Hawke said:
milrenkb, you seem to know your stuff. I'd like to ask you if you have any examples from your life of you putting your foot down. Dealing with disrespect is still an area i always have some trouble with.
I appreciate the respect. As for an example from my life:
There was this one girl I was seeing in my early DJ days named Amy. Now at the time because of the way my day was structured I had a class that met once a week for 2 hours at 6:30 pm. So one Thursday she texts me in the middle of class and ask if she can wait for me at my apartment. I thought sure, why not, my roomates were already there so she can just watch TV or do her homework till I got there plus she had waited there before.
However when I got back from class she wasn't there. Then I realized my car was gone (I didn't have a parking pass at the time so I had to hitch a ride to class). Ironcially her stuff was in my room but she was nowhere to be found. I then looked in my desk and also learned that my spare key was gone. When I asked my roomate if he had seen where she went he said that she had gone up to the gas station (ironically she was getting some wine for that night, however she wasn't 21 at the time and was using her fake ID to get it). 5 minutes later she walks in the door, gives me a kiss and hands me my spare key. The funny thing was that this was the second time she had done it but I wasn't around to find out the first time because she had gotten back from her errand before I walked in the door. (My roomate eventually told me that he thought that she had my permission to take my car)
It was then that I took her by the hand, very calmly and sat her down on my bed. I told her 'look, you can't just take my car out whenever you feel like it. If you get in an accident," I then grabbed the wine, " then the officer finds the alcohol and learns that you purchased it illegaly what happens?" I then pointed out to her that no one gets to drive my care unless they're assuming the role of DD and they're taking me to a bar.
At that point I made sure to address that while I thought that it was sweet that she was getting something for us, that the way she went about it was completly unacceptable. Long story short, she appoligized, we had a very long enjoyable night, and she never drove my car again.
Hope this helps.