Post: #1

Hi guys,

I recently have come to the realization that one of my cousins enjoys seeing me feel dis-empowered and weak. It took me a while to come to this realization, because starting 3-4 years ago I was in a very vulnerable state, dealing with health issues coupled with unemployment and severe financial instability. However, over the past 2 years or so I've got myself a job and have slowly pulled myself out of debt and have started to get my life back together. People are starting to treat me with respect in my personal and professional life, and momentum in the right direction seems to be picking up.

However, I realize that one of my cousins seems to continue to want to treat me and see me as that dis-empowered person I was 3-4 years ago. Its almost as if he gets off on seeing me weak and dis-empowered. At first, I realized that I would feel terrible about myself after interacting with my cousin, and I thought the problem was me. However, I now realize that he was constantly throwing shade on my ideas of how to improve my life when I would share them with him. He would also get on soap boxes and dictate to me how I should live my life, while very rarely weighing in considerations on my own opinions of how to run my own life.

I've recently come to the conclusion that my cousin is a weaselly little bastard, and is not deserving in the slightest of my respect. I shouldn't seek out his council because he won't do much other than inject seeds of doubt. And when he tries to throw shade on my ideas, I will just shut his ass down and chew him out, disregarding any concern for the continuity of our relationship if he is unwilling to concede that he was acting like an asshole. The thing is, I'm pretty sure that by shining the light on him, like the coward that he is, he will concede and stop acting like an asshole, but he will be waiting for the next opportunity to assert himself.

Has anyone encountered a weaselly little shit like this in your life? I'm almost perplexed that someone that is so close to me would act in such a fucked up way. Do you guys have any tips on dealing with characters like this? Can you guys make any sense as to why a person would act like this? I suspect its because he feels that his own social status is boosted by suppressing the social status of another person. Its probably been effective for him, because in doing so my family sees him as higher social status than me, whereas before the illness they saw me as higher social status. He probably also get a personal ego boost when asserting his own superiority over me. It seems really fragile, weak, and borderline incomprehensible to me, but I believe this is the nature of my cousin's personality.

BTW, this person is pretty close to my family, almost like a brother would be, so it would be difficult to completely avoid him, but possible to significantly limit interactions with him.

Post: #2

That's not all that rare. Some people have psychological issues like that.

I don't understand what you can't cut contact completely?

Post: #3

Yes, in hindsight its easier to see how people like this benefit from keeping us in a position which reinforces their own sense of self.

How we view ourselves is often/largely shaped by interactions with others, family members in childhood in particular. If people are telling you to play it safe, don't take risks, don't change, it can be a way of protecting their own identity through their relation to you. I've only realized that many of my own inhibitions, lack of confidence and limiting thoughts come from how others have perceived me and would talk to me (and it's easier to absorb the negatives).

Sounds like changing the people you spend time with has/would help in your future growth and development.

Post: #4

Yes, also had a cousin similar to this. The best way to deal with them is eliminating them from your life. There is absolutely no reason to keep relations to acidic people, family or not.

Post: #5

100% limit contact with any form of toxicity.

You should pity him rather than hate him. His desire for you to be weak is his own weakness manifesting itself.

Post: #6

You're close to him.

He's family.

Before cutting him off (which you can'tdo any way), talk to him as a man.

Be crystal clear how you feel. Crystal!

Then, decide what to do. It will feel better trust me.

Source: Went through this with my own cousin.

Post: #7

Just don’t let it bother you (or play it off that way)

Take satisfaction in knowing that he’ll be annoyed, confused, and frustrated that he can’t affect your mood

Post: #8

If he needs to put you down to feel better, who is the weak one?

You would really annoy him if you held the frame that you are the successful one giving him pointers to get his life together.

Never acknowledge his attitude or his real meaning.

Treat him like he is coming to you for help and you are magnanimously helping him out.

Only drop the act when he treats you decently. Then talk with him normally.

Basic behaviorism.

Retrain him to be an adult.

Post: #9

(02-20-2019 06:28 AM)Cobra Wrote:  You're close to him.

He's family.

Before cutting him off (which you can'tdo any way), talk to him as a man.

Be crystal clear how you feel. Crystal!

Then, decide what to do. It will feel better trust me.

Source: Went through this with my own cousin.

Often these people cannot be reasoned with.

Post: #10

The moment you learn not to care what other people think of you, is the moment you are set free.

The only opinion of you that matters is in the mirror.


Read and understand what this means:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could
have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is
marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and
comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and
shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the
great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause,

who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at
the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.

So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither
victory nor defeat.

Post: #11

I've had friends like this. They subtly poison-drip you when they see you're succeeding in life because their fragile egos can't take it. They want to bring you back down to their level. Chicks sometimes do this too when they feel threatened you're going to leave them for something better.

Drop these people out of your life immediately.

Post: #12

People like this get off to negative emotions and watching others burn. Coincidentally more common in collectivist countries or high trust societies like Scandinavia, Australia, etc.

Minimize contact, even if it is family. These people are parasites and will suck the energy out of you.

Post: #13

Some really interesting thoughts here, so thanks.

As far as reasoning with him, being direct with him, or talking man to man with him, it ain't going to work. He'll completely miss the point of what I'm trying to communicate with him, weasel his way out of engaging in any introspection, prop up a straw man, proceed to pontificate as I stare at him blankly, then will pat me on the shoulders in a very awkward way and tell me we had a good talk.

Quote: If people are telling you to play it safe, don't take risks, don't change, it can be a way of protecting their own identity through their relation to you. I've only realized that many of my own inhibitions, lack of confidence and limiting thoughts come from how others have perceived me and would talk to me (and it's easier to absorb the negatives).

Yes, this person almost advocates a joke of a non-risk taking life. One of the things he advocates for is living with my parents until I'm well into my 30's so that I could penny pinch and save money. And the negatives do indeed stick much more than the neutral or even positive experiences I have with him, but only after detached introspection of why I feel bad after talking to him.

Quote:People like this get off to negative emotions and watching others burn. Coincidentally more common in collectivist countries or high trust societies like Scandinavia, Australia, etc.

Minimize contact, even if it is family. These people are parasites and will suck the energy out of you.

Very interesting observation... My cousin and I are of half Japanese decent. He has taken to Japanese culture very wholeheartedly, whereas I have not taken to it at all, I'm pretty hardcore individualistic and American.

The difficulty with minimizing contact is the simple fact that I live with my parents, who have him over regularly. It seems that the solution to so many of my current life's problems involve me moving out of my parents house.(just like others on this forum) I have issues with my parents as well, which explains why a person like my cousin is allowed in the house in the first place.

I'm saving up enough cash to hopefully move to a different city if I'm not able to find a job that's able to cover the high cost of living in my current city. I've set a hard deadline of 8 months, but may be able to make it out in 6 months depending on my ability to save, possibly sooner if I can find a decent local job.

So that's the plan guys. I appreciate the input and thanks for the insight!

Post: #14

https://www.rooshv.com/everyone-is-hopin...youll-fail

Post: #15

Really consider how good your parents' judgment is if they have people with semi-serious psychological issues like that over at their house. I expect if you bother to observe and think things through logically you'll find their judgment is varying levels of terrible.

People with good judgment don't let people like that in their houses unless they have to.

I assume you have been a loser in the past and your parents, relatively speaking, have not. Which is why it's important for you to consider this because from the vanilla facts/your life situation people aren't going to guess or suggest that your parents have worse judgment than you.

Post: #16

The fastest way to deal with this is to wait until the two of you are alone then tackle him down and dry hump him until you've established dominance.

It's not homo if it's about affirming who's the alpha.

Post: #17

You didn't mention if he speaks directly to you to discourage you, or if he manipulates / humiliates you in front of others.

If it's just between you and him I would just work on your frame control and inner game. You don't HAVE to be affected by his bullshit.

However, if he puts you down in front of other people and causes you humiliation or actively ruins your chances with girls, friends etc. that is another issue that needs to be dealt with very directly.

Post: #18

Maybe its just my toxic masculinity talking but no one should see you weak

Post: #19

(02-20-2019 05:07 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  The moment you learn not to care what other people think of you, is the moment you are set free.

The only opinion of you that matters is in the mirror.


Read and understand what this means:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could
have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is
marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and
comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and
shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the
great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause,

who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at
the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.

So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither
victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt. There are several variations of this speech he gave. I had a more concise version of this on a plastic card in my briefcase or backpack. I've had it penned over my desk. It is something to live your life by. Here is the slightly different ending.

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

Post: #20

(02-20-2019 01:17 AM)momentomori Wrote:  Hi guys,

I recently have come to the realization that one of my cousins enjoys seeing me feel dis-empowered and weak. It took me a while to come to this realization, because starting 3-4 years ago I was in a very vulnerable state, dealing with health issues coupled with unemployment and severe financial instability. However, over the past 2 years or so I've got myself a job and have slowly pulled myself out of debt and have started to get my life back together. People are starting to treat me with respect in my personal and professional life, and momentum in the right direction seems to be picking up.

However, I realize that one of my cousins seems to continue to want to treat me and see me as that dis-empowered person I was 3-4 years ago. Its almost as if he gets off on seeing me weak and dis-empowered. At first, I realized that I would feel terrible about myself after interacting with my cousin, and I thought the problem was me. However, I now realize that he was constantly throwing shade on my ideas of how to improve my life when I would share them with him. He would also get on soap boxes and dictate to me how I should live my life, while very rarely weighing in considerations on my own opinions of how to run my own life.

I've recently come to the conclusion that my cousin is a weaselly little bastard, and is not deserving in the slightest of my respect. I shouldn't seek out his council because he won't do much other than inject seeds of doubt. And when he tries to throw shade on my ideas, I will just shut his ass down and chew him out, disregarding any concern for the continuity of our relationship if he is unwilling to concede that he was acting like an asshole. The thing is, I'm pretty sure that by shining the light on him, like the coward that he is, he will concede and stop acting like an asshole, but he will be waiting for the next opportunity to assert himself.

Has anyone encountered a weaselly little shit like this in your life? I'm almost perplexed that someone that is so close to me would act in such a fucked up way. Do you guys have any tips on dealing with characters like this? Can you guys make any sense as to why a person would act like this? I suspect its because he feels that his own social status is boosted by suppressing the social status of another person. Its probably been effective for him, because in doing so my family sees him as higher social status than me, whereas before the illness they saw me as higher social status. He probably also get a personal ego boost when asserting his own superiority over me. It seems really fragile, weak, and borderline incomprehensible to me, but I believe this is the nature of my cousin's personality.

BTW, this person is pretty close to my family, almost like a brother would be, so it would be difficult to completely avoid him, but possible to significantly limit interactions with him.

Consider yourself lucky that you only have one toxic person wanting to see you to fail. Jealousy is the number one emotion in America. 95% of the people are not achievers, thus the only way they think they can get ahead is by seeing you fail.

Why do you think many wealthy people want to see poor people kept down. They are unhappy with their own lives and some how believe it is a zero sum game, where if someone succeeds, it will hurt them.

Back to the individual. I've seen this from friends and family and workmates. I've had horrible bosses that would belittle my team or me to the detriment of the project, just because it made them feel powerful.

I had to get rid of friends over the years due to jealousy. I also do not tell my family or friends about the details of my life. My success with women, work, travel, really anything. Most people are jealous of everything.

Even some of my good friends that are worth keeping are jealous. I just down play what I do. I don't tell them about my successes, because I don't want to be questioned or hear some lie about how they did better. I keep a low profile.

I would not waste my time trying to one up this cousin. It's a total waste of time, he'll just come back with a bigger put down or a bigger lie to make himself look better. Ignoring him and not telling him your success is your strength. Just go on with your life and enjoy it and take caustic people out of your life entirely.

Most people's lives suck, but they'll never admit it, so the only satisfaction they can get is putting you down to make themselves feel more successful. Limit contact with this cousin and anybody else like this.

Post: #21

(02-22-2019 11:06 AM)brianmark Wrote:  Consider yourself lucky that you only have one toxic person wanting to see you to fail. Jealousy is the number one emotion in America. 95% of the people are not achievers, thus the only way they think they can get ahead is by seeing you fail.

Why do you think many wealthy people want to see poor people kept down. They are unhappy with their own lives and some how believe it is a zero sum game, where if someone succeeds, it will hurt them.

Back to the individual. I've seen this from friends and family and workmates. I've had horrible bosses that would belittle my team or me to the detriment of the project, just because it made them feel powerful.

I had to get rid of friends over the years due to jealousy. I also do not tell my family or friends about the details of my life. My success with women, work, travel, really anything. Most people are jealous of everything.

Even some of my good friends that are worth keeping are jealous. I just down play what I do. I don't tell them about my successes, because I don't want to be questioned or hear some lie about how they did better. I keep a low profile.

I would not waste my time trying to one up this cousin. It's a total waste of time, he'll just come back with a bigger put down or a bigger lie to make himself look better. Ignoring him and not telling him your success is your strength. Just go on with your life and enjoy it and take caustic people out of your life entirely.

Most people's lives suck, but they'll never admit it, so the only satisfaction they can get is putting you down to make themselves feel more successful. Limit contact with this cousin and anybody else like this.

So true. I find it very difficult to find people to share my successes with. Most people will simply feel jealous rather than celebrate another's successes. Its best to be enigmatic and somewhat mysterious with most people, until they've earned your trust I find. In the past I've been pretty naive and way to trustworthy of people who have no business earning it. I've learned to be this way with my parents, coworkers, and now my cousin. I can't entirely make sense of it, but I find that sharing bits of personal information can often be used against me, and I'm struggling with figuring out which parts are safe to share. Part of the learning process I guess.

Post: #22

(02-25-2019 09:29 PM)momentomori Wrote:  

(02-22-2019 11:06 AM)brianmark Wrote:  Consider yourself lucky that you only have one toxic person wanting to see you to fail. Jealousy is the number one emotion in America. 95% of the people are not achievers, thus the only way they think they can get ahead is by seeing you fail.

Why do you think many wealthy people want to see poor people kept down. They are unhappy with their own lives and some how believe it is a zero sum game, where if someone succeeds, it will hurt them.

Back to the individual. I've seen this from friends and family and workmates. I've had horrible bosses that would belittle my team or me to the detriment of the project, just because it made them feel powerful.

I had to get rid of friends over the years due to jealousy. I also do not tell my family or friends about the details of my life. My success with women, work, travel, really anything. Most people are jealous of everything.

Even some of my good friends that are worth keeping are jealous. I just down play what I do. I don't tell them about my successes, because I don't want to be questioned or hear some lie about how they did better. I keep a low profile.

I would not waste my time trying to one up this cousin. It's a total waste of time, he'll just come back with a bigger put down or a bigger lie to make himself look better. Ignoring him and not telling him your success is your strength. Just go on with your life and enjoy it and take caustic people out of your life entirely.

Most people's lives suck, but they'll never admit it, so the only satisfaction they can get is putting you down to make themselves feel more successful. Limit contact with this cousin and anybody else like this.

So true. I find it very difficult to find people to share my successes with. Most people will simply feel jealous rather than celebrate another's successes. Its best to be enigmatic and somewhat mysterious with most people, until they've earned your trust I find. In the past I've been pretty naive and way to trustworthy of people who have no business earning it. I've learned to be this way with my parents, coworkers, and now my cousin. I can't entirely make sense of it, but I find that sharing bits of personal information can often be used against me, and I'm struggling with figuring out which parts are safe to share. Part of the learning process I guess.

I would suggest you get the book or audiobook of "48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene. You will learn a lot about how to deal with people and be successful in life. I never thought I was a powerful person until I read it and realized how many of his laws that I was practicing. People who keep their "cards close to their chest" and aren't bragging about what they are doing are the real successful ones. You don't need his approval or anybody else's approval. Live your life!