Social Challenge
We all have to deal with difficult people. This is a conversation I have had repeatedly with clients. If we understand those difficult people it is easier to deal with them.
I can't diagnose the person you are dealing with, but I have learned that a good percentage of the time when we are have a lot of repeated difficutly with people it is related to a personality issue.
I explain it this way: there is a certian subgroup of people who had something missing in their life while their personality was forming, therefore a section of their personality didn't fully develop. It's like planting a garden and forgetting to water part of it. That part won't grow and develop. Because these people are missing something in their personality they go about their whole life feeling empty. They try to fill the whole with their interactions with others. This is what I call emotional need. Most of their interactions are motivated by their need to fill this hole and not feel empty. So when someone's behavior makes no sense to us, we need to remember that their motivation might be totally different than what we think, or even from what they think. These people are always motivated by the emotional need.
Often these people play one of three roles in the process of trying to know who they are. The three roles interact and form a triangle. Persecutor, victim and rescuer. Because they want to know who they are and get their emotional need met, they play one of these roles. The thing is, for them to be the persecutor they need a victim, or to be a victim they need a persecutor, to be a rescuer there must be a victim. So they are always putting others in these other roles. This is where we get sucked in and feel uncomfortable and have difficulty. A situation that seems straight forward to us gets all twisted when the personality disordered person interacts in the situation and starts to play these roles and try to force us into the other role.
Once you understand that the other's motivation is often emotional and they are trying to have us play a part of rescuer, victim or persecutor you can see it in the interaction. Then you you can refuse to play the part.
So this is the challenge. When someone is trying to put you into one of these roles, remain neutral. Don't respond emotionally and fulfill the role. Recognize the "game playing" and refuse to play any of these roles. It requires healthy detachment, which can be difficult at first, especially if it is a long term relationship, but in the long run it will become less tumultuous.
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