Let them. (What have you walked away from and not looked back?)

[girlfriend44]

I thought this might be interesting.
There's a saying go round and a group called let them.

You walk away from conflict, arguments, problems without getting angry and getting into conflict also chasing people when the relationship is toxic.
You basically walk away and let people think what they want.
Have you walked away and not engaged recently and let them.

I think sometimes it can make you feel better.

We always think we have to engage, argue back, try and get our point across, be worried about what people think.
Have you adopted the let them approach and has it helped you?

That's because we all have a need for meaningful human connection... If you found that connection with others, and had people who gave you your community and social contact, they wouldn't rattle round anymore.

My parents stopped talking it to me, they are abusive and always had been but because I walked away and didn’t apologise they stopped talking to me. I haven’t seen them in 4 years pretty much. It’s actually become something pretty lovely now and peace and quiet.

Mel's approach is not so much about narcs (although she has a lot of podcasts about how to deal with them) but more about how to stop tying yourself in knots about what others are doing and just let people get on with it, a great example she uses is with teens and how we can helicopter parent and actually all we do is stress ourselves out unnecessarily and the teens don't give a shit! It really helped me to detach and I am a big fan of all of her techniques but this one particularly strikes a chord.

Another of her sayings - "if they wanted to, they would" - that also really helps when I'm trying to understand people's behaviour.

My situation isn't arguing, Its being dropped, ghosted, abandoned. Its shit.

Yes, I actually didn’t know this was a thing but I’ve been doing it for years. Anyone that is negative (obviously not someone who is just going through a hard time and is acting out of sorts or needs support) but yes if someone talks badly about other people I do not engage, if they are putting out bad energy every time I see them. I just stop. There is no discussion or reasoning, I just disengage. It has been the best thing I have ever done for my own sake.

Oh I do this with everything now! I don't have the headspace for drama.

I saw a quote along the same lines that I really like:

"How I'm arguing in 2024: 'You're right. Goodbye.' "

Of course, Thank You, you are correct. I have had some " success" in trying to do this. But what rattles around is " if they dropped me there must be something wrong with me/ I don't want to risk a repetiton and make myself vulnerable"

What if the giver of the bad energy is unwell or struggling?

Does anyone remember the saying least said soonest mended although it dosent really applying if your walking away/not bothered?

I've always walked away from difficult people, never been a people pleaser so if someone has taken offence on being pulled up on twat behaviour that's their problem.

I have done this very recently with the end of my marriage.
Just walked away, no justifying, no explaining, no arguing .... I think it was this reaction that meant my XH knew I was serious.
There was no point ... I was done, nothing left to fight or argue for.
And I let him say what he likes about me because the people who believe him don't matter, and the people who matter don't believe him.

I feel free!

I think there's a time and a place for this approach, it's not something I'd want to adopt in every situation, in fact I think that's unhealthy - you should be able to argue your point, and you should also be open to challenge on your own thinking. It's not a bad thing to wonder if you should have behaved differently or if you've done something wrong - maybe you have!

When people say this is their standard modus operandi I can't help wondering if they are the kind of person they are trying to get away from - i.e. uninterested in or unwilling to listen to the other perspective, absolutely set in their views.

Obviously if the person you are engaging with is narcissistic, manipulative or never going to listen, it's appropriate to adopt this approach.

You do learn something from situations you walk away from you.
Everything is a learning curve.

This is a really interesting topic.
I have spent a year having a friend critisise my DC to me, to my face and by text. Our children were friends, and she kept on telling me that my child was upsetting her child but would take no responsibility whatsover for the fact that it was her child who was in fact being really nasty, spiteful, controlling, shouting, having meltdowns, manipulating, threatening and screaming at my child whilst banning him from having other friendships and making non stop false accusations and lies about him.
Her comments started off as passive aggressive and although this raised my hackles at the time, I tried really hard to keep the peace because she was my friend, because she had lost two very close family members and I felt sorry for her about this, because we had shared good friends, because I had invested years of friendship in to her and her DC/DH, because we live in a close village community, and most of all because I could clearly see that there is something mentally diagnosable going on with her child, yet she refuses to have him diagnosed because she won't acknowledge how seriously damaging his behaviour is towards others and she believes every single one of his lies about my DS.
Meanwhile her criticisms of my DS started ramping up and began to turn into attacks aimed at both him and me, but all done under a very politely veiled way.
She kept on asking for us to have 'talks'. But all she was trying to do was create opportunities for her to meet me so she could hammer my DS, belittle him, attack him in a calmly spoken voice and take no acknowledgement whatsoever of her own child's despicable behaviour.
It took me a long time to fully understand how toxic her behaviour is, along with how toxic her child is. If someone started shouting at me, I would instantly know they were attacking me. But she spent a year attacking my DS and me in an incredibly passive and veiled polite way, it's actually difficult to describe, whilst she carried on being charming and chatty and smiling to our mutual friends. She succeeded in making me constantly question myself, to question my responses to her, and to make me feel like my DS and me were the problem.
Last year her child physically attacked my DS and left him injured. I contacted her to report this by text (I couldn't face talking to her), and her text response blew my mind. As I read through her gargantuan text, I clearly saw how she was turning the whole thing around to put the blame at my DS for being assaulted by her child.
I had so, so, so much to hit back with. I literally had nearly 2 years of horrendous behaviour from her child towards my DS to hit back with. Her text was false, accusatory, blaming, argumentative and manipulative.......it was shameful.
But I had an epiphany - instead of replying to her, I never answered her text. And I have never spoken to her again. I don't even look at her on the school run now. I cross the road if I see her coming. Never again will I acknowledge her because once I saw how manipulative and toxic and bullying her behaviour is, and ditto her child's behaviour, all done under the guise of middle class politeness, it makes my stomach recoil to even see her. And my response in cutting her off has been 100% more freeing than any argument or defense I could have argued back with.
My DH says I should have cut her off at least a year before I actually did. And I agree.
I would have removed a year's worth of stress from my life.

I'm not uninterested in people at all, but I am uninterested in having people who I am not compatible with in my life. The people I have walked away from are people who I have completely lost respect for because of how they have treated me or others. They simply don't matter to me at all anymore and I am not going to invest time and effort to try and talk them into altering their views/opinions or apologising because it would be unauthentic anyway so it fixes nothing.

I love this. Similarly my DP taught me “Oh well”.

I used to stress so much about what people would think or say or do. Usually regarding my ex or a clingy friend I had at the time. I’d say “but they’ll be pissed off with me” for not giving them what they wanted and he’d shrug and say “Oh well!”

It was an epiphany - I can let others be pissed off with me - it’s their problem on their end, I don’t have to feel it.

My husband abandoned me out of the blue in January (of course there was someone else waiting in the wings). I didn't scream or cry at him, I tried for the first time in my life to have a bit of quiet dignity and it's stood me in good stead so far.

She said that in her post it doesn’t apply to people going through a bad time.

I did about 3 months ago, it’s bloody hard but once you do it you feel so much better.
close family members of mine are very toxic and they just aren’t nice to be around. Sometimes we feel we have to tolerate more than we would as they are family.
well I sent a group message saying I’m stepping back and would like space. Take care.
blocked them all, blocked on all SM. They did try to contact me but just ignore.
life is very peaceful with out constant drama.

its easier to draw boundaries once that first one is in place.

let them be who they are, your allowed to walk away.

Left FB and only have a read account on twitter. Never been on the others. No temptation to engage with any opinions. And leaves me much more time and desire to engage with the real life people whose opinions I care about (and who care about mine). Social media made me socially lazy.

I thought I had a bad case of "couldntgiveashititis" for the last ten years or so, but it's basically this. Although I do agree with @Lincoln24 too

@Helena2000 brava, what a great response. I hope your DS is being left alone by the bully

I definitely employ this on MN. When an exchange is getting nasty and disrespectful, I simply stop replying and delete any response emails I get without even looking at what they are.

I also try to remain pretty emotionless at work and walk away from as much as I can, though when you are at a certain level you can't simply walk away from conflict when it's in your job remit to assist in solving it. I do, however, just try to stay as plain as possible and not bring emotions into it, as in my view it's never helpful. Solve the issue logically – that's it.

As a poster mentioned above, it's not healthy to walk away from anything negative. But you can aid a negative situation without getting emotional about it and therefore it really negatively affecting you. If on the other hand someone is being genuinely abusive or unacceptable in their behaviour, then you should walk away no matter what.

I'm good at 'let them' in my personal life but just realised I need to practice a bit more in my professional life.

I've just got to the end of a community project and, while I don't have the research, I am convinced that councils, non-profits and activist groups must have a much bigger share than usual of narcissists, drama queens and cry bullies. Councillors in particular are a toxic bunch - and the more 'do good' their image, the worse they are.

I'm happy to leave them to it - I have more than done my bit - but my stakeholders are still very enmeshed in personal disputes and 'proving' themselves right. I mean why bother? These people will not listen, will not reflect and will not change. Let them get on with it.

Not necessarily something wrong with you.
Not every treatment folks get is deserved, and that includes you.
If you are respectful and fair and decent, then you didn't deserve to be dumped unkindly.
We can all grow apart from others, but growing apart gracefully or letting someone know where they stand kindly is a thing and we all deserve it unless we are twats.
If you are not a twat then you don't deserve rudeness or unkindness even if someone no longer wants to be part of your life.
If you can offer a give and take relationship which is neither dependent not domineering then someone will be glad to have you - lots of people (though not everyone, and that's not personal) have a space in their life for a friend.

You have to take the risk at some point. Nothing ventured nothing gained