Tomi,

I have learned over the years that the most important thing in life is to care for myself (yes, that sounds selfish). I am the only one that knows my internal workings, thoughts, & all about me. Taking care of those parts of me & making sure that I am healthy with myself (emotionally & physically) only then can I care for others. If I am worrying about everyone else & how everyone else is going to feel & how am I going to hurt them......that is for them to worry about....even if they don't want to.....that is not our job in life. Each person needs to to that for themselves & look out for their own issues & whether they choose to be hurt by someone else or not. Some people aren't able to do that....they are emotional children...never having developed that part of themselves, but we can't correct that & if we continually reinforce the lack of that behavior, they we truely are doing NOTHING for them.

It is tough to make those decisions....especially when we are caring people, but when it gets in the way, & when we start feeling the impact of a relationship....we have to take care of ourselves first.

When you take care of yourself, you shouldn't hate yourself for that....or beat yourself up over not enabling a person like that. They need to fix themselves before anything else can happen.

You did the right thing.....don't back down or let down your guard....people like that will continually come back as long as they know they have an easy way to go with you.

Debbie