If you don't want her to treat you like an overly emotional guy who is complicating things, I would just quietly back away, become unavailable, act uninterested, when she flirts, don't react. Any kind of reaction is going to be taken as an ego reward. She got cold and blew you off. If she yanked you around and hurt you like you said, she doesn't merit a boundary conversation and she won't respect it anyway. She'll say you're being overdramatic and flattering yourself.Kaizercrazy wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 4:29 pm(Regarding a boundary conversation) Honestly, I think the most likely outcome with the convo will be that she treats me as needy and accuses me of overcomplicating and overdramatizing the situation. She'll probably say some shit like " I don't even like you that much". Which is going to hurt....L-F wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 1:09 pm
You know you need to set boundaries, but how? Defining the “rules” of your relationships can liberate you from people-pleasing and over-committing. https://www.scienceofpeople.com/how-to-set-boundaries/
Kaizercrazy!
A lot of my ego is in play here... In a way, I just don't want her to win this thing. I don't want her to get away with yanking my heart around, and then have her go an treat me like an "overly emotional" guy who couldn't help but fall in love with her. As shallow as it is... I don't want to be seen that way by her, myself, or whoever the inevitable gossip might get around to.
I see her for the first time today since about a week ago. I'll let ya'll know how it goes. Thank you so much for your help.
Honestly, if it was me and she yanked my chain & started all over again, I'd roll my eyes and say "Not this again. Give it a rest." One of two things would happen: she would be pissed enough to leave you alone, or she may respect you. I don't know.
She may have likeable qualities but people can have likeable qualities & still be bad for us. She's bad for you; for all we know, she wants to break up your marriage just to see if she can, to see if she's irresistible. She seeks to confirm power over men, for whatever reason. Maybe she's damaged, maybe she's an egomaniac...who knows? You can spend forever analyzing her & analyzing the dynamic. Or you can just declare, in so many words, that you are done with her bullshit games, because that's basically what they are.
Don't worry about her opinion; worry about her potential to destroy your marriage, because that's ultimately what's at stake here.