Looking4truth wrote:
Luth,

You are right...she has agreed with me many times in order to simply end a conversation only to let me know her TRUE feelings days or weeks later.

The sad thing is that I had finally become a lot more tolerant of religious people (remember my militant era about six or so months ago)...I had finally gotten to the point that I could befriend religious people without it being a problem...even greet pentecostals who I used to attend church with in Wal-Mart when I'd run into them without want to mow them down with my buggy. Now...this has me angry again...pentecostals are stealing from me...AGAIN...and I'm not even a part of them.

Actually, it is strange, even with myself. I am a person who relishes disagreement and getting to know what others are thinking. However, for some reason, I come across as overbearing sometimes in my excitement and some might mistake my expression as not wanting disagreement.

So, perhaps this is part of my personality, or maybe it is baggage from Pentecostalism. I do not know. But, it is frustrating to me because I live for wild exchanges of ideas, no matter how strange, and this is an impediment for me from those who might not know me that well. Somehow I think I am getting better with time, but it still is a problem occasionally, and I now can sense when I need to turn down the volume of excitement to prevent unintentional intimidation.

In your case, it seems to me that the other person might not have skills to even walk through a disagreement, even if you welcomed it. Or, perhaps the Pentecostal baggage of dysfunctional communication is just pushing the conversation into the downward spiral of the abyss. Do you see any chance of "sitting at the table" establishing some ground rules of open communication techniques as discussed here? This sounds like a difficult situation, but I would venture to bet that identifying clearly what is going on and identifying it as dysfunctional and unhealthy out in the open in a calm fashion - perhaps with a notebook - might be a good step to recovering whatever you have left.

Maybe...

Lutherius, Ex-Pentecostal Godfather

"Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment."
"Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in."
"When they come... they come at what you love."
"He'd better be careful. It's dangerous to be a honest man."
Michael Corleone

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