Fish are friends. Not food.

[Meredith]

Oh jeez, I had all but forgotten about the PA man book!

I found exactly one chapter useful in that book and the rest was expensive padding - I’m guessing because he couldn't sell the book if all he had was one chapter. I think that the chapter I am referring to is also where a lot of your points came from, the chapter on categorizing the partners of PA people. For instance, I pegged myself as manager and some other one that I don’t remember now. The most significant advice I took from the book was the phrase “everyone is allowed to say no”. This was news to me, because my H was not allowed to say it if I didn’t feel it was acceptable.

Yep, PA people are the fish and we controllers are the sharks. It is a tricky business, because they will always see us as the sharks. The key to remember is that isn’t a BAD thing to be a fish or a shark. You simply are what you are! It is a matter of changing a fish’s perspective of a shark. I can still be a shark; he can still be a fish. Our natural tendencies are going to be different. But, we need to find ways for the fish to feel comfortable with the shark and for the shark to curb his eating habits and stop attacking the fish.

For instance, as the shark, I know that I can chomp in the direction of my fish and out of fear he’ll commit to doing something – even though he’ll swim away from the actual deed as fast as his fins can carry him. If I chase him, he may eventually do what I want, but then he’ll resent me because it wasn’t what HE wanted. He can’t openly resent me; he knows I could crush his fish self in one swoosh of my shark tail, so he does it in other ways – ways that he feels he can’t be held accountable for. He, the fish, needs to learn to trust I will not eat him.

In turn, I, as the shark, need to realize that my fish will still be my fish even if I don’t hold him hostage by fear. I need to be secure enough in myself (and my relationship - with this particular fish as well as any others) to not use my teeth as grounds for the fish staying. I need to find other ways of satisfying my hunger and hunter tendencies so that I don’t make my fish dinner out of natural instinct. I need to teach my fish that his real thoughts can come to the surface and the solution doesn’t have to be mine.

Not that you gave a fig what I thought, but since subject came up I thought I’d contribute a few cents to the conversation!