Unacceptable Behavior

[Gabe]

I think we have all been there.
In that place where we accept unacceptable behavior from the significant others in our lives.
We excuse it, justify it, decide we have to tolerate it because we feel guilty about our past indiscretions with these people.
It doesn't matter.
Sooner or later, their unacceptable behavior violates our code of integrity.
Sooner or later, we realize that we are allowed to have boundaries and standards in our
relationships with any person that means something in our life.
Sooner or later we say ENOUGH.
And they look at us in a funny way, since god knows...we have tolerated their unhealthy crap this far...what made us stand up and say no more?
And oh, how the dynamics change.
It's been my experience that needy, whiney, manipulative people just hate it when you tell them that you will no longer accept that dynamic in your relationship with them.
How could they do anything else?
Your contribution to accepting their unacceptable behavior is what has perpetuated their mess this far.
God almighty and Amen.
The boom gets lowered and they have to grow up and start acting like an adult, instead of a needy, guilt card playin' black hole.
I'm sure that gives them a night or two when they look like this
But dynamics only change with these people when we choose to change them.
Otherwise, they keep being the needy, cling-on...and we keep finding ourselves sucked dry.
It's a choice, whenever we choose to make it.
And things get a lot healthier when we start living by our own standards, instead of the emotional games that others have been playing with us...as long as we choose to play.

[alli61098]

Needy, guilt card playin' black hole
I love that! Can I use it?

Great topic Gabe. Unacceptable behavior, aka drama, is very fresh in my mind after this weekend.

When I chose to not play the game with him I became satan on earth.

My nonacceptance of his unacceptable behavior only brought out more unnaceptable behavior. And all of this new unacceptable behavior was, of course, my fault.

His world has been poluted for so long he has no clue what is acceptable both in personal relationships and social situations.

Is there an Emily Post for addicts?

There was an attempt at bad behavior today, and this was my response cut right from my email:

"I’m tired of the drama. It’s taken a toll on me and I’m not going to allow it in my life anymore. That’s what I’m doing for me."

Take that you needy, guilt card playin' black hole!

[Hopefloats]

There is always a pay-off with unacceptable behaviors. Always. It feeds into the person doing it, and it feeds into the person taking it. Somehow..it fills a need. Ah! But once we see it for what it is, we can do something about it.

I am the most patient person "I" know. That word "ENOUGH" saved my sanity, for sure.

As far as "needy, guilt card playin' black hole"
I will comment after I stop laughing. Pssssssst I am also taking notes for further use...(good one)

[Gabe]

Originally Posted by Hopefloats

There is always a pay-off with unacceptable behaviors. Always. It feeds into the person doing it, and it feeds into the person taking it.

Now see this brings up an interesting topic.
Negative payoffs.
I had a hard time with that concept when I first heard it.
But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.
No one does ANYTHING continually without there being some kind of payoff involved.
So if a person continually accepts unacceptable behavior, they must be getting something out of it.
What the something is doesn't matter.
And it varies from person to person.
The point is, while we would not tolerate someone smacking us upside the head with a skillet once a week, we DO tolerate them beating the crap out of our emotional world on a regular basis with their inappropriate and unacceptable behaviors.
The whys of that are good food for thought and discussion.

[CodieCW]

i think somewhere in the recesses of my heart and mind that i did not feel worthy of real love somehow and it goes way back to childhood issues, therefore i didn't deserve to be treated with love and respect - if that makes sense. that's the only thing i can figure out right now for my "long term disability" to take care of myself and love myself enough.

[Gabe]

Hmmm...
does that line of thinking go something like this...
"I must deserve this. If I deserved better, I would be being treated better."
Oh yeah, I recognize that train wreck of a thought.

[Hopefloats]

Good points Gabe and CW. I take codependency for an example. It did and can still (Hope keeps careful eye on this) feed into that need to fix, and make things "better". It is natural to want to be loved and accepted. But the key is, we cannot do that through other people. Not by doing "for" them. If we do this, we set it up and we send the message that the unacceptable behavior is acceptable on "some" level, even when we are btching about it. If we don't end it, we are not sending the right message. Let me tell you, I have confused many people this way. I take responsibility for that. My words said one thing, and my behavior said another. Hec, I even confused the hell out of myself.

The biggest lie I ever told myself was someone was behaving a certain way because of something "I" did. Just not true. Each person is responsible for how they behave. I just am not that powerful to cause others to DO anything. It is their choice. How I choose to react or not to a situation is my choice.

Oh and my excuse of "just being nice" to someone flew out the window too. There WAS a payoff for me. I just had to get honest and real about what that was. I admit to making excuses because the truth hurt. But what I found out, and this is a good thing,... is that the truth, as painful as that was, was a whole lot less painful than the life I was living by accepting unacceptable behaviors.

Once I accepted "me" more...I accepted that unacceptable behavior less. Another good news flash.

[Hopefloats]

Something else...The payoff is filling a need of mine. That was a WOW moment for me when I discovered that. Weeding through things and finding what that need was, was indeed work. Let me tell you how long I denied that little idea! "Payoff filling a need of mine"... I tried every which way to prove that theory wrong!

[Gabe]

Originally Posted by Hopefloats

My words said one thing, and my behavior said another. Hec, I even confused the hell out of myself.

I have been guilty of that as well.

Originally Posted by Hopefloats

How I choose to react or not to a situation is my choice.

Or not, or not, or not.
That is the part I keep forgetting.
I can react OR NOT REACT.
It is not my duty, responsibility or God given right to react to a set of circumstances at all.
I think one of the keys to serenity is encountering insane behavior and remaining at peace within yourself.

[Gabe]

Holy Crap Hope, you just gave me a huge light bulb moment.
One of the reasons that people continue to tolerate inappropriate behavior from another is that they don't see the behavior as inappropriate.
The relationship is so dysfunctional and unhealthy, that the word "inappropriate" hasn't yet become apparent.

[Gooch]

Sort of reminds me of the recovering addicts first major wakeup call involving relations.

"I have a right to establish and define boundaries?"

For nearly 2 years into my recovery, I had trouble believing that I wasnlt responsible for anyone else's feelings, so everytime the codie mobile started to spin, I didnt define or reiterate my needs. When the pressure got near the blowout limit, I would get a mental picture of the substance in one hand and my other hand on the pin of the "I might as well go back to using" grenade.

The people around me had such an ingrained pattern cycle of caretaking, expectation waving, false hope, and finally dissapointment and let down, when I finally tool responsability for what I needed to do to get better, they naturally didn't believe this time was going to be any better, so they desperately clung to the same patterns. Based on past performance they feared a bigger mess, and even worse outcome than all the times before.

After all, the disease had progressed in all of us in the mobile. The counselors did their best to warn of the upcoming imbalances of of the syetem, but there was no way to actually sense how wildly it will swing "out of control"

Guess thats one of the paradoxes of recovery...

Life seems so out of control ..... we come to acceptance that we aren't responsable and cannot control it and eventually order and consistency return.

[Hopefloats]

That Ms. Gabe is called balance. When we can maintain our serenity while the world has gone crazy around us....wow...that is something to feel good about.

When someone drops off a package of poop on our door, we may want to look it over, see if our name is on it, before we drag it inside. I used to be so excited about getting "any" package that I didn't care about the contents. I mean, someone wanted ME to be a part of it, and didn't that make me feel important! Geeeeesh......
Nope, not gonna stink up my own life with someone else's crap.

[Gabe]

Originally Posted by Gooch

we come to acceptance that we aren't responsable and cannot control it and eventually order and consistency return.

Good words, I will do my best to remember them.

[Gooch]

The biggest lie I ever told myself was someone was behaving a certain way because of something "I" did. Just not true

Sure it is.. everytime I got loaded and wound up in a mess, the enablers started their routine .. mimimize impact, damage control, counter spin the headlines. How else could they protect the investment they had in me?

I walked away everytime thinking it was my fault they suffered the way they did, confusing the sentiment of their effort with my own internal self pity and guilt mechanism.

I may still unwittingly be picking partners that operate under that old system. I think i might confuse neediness with affection, and run the other direction from self sufficient/healthy confusing it with indifference.

Seems like every time I see some more light I get a better perspective of how long this tunnel really is.

Are we there yet?

[Gabe]

Originally Posted by Gooch

I think i might confuse neediness with affection

Children (and adults) learn what they live.
If in your lived experience (to use Dan's term) you have learned to equate neediness with affection, then that is what you will do.
This about teaching the old dog a new trick or two.
I don't think any of us really find neediness attractive.
We just gravitate toward it because it seems familiar somehow.

[CodieCW]

Seems like every time I see some more light I get a better perspective of how long this tunnel really is.

Oy vay - you can say that again and i am at the very beginning of that tunnel.

hello *hello* - echo *echo*

I walked away everytime thinking it was my fault they suffered the way they did

and before recovery i would have definitely told you it's all your fault! there's so much to learn and if i let it, it will overwhelm me.

good thread gabe - lots of input swirling around in my brain right now!

[Hopefloats]

Originally Posted by Hopefloats

The biggest lie I ever told myself was someone was behaving a certain way because of something "I" did. Just not true.

I tried to quote both you and I Gooch...we won't talk about what happened...lol
But in reference to what I said about the biggest lie....
I get the cause and effect...I do. You made an excellent point and I understand the "This happens, That happens" theory. Where this always brings me back to is this question. "Am I standing in my own power or am I trying to please another?"
That can be one tough question for a Codependent person like myself.

Everyone is responsible for their own state of current affairs. That is where I feel taking my name off how another behaves is a good thing.
If I don't, I will assign blame to myself.

Lots of great dialogue here....good thread

[Wolfstarr]

The point is, while we would not tolerate someone smacking us upside the head with a skillet once a week, we DO tolerate them beating the crap out of our emotional world on a regular basis with their inappropriate and unacceptable behaviors.

That is just the point...THEIR inappropriate and unacceptable behavior. This is where we realize that it's THEIR behavior, not ours.
Yes, Hope...I assign blame to myselff when I try to manipulate THEIR outcome to suit my own ideals, morals, values--and when another doesn't behave in a manner in which I would LIKE them to behave...well...for some reason I absorb the behavior, carry it and assume guilt for something I had nothing to do with.

Unacceptable behaviour to who? To me? To you? To them? What is unacceptable behavior? I am learning to live to accept unacceptable behavior if it is not ME who is doing it. There is no right or wrong, but thinking makes it so...~~Shakespeare

[catfish]

Originally Posted by Gooch

Are we there yet?

God I hope so...

[Hopefloats]

Hello Wolfie There is a saying. "The devil we know is better than the devil we don't know". That is how I have often stayed stuck in my past. I cannot speak for others but for me it was my need for safety, and predictability. And at times that served me to accept unacceptable behaviors as well. Ya know..that "comfort" zone.

The great spiritual teacher Muktanada says,"Use everything to your advantage. This is the hallmark of spiritual mastery. When we make the choice to use these moments to expand our understanding of ourselves rather than to contract into self-pity or recrimination, we make the jump from helplessness to power. Mastery is choosing to use the situation we find ourselves in rather than letting them use us.

Somehow that was a big moment for me. I now remind myself that I have more power than I think.