Advice on what to say to detach from man

[Raidmywardrobe]

Following on from advice and opinions and experience, I’ve made a decision to detach from the intense inappropriate friendship that I unwittingly find myself in. I would be very grateful if you could advise or even give me ideas about how to word it . I don’t want it to be an ambiguous thing where I slowly pull back , but want to be very clear and final about how I want after work/ nightly etc messaging and contact to stop . How I want the content, intensity and amount of contact to end . I am nervous in that I’ve said this to him before but he simply ignored me and we were back in full contact again soon after. When I gently pulled away some time ago, his contact escalated which is why idon’t want any ambiguity on my part.we work together so it may be awkward . I don’t want to hurt him but I see his relationship get a little more serious and I want to reconnect properly with my partner as I feel I’ve been neglectful and disrespectful to him, as I feel terrible, so I think the timing is right. If I don’t do this , I feel that it will all end in tears even though I am sad about it. And having read your responses , a lot of it made for sobering reading. Thanks once more for your honest and helpful replies mnetters .

'I do not want to receive any more messages from you that are at all inappropriate. If I deem any inappropriate then I will immediately block you on all social media, text, whatsapp, etc.....'

But OP.... Why don't you just block him!???
You've tried to tell him.
He's not listening. Just block him!

Just take a deep breath, say what you mean, and mean what you say. Once said, walk away. You do not have to wait for a response.

SUGGESTION:

Can we talk?
I want all contact between us outside of work to stop, right now.
It ends right here, and I need to you confirm that you understand.

I'm not going to respond to any further messages from you, and if you can't respect this, I will block your number.

This is the only way forward for me, and I hope you will understand and respect my decision.

We are such good friends and I didn’t want to be blunt and hurt him plus we work together very closely and spend all hours of the day together. I wanted to be subtle but get the message across in no uncertain terms . Thanks hells bells .

(and yes, I agree that you should block him anyway.)

Thanks sicario.

A boundary has two parts:

1. you state the boundary
2. you enforce the boundary

The important bit is 2. In fact, it's so important that you don't even really need 1, but it can make things easier and most people feel more comfortable if they've given a heads up.

The problem is that most people hope that just doing 1 will be enough. They rely on the other person to abide by the stated boundary, and then feel helpless when it gets trampled all over.

So working out what you're going to say is useful. But don't kid yourself that you can find a way to say it that is so firm and unambiguous that you will never have to do any 2. Instead, plan in advance ways you will enforce your boundary when this man INEVITABLY tries to ignore it.

I would advise blocking him on all channels of communication except one - preferably email. You can check that from time to time - if you want to. Refuse to engage with anything outside of work. And I mean it - if you give in after he has made a hundred attempts to get a response, then you are training him to persevere. All he will do is make 101 attempts next time.

I am pretty nervous about it to be honest. He isn’t always inappropriate and I’m the person who has been responding also. Outside of the rare personal comments, which have reduced sincehisrelationship began to flourish, our chat is general and light but can be deep and heavy at times. I am not innocent in all of this but the fog has lifted somewhat. We will continue to work together so I don’t want any awkwardness and I don’t want him to think that I’m taking the higher ground in this , as if it was just him at fault. The generalmessages have increased in volume and duration,eating into our free time when not our partners( mostly) andrhereis some inappropriate compliments and comments . Hours per evening, so as pp say, it is going into dangerous territory and I want to halt that without affording blame . Hope I’m making sense

I don't think you can be both subtle and get your message across in no uncertain terms. You are the person who is causing the problem here by not being straight with the man and following through.

You are also not "such good friends" if he has ignored previous requests to not contact you.

Also you said "he simply ignored me and we were back in contact again soon after". The significant word here is we. You did not have to interact but you did. This is your fault.

'I do not wish to have any contact with you outside of necessary work contact. Please respect my wishes. Should you contact me outside of work I will have to report it to the police as harrassment'.

Then block him anyway.

If the message is inappropriate or outside hours wanted, don't reply.
If the message is appropriate during acceptable hours, reply.

He'll soon learn, although I think you should just block as I don't think you may be sweet talked into it again, as you seem to be being nice and taking the gently gently approach, whereas I think he needs a sledge hammer lol

Well it should be easier if you both have partners.

'OK, our messaging has got out of hand, which I'm sure you'll agree with. So from now on, out of respect for our partners, let's keep it professional and within working hours. See you tomorrow!'

I don’t want any awkwardness
I don't want to hurt his feelings

I think you might have to brace yourself for a bit of awkwardness and hurt feelings, OP. There's just no way round that - no magic way to phrase it so that he both a) stops the inappropriate friendship, b) feels really good about that and c) smoothly transitions from one to the other with no hiccups.

It's not realistic to have as your goal "I want to end this weird, inappropriate relationship with a man who had already shown himself to be pushy and demanding, but I don't want there to be any negative emotions at all".

There will be awkwardness. But the world will not end. You will both survive the awkward.

Finewords has fine words there. My DH had similar, too subtle in the request and no enforcement is not the way to go. In the end he had to be extremely blunt, take time off work and block her on all social media, and she made a big fuss. It only gets worse if you pussy foot around.

It's fine now, they work together but she is still blocked 6 months later. Grab the stinging nettle, it'll be over quicker if it's clean and determined.

Subtlety is not what is needed here, OP. Be very clear, and make it plain that you will only allow the friendship to continue (1) if you want it to, and (2) if you think it can turn into an ordinary friendship with normal levels of contact IF he doesn't argue the toss and stops messaging you incessantly outside of work. There is no need to pick over your flirtation and apportion blame, you are simply stating the terms on which the relationship can continue. If he can't agree to that, then you block him entirely, and only discuss strictly professional matters at work, and the personal relationship ends. And forget about his relationship, and the damaging it may be inflicting on it -- that's his issue. You focus on your own marriage, and on how relieved you are going to feel when you have your evenings free to concentrate on your own life and your husband. Because I think you will. Under your 'addiction' to the continual contact, I also get a real sense of how much of a time commitment it is, and how much it distracts you from your real life. Think of him as a bad habit that you need to kick.

I like hellsbells suggestion. It's super clear. It mentions your partners. It's unequivocal.

It's essential that you ignore further messages after that. Just leave them unread. If you capitulate you'll be back at square one.