I cannot thank you enough for this thread. It is the final piece of the jigsaw which I have found it hugely liberating, and finally made sense of all that senseless behaviour.

Right now I am facing a piece of behaviour which is so typically PA but it isn't distressing me anymore, just a decision as to how I handle it that is best for me.

As the final part of our financial settlement my xh owes me several thousand dollars, while I owe him a proportion of a joint fund in income for the next 18 months [it is complicated but there we are] Due to delays, some of which were outside our control, but some of which were definitely down to xh [now I can see why!] we had to renegotiate the amounts and managed to do this without involving lawyers. As always it was favourable to xh, but cheaper than getting my lawyer involved.

So I proposed one solution, which he amended, and we agreed. Then well over a week later I get an email telling me that his bank could not make the transfer within about 10 days. I suspect this is untrue, as it isn't a problem with my bank, and he is very savvy about financial things [control, right?] and I also wonder why he had to wait 8 days to find this out. Anyway I emailed back briefly saying OK, will await the transfer. Well it still hasn't happened, and I am deciding what to do. He is so good at setting up 'no-win' situations. When I ask for the money within a time-frame I will get a range of responses, none of which will be reasonable, but all of which will be plausible.

And to do so I will have to initiate contact, and this is part of the 'pull me push me' game they play. Anyway I have decided that I will leave it until two weeks have elapsed, and then when no money appears in my account, I will write and tell him this - in case it has gone astray (!) and suggest an alternative course of action which yields the same result, and doesn't depend on any action from him. I can see it is the only way not to get involved in their weird games

It is so helpful once you realise what you are up against, and what ticks their boxes. Yes they are crazy but it has its own weird logic. The trick is not to get sucked back in.