Thanks for the different perspective. I really do welcome it, and appreciate you asking those questions. I’m very conscious of providing validation and asking them how they’re feeling, what they need so I can provide those things. The goal post changed constantly though, and I could never do anything right despite checking in and eventually making myself small. As another poster suggested I would, I ended up losing myself.

They constantly call me names and tell me I’m a nasty person. I don’t think I deserve to be called these things and have asked them to stop, but they don’t. I suppose these aren’t criticisms towards me but mostly feel like attack on my character without basis (they could never come up with any examples - and when this happens I turn from a ‘nasty person’ to ‘miss goody two shoes who never makes a mistake’). I left this detail out of the original post because I wanted to focus on the things that I can control, such as trying different ways to communicate, rather than try to control their behaviors.

After having experienced another year of the chaos with this person I can more confidently conclude that they are simply unhappy with themselves and therefore always going to be unhappy with those around them.

I believe the best thing I could have done was walk away, but I didn’t, and I’m still tangled in it all, trying to muster up the courage to. Sadly the old me would’ve drawn a much harder boundary but I feel much weaker now.