Is length of relationship a sign of a good relationship?

Toucan_Pecan

BigAunty wrote: »

I'm not sure the PA thing is necessarily going to be appropriate with your friend. PAs are tardy, disorganised people who blame others for all their issues. She had a veneer which masked a lot of her contempt for others.

Clearly, he is in a rut by anyone's standards - low income, not employed, in a stale relationship with each having different needs/wishes. He could truly be feeling low and blue, even though its not enough to inspire him to make changes to address it.

Even though my friend was essentially an exploitative user of people with superb social skills, I'm not sure she was deliberately scrounging, nor do I necessarily think her routine self-pitying behaviour was a conscious one.

For me, it was a pattern of behaviour that she was stuck in because at a sub-conscious level, she had learned that the more sob-stories that she came out with, the more people stepped up and done things for her, and this probably eroded confidence in being pro-active, or at the very least, meant she learned that by doing nothing, somebody else would do it for her. Yes, she was devious but how much of this was deliberate is debateable.

I had other Light Bulb Moments later on about other long-term friendships she seemed to inexplicably end and I think, again, once the friend had stopped performing errands and financing to her or had the temerity to call in a favour and not be happy about how she ruined or shunned it, she summarily dropped them. I don't get this sense from your outline of your friend unless you are now only remembering similar examples of behaviour, as a good PA person or general user will mask their exploitation.

He isn't disorganized at all, but his memory can be fuzzy and he does have a penchant for always being (or seeming) right... or at least an explanation for everything.... I've never known him to apologize for anything in my life...

BigAunty

Toucan_Pecan wrote: »

I found the blog! http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/tia-sharp-victim-of-underclass.html?showComment=1344694473740#c3420257413131802145

Well of course my friend's gf doesn't have children and my friend is very polite and quiet and hasn't been in trouble with the law... but his phrase of 'resting place' to describe her is quite telling...

oh, wow, such good research. Yes, I agree its a completely different scenario and one not marked by any explicit abuse (perhaps financial exploitation though), not by an offender or within the underclass milieu.

But definately his obsession with being housed by her and staying despite the relationship not being satisfactory reminded me of that blog that suggests that vulnerable women are likely to be targetted by essentially homeless men.

Plus the amount of posts on this forum by women who are essentially funding !!!!less partners who can't understand why their partners don't see they have a problem and have no willingness to change.

From his perspective, it must be extremely frightening to have to contemplate taking such a big step as finding his own accommodation and moving out, the notion is shocking to him.

A dysfunctional relationship may seem less disturbing to him than having to take financial responsibility for himself. An unemployed man under the age of 35 can only get HB for a room in a shared property. A man of 35 and over, can get the 1 bed rate but it will only cover the bottom third cheapest rents and 90% plus landlords will not accept HB claimants.

I'm not saying that he's made these conscious calculations but even without knowledge of the benefits system, most people will know that HB claimants tend to live in the worst accommodation and single people have very low chance of securing social housing.

He must know that if the relationship ends, he is pretty much a candidate for homelessness, even if he has delusions of continuing to live there.

Toucan_Pecan

BigAunty wrote: »

oh, wow, such good research. Yes, I agree its a completely different scenario and one not marked by any explicit abuse (perhaps financial exploitation though), not by an offender or within the underclass milieu.

But definately his obsession with being housed by her and staying despite the relationship not being satisfactory reminded me of that blog that suggests that vulnerable women are likely to be targetted by essentially homeless men.

Plus the amount of posts on this forum by women who are essentially funding !!!!less partners who can't understand why their partners don't see they have a problem and have no willingness to change.

From his perspective, it must be extremely frightening to have to contemplate taking such a big step as finding his own accommodation and moving out, the notion is shocking to him.

A dysfunctional relationship may seem less disturbing to him than having to take financial responsibility for himself. An unemployed man under the age of 35 can only get HB for a room in a shared property. A man of 35 and over, can get the 1 bed rate but it will only cover the bottom third cheapest rents and 90% plus landlords will not accept HB claimants.

I'm not saying that he's made these conscious calculations but even without knowledge of the benefits system, most people will know that HB claimants tend to live in the worst accommodation and single people have very low chance of securing social housing.

He must know that if the relationship ends, he is pretty much a candidate for homelessness, even if he has delusions of continuing to live there.

Thank you so much I have learnt a lot! I am beginning to feel duped and I hate to feel this way as we have been friends for so long, but how can I continue to be a friend, offering solutions to problems and him ignoring them and not socializing or even looking for work. Years ago he used to work in a private member's club and earned a LOT of cash in hand money... that's how he saved up, but now he refuses to work for less than he would have earned there, but he grew tired of working there because it wasn't his type of atmosphere... he has created so many binds for himself... they are difficult to disentangle.

BigAunty

Toucan_Pecan wrote: »

He isn't disorganized at all, but his memory can be fuzzy and he does have a penchant for always being (or seeming) right... or at least an explanation for everything.... I've never known him to apologize for anything in my life...

The forgetfulness and failure to apologise characterises my ex friend to a tee. She was skilled in blaming others when she was at fault. Her memory seemed poor around turning up on time for pretty much every event, any work deadlines and so on.

However, she was chronically disorganized which is a key characteristic of many PA people - she thrived by demonstrating how useless she was in order to promote others to do things for her or as an excuse for bad behaviour, in order to give the impression that she was being a bit disorganised rather than frankly, bloody rude behaviour. No matter how many times she was late, the length of her delay or how many people she inconvenienced, she was put out if it was bought up and always had a petty excuse.

Her lethargy and procrastination was legendary. She was keen to always be seen as the victim and felt that others were out to get her. Here are some examples:-

She had a PR/client facing role which involved taking special needs children and their teachers round the work place and when her employer asked her to dress smarter (not t-shirts, jeans and doc martins which were her usual work clothes) she went ballistic to us about the cheek of it. She actually told her employer, I kid you not, that her best clothes were dry clean only and that the kids had a tendency to be messy and even drool on her - no contrition whatsoever.

When her HR dept and boss asked her when she was coming back to work after a bereavement, she was very angry at what she perceived as harassment. That was after 3 weeks of special leave for her granny's death. "We were very close! How dare they!" No shame whatsoever about taking off that amount of time whatsoever.

On another occasion, she ran up a debt with a telecom company. She knew she hadn't cancelled her contract since she found their customer care line frustrating to deal with. So she actually switched off her phone, cancelled the direct debit and didn't open up any bills. When she was contacted by a debt collection agency, she cried at the injustice of it, saying they made it too hard to cancel the contract by phone. Her relatives offered to bail her out (yet again) but despite my saying that she ought to just settle it and learn the lesson, she contacted a consumer champion in a newspaper who ran an article about how evil the company was and got the debt written off! Superb or what?

But the amazing thing is, most people never challenged her weird defences, it was pretty much 'oh, bless, she's so chaotic, what is she like?' and was treated with kid gloves, tolerance and humour. Of course, I stood up to her and was flung aside as a nuisance.

BigAunty

Toucan_Pecan wrote: »

Thank you so much I have learnt a lot! I am beginning to feel duped and I hate to feel this way as we have been friends for so long, but how can I continue to be a friend, offering solutions to problems and him ignoring them and not socializing or even looking for work. .

My ex friend actually sought out my advice and flattered me about my organisational skills. On each and every occasion, even if she accepted the advice and said she would act on it, she just sat on her hands.

Obviously I suggested basic steps like a debt management charity, drawing up a budget and so on to manage her debt, getting a replacement lodger (she had lodgers for years but then suddenly said without decoration and new furniture she'd have trouble finding another, don't know why as she didn't have any issues before) but obviously as she wasn't actually feeling the pinch, cushioned by all and sundry and wasn't used to stinting on things, there was no incentive for her to act.

Same with your friend. As long as he is being feather nested and feels that current rates of pay are just too low, he has no push or pull factors to get him into employment. He just won't actually understand this, he's got no true insight. Yes, he does feel unhappy but doesn't want to make changes in case he just ends up in a less happy situation.

Toucan_Pecan

BigAunty wrote: »

The forgetfulness and failure to apologise characterises my ex friend to a tee. She was skilled in blaming others when she was at fault. Her memory seemed poor around turning up on time for pretty much every event, any work deadlines and so on.

However, she was chronically disorganized which is a key characteristic of many PA people - she thrived by demonstrating how useless she was in order to promote others to do things for her or as an excuse for bad behaviour, in order to give the impression that she was being a bit disorganised rather than frankly, bloody rude behaviour. No matter how many times she was late, the length of her delay or how many people she inconvenienced, she was put out if it was bought up and always had a petty excuse.

Her lethargy and procrastination was legendary. She was keen to always be seen as the victim and felt that others were out to get her. Here are some examples:-

She had a PR/client facing role which involved taking special needs children and their teachers round the work place and when her employer asked her to dress smarter (not t-shirts, jeans and doc martins which were her usual work clothes) she went ballistic to us about the cheek of it. She actually told her employer, I kid you not, that her best clothes were dry clean only and that the kids had a tendency to be messy and even drool on her - no contrition whatsoever.

When her HR dept and boss asked her when she was coming back to work after a bereavement, she was very angry at what she perceived as harassment. That was after 3 weeks of special leave for her granny's death. "We were very close! How dare they!" No shame whatsoever about taking off that amount of time whatsoever.

On another occasion, she ran up a debt with a telecom company. She knew she hadn't cancelled her contract since she found their customer care line frustrating to deal with. So she actually switched off her phone, cancelled the direct debit and didn't open up any bills. When she was contacted by a debt collection agency, she cried at the injustice of it, saying they made it too hard to cancel the contract by phone. Her relatives offered to bail her out (yet again) but despite my saying that she ought to just settle it and learn the lesson, she contacted a consumer champion in a newspaper who ran an article about how evil the company was and got the debt written off! Superb or what?

But the amazing thing is, most people never challenged her weird defences, it was pretty much 'oh, bless, she's so chaotic, what is she like?' and was treated with kid gloves, tolerance and humour. Of course, I stood up to her and was flung aside as a nuisance.

Wow, absolutely everyone bailed her out, huh? and contacting a consumer champion, that's remarkable!! (although I do hate dodgy customer 'care' lines). My friend doesn't shop or do the laundry until very very late in the day (like 11pm). He spends most of his day reading... I've even gone shopping for him in the past because I felt bad for him seeming so down...

Toucan_Pecan

BigAunty wrote: »

My ex friend actually sought out my advice and flattered me about my organisational skills. On each and every occasion, even if she accepted the advice and said she would act on it, she just sat on her hands.

In this case my friend would never flatter me on such things, just slip into a state of desperation and then begrudgingly let me do something and not really recognize the effort I have gone to. I have complained about this to him in the past and he then accuses me of being someone who does something and expects something in return which left me feeling terrible.

BigAunty

Toucan_Pecan wrote: »

Wow, absolutely everyone bailed her out, huh? and contacting a consumer champion, that's remarkable!! (although I do hate dodgy customer 'care' lines). My friend doesn't shop or do the laundry until very very late in the day (like 11pm). He spends most of his day reading... I've even gone shopping for him in the past because I felt bad for him seeming so down...

There's no doubt she had a frustrating time with the customer care line but also little doubt that she bailed out of dealing with it because it was her way. It had a big impact on her but when I think about it, contacting a customer care line is something that only the account holder can do so it was one of the few tasks or activities that she couldn't 'outsource' to her family and friends. Obviously, she could not accept responsibility for breaching her contract and getting into debt because she didn't end the account with them, she positioned herself as a victim and contacted a high profile journalist instead!

I also discovered other instances where she would easily give up and withdraw when it came to issues that nobody else could step in and resolve - part of her extreme passiveness. For example, she failed her teacher training and needed to contact particular people to sort out a new probationary period or resit (something like that). Because she was passed about to different people in the teaching organisation rather than getting through to the right person and resolving it immediately with one call, she vowed to give up sorting it out because she was being mucked about by them! Again, if it was something that she could have offloaded, she would have but as it was an employment issue, no-one could hold her hand to the degree she wanted.

Yes, absolutely everyone bent over backwards for this poor wee thing who was hopeless with money but sweet with it, disorganised but charming and who had great periods of sadness caused by people out to get her and who didn't understand her!

When I first met her, her relatives were paying off her council tax debts and 20 years later she still ended up owing the council money again and her relatives rallied round again.

And yeah, well I shunned up a ladder to change a lightbulb for a perfectly healthy lady who also gave vague reasons why her spare room needed to be decorated asap but somehow she was unable to do it, only for her not to have got a replacement lodger in many months after I paid a decorator £300 to do it. I voluntarily threw myself into this expense, racked with guilt that I couldn't decorate her room as quickly as she needed because I was going away on holiday. Oh, she was so grateful, so thankful. Then she got a Credit Union loan soon after of around £1000 in a period when she said she couldn't afford to pay her mortgage as her savings had run out and then went to visit the Great Wall of China. And she got angry at me for mentioning perhaps her priorities were wrong? Mug, me.

BigAunty

Toucan_Pecan wrote: »

In this case my friend would never flatter me on such things, just slip into a state of desperation and then begrudgingly let me do something and not really recognize the effort I have gone to. I have complained about this to him in the past and he then accuses me of being someone who does something and expects something in return which left me feeling terrible.

Snap.

As I said before, after years and probably dozens, if not hundreds, of times I supported her regarding DIY, relationship, finance and employment issues, I asked her for a couple of favours which she was extremely grumpy about and then did badly, with no grace at all.

Also, when I reminded her of all the things that people did for her, far and beyond what they do for others, she said something to the effect of 'That's what friends are for and I'd do the same' but that was talk, not reality, as though there is a social contract between friends, she called on it but gave little back (apart from flattery and self pity to get her way).

So there was never any reciprocity but there was a degree of explicit gratitude when carrying out numerous, never ending favours. She was at least seemingly thankful, though of course, at the root, she believed she deserved extensive services and funding by her social circle and relatives.

At one stage, she blamed me for making her tap leak (er, simply by using it to wash my hands in the night) and I recall at the time offering to pay a plumber to fix it (I can't remember if I paid, I don't think so, she probably literally had a skilled friend on tap for those kinds of things) but who blames a visitor for damaging their plumbing? It's just a maintenance issue that can happen with ordinary use. She was furious with me at the time.

Saturnalia

Crikey Big Aunty, I'm getting flashbacks reading your posts! If it weren't for the fact that my little leech was male and enjoyed living in squalor, I'd swear we'd both encountered the same one.