have a raging, jumping up and down person in front of you, you know what you are dealing with.  The sly stuff is far harder and more mentally damaging I think.

[escapingman]

I recognise all this, its creepy and really sneaky and uncomfortable. STBX uNPDw would ask me in the morning if I have any time later in the day. In the past I used to answer sure, then the entire day was a waiting game for when she needed me and she would come at the worst possible time. Now I tell her I might have time, what does she need me for. This always put her in a mood and she mostly replies never mind I can manage myself not telling me what it was. Her other thing is asking me where I am going when I am going out, wanting an exact plan of my trip so she can ask for me to pick something up for her. If I say I am not sure where I am going she get in a mood telling me she get it herself, haven't told me what it was she wanted or what shop it was. As others have pointed out, I have no problem picking something up or going to an extra shop, but to do that I need to be told what it is and not some cryptic guessing game. At the same time, if I answer her and say I am going to shop A, she replies oh what a shame I really would have liked you to pick up XYZ from shop B.

[GentleSoul]

I recognise all this, its creepy and really sneaky and uncomfortable. STBX uNPDw would ask me in the morning if I have any time later in the day. In the past I used to answer sure, then the entire day was a waiting game for when she needed me and she would come at the worst possible time. Now I tell her I might have time, what does she need me for. This always put her in a mood and she mostly replies never mind I can manage myself not telling me what it was. Her other thing is asking me where I am going when I am going out, wanting an exact plan of my trip so she can ask for me to pick something up for her. If I say I am not sure where I am going she get in a mood telling me she get it herself, haven't told me what it was she wanted or what shop it was. As others have pointed out, I have no problem picking something up or going to an extra shop, but to do that I need to be told what it is and not some cryptic guessing game. At the same time, if I answer her and say I am going to shop A, she replies oh what a shame I really would have liked you to pick up XYZ from shop B.

Exactly - it feels "creepy and really sneaky and uncomfortable".

Also a feeling that you are being "played".   

Horrible feeling.

As you mention, Escaping Man, as I started to heal myself, I began to say upfront - "why, what is it you want?".  That stopped a lot of it in my marriage.   

Again I come back to saying, the actual errands didn't bother me at all, by this time late PD husband was very physically disabled and it was no trouble for me to pick up things for him during my day.  The tiresome part was the sly manipulations he used instead of just asking.  He knew I didn't mind getting things for him. 

I think he got a buzz from it too, to be honest.  His planning and scheming!   Whereas if he just asked and I said, yeah sure.  There was no buzz for him. If that makes sense.